The following is a guest submission by Kevin Rutter, president of Rutgers Libertarians, describing his student organization’s newly published magazine. Click here to read the fall issue of their publication, The Invisible Hand.

Here at Rutgers University, our libertarian student organization decided to publish a magazine because we felt that the biggest problem with libertarianism is its lack of exposure. In political discussion with students, we have found that many of them agree with the majority of libertarian views but are simply unaware of what our philosophy exactly is. To remedy this situation, my group decided to publish a magazine to clear up common misconceptions about the libertarian viewpoint. Thus, The Invisible Hand was born.

We view The Invisible Hand as a tremendous opportunity to bring the ideas of libertarianism to students by distributing issues at dining halls and student centers. In this manner, someone who may have never had exposure to libertarianism before can open the magazine up to a random article and think to themselves, “Hmm, this seems like a good idea.” We aim to have our articles address current events and, if possible, even campus news. This gives articles a context for the reader so they may say, “Hey, this applies to me right now, right here.”

For you libertarian clubs out there considering starting a publication, I offer two tips regarding long-term planning and delegation. First, you want to begin your journey with a clear view of what you want the publication to look like while maintaining some wiggle room to change a few things if need be. As for delegation, it is necessary to make sure that one person isn’t doing the bulk of the work. You could ask multiple people to write articles, have one person do editing, formatting, marketing, the finances, etc. If everyone has something to do and is in constant communication, things will go a lot smoother and the project will likely turn out better. It is also important in planning to know how you will distribute your publication (i.e. what will have the best effect, what will allow the most people to read it, etc.).

Starting a publication is not an exact science. So, be sure to look back on each issue and ask yourself what worked and what did not so as to to fix any problems for the future. But, if you keep at it, you will produce a terrific media outlet to spread the message of libertarianism to the masses. That’s what we have done at Rutgers with The Invisible Hand, and we hope you can follow suit at your university as well!