Robert Ringer

"It was the early 1970s. A dealmaker named Robert Ringer had written a self-help book no one would publish—the theory of how not to be intimidated by the likes of lawyers (a.k.a. Legal Boys), mothers-in-law, do-gooders, and sundry other manipulative graduates of 'Screw U'—entitled Winning Through Intimidation. ... Ringer followed up with a broader essay on the virtue of selfishness, Looking Out for Number One. ... Next came a political work, Restoring the American Dream. While it too climbed the bestseller lists, it did not reverse the country's political direction quite as quickly as Ringer had hoped."

"Robert Ringer is a best-selling author of motivational books and an acclaimed public speaker. However, he is probably best known in the libertarian movement for his classic book, Restoring the American Dream. ... To this day, Ringer remains an outspoken advocate of liberty. On his Web site, he proclaims that 'everyone has an equal and absolute right to sovereignty over his own body, his own property, and his own life, and to pursue his own happiness in any way that he chooses. The only right that an individual does not naturally possess is the right to violate someone else's liberty.'"

"Why do people buy your books?
All I can do is go by what readers say in their letters to me, and what comes through most often is that they simply like what I have to say and how I say it. It's not all that complicated. Interestingly, publishers don't understand this. Most of them have absolutely no interest in the quality of the writing. ... Years ago I remember presenting an outline to a publisher, and his response was that 'there are already a lot of books published on that subject.' He just couldn't comprehend that what separates books on the same subject is the writing."