From Universal Press Syndicate:
After a survey of our salespeople and some reflection over the sales performance for past year-and-a-half, I’ve been given the mandate to tell you that Universal Press Syndicate has decided to terminate the active syndication of your column.The decision was based on the tightness of the text/column market, the immergence of Ann Coulter as a name brand and the sales division’s inability to sell your column into newspapers.
I think the strategy behind deciding to syndicate your column was the right one: a young, intelligent conservative to fill the void when/if some of our “old guard” stopped writing. Unfortunately, the market did not respond. I know we’ve talked about sales tactics, market truths and the realities of a modern-day newspaper editor, and I think all of these combined (along with Ms. Coulter’s prominence) presented too much of an obstacle for us to overcome.
So much for dreams of media whoredom. Actually, this is no surprise, as UPS was unable to sell the column to a single newspaper in 18 months. You needn’t send any condolences, however, as I was always dubious that there was any room for libertarianism in the legacy media. My indifference to this sort of thing is not a pretense; the media is not my career, in fact, it’s not even my primary hobby.
The big flaw in the strategy seems pretty obvious in retrospect. I keep telling everyone that I’m not a conservative, but no one ever believes me. In any event, I wish UPS all the best… and this isn’t the first time they couldn’t sell my column. Seven years ago, they couldn’t sell the video game column either.