Art of Book Distribution -- Part 2: Six Easy Methods -- Dramatically Increase Your Book Distribution

Okay, so here are six easy methods guaranteed to dramatically enhance your book distribution program. That's our book distribution program here at Radha Kalachandri Sankirtan Team. That's R-K-S-T. R-K-S-T.

Radha Kalachandri Sankirtan Team. Next, the aim is how to distribute books, Prabhupada quotation. That is our first consideration. Prabhupada, of course, here he is in Radha Damodar, writing his books.

What did he bring with him to America? Lots of books. No money, just lots of books. And he concentrated on translating books and getting books out.

This is what our family, this is our family business. This is what we do. Vyasadeva, book distributor, Veda Vyas. That's what he did.

He produced books. He got, you know, they didn't have offset printing back then, but he had Ganesh writing everything down. And he was always thinking how to get the best introductory book. Really, he was trying to catch people's attention because this is what the sadhus and this is what the incarnations of the Lord are doing.

They're thinking how to save the fallen conditioned souls, especially through book distribution. So Vyasadeva, he divided the one Veda into four. Why? so that it could be disseminated widely. He gave it to different disciples, and they passed it out in different corners of the world.

Then, why did he write the Mahabharata? It's an introductory book, right? Right? He inserted, go ahead.

Yeah, for the age of Kali Yuga. Difficult to understand Vedanta. Yeah, Mahabharata, it's a page-turner. And then right at the end, when the war's about to start, you want to find out what happens?

It's Dhritarashtra Uvaca, Dharmakshetre, Kurukshetre, and you're right into Bhagavad Gita. He planned it out that way to think how to distribute more books, how to get the introduction of the essence of the philosophy into people's hands so that they could benefit from it. Shukdev Goswami, he's described as coming to the point of speaking Srimad Bhagavatam only out of mercy, so that others could take advantage. And they could cross over the ocean of material existence, over the darkness, by taking advantage of Srimad Bhagavatam.

So all the way down our line, and Prabhupada is bringing these books to America and he's asking us to distribute books. So this is our goal, to organize ourselves. These temples are bases from which we organized to go out to distribute literature so that people can take advantage and turn their lives around. The temples, the structures themselves, they may come and go, but the benefit of the literature distribution will never go in vain.

The millions and millions of books that are there, people will read them and they'll become Krishna conscious. We just had a young man come to our temple in San Jose a couple of weeks ago who had received a Bhagavad Gita a year ago and he read the bhagavad-gita he got into chanting he had been chanting 16 rounds a day he hadn't met devotees yet and then he came then he had a dream and Prabhupada came to him in a dream and said he should distribute bhagavad-gita and he came to the temple a couple weeks ago and he he found he found us on the internet our address is virtualtemple.org and he had seen it there, but he thought that meant it was just a virtual temple, that there wasn't a real, you know, like a... So he didn't come for a while. Then he finally came, and he was so happy to come and find out that we were organized for book distribution, and he wanted to do it also.

Haribo. Die. Okay, next. Painless, innovative, new.

Just like I promised. Okay, let's see what we have. Weekend Warriors. This is a nice program, because nowadays, if we look around, most of our devotees work.

They live outside. But they'd love to come out on Sankirtan to a nice, safe spot where they're not going to get chased away and where they can stand and preach their heart to people. And they'll come out for a couple hours, two, three hours, and do what they can. Bring their friends, family, make a Sankirtan party, and they'll go out.

And then they'll come back in alignment. And these are the weekend warriors. And we have thousands and thousands and thousands of devotees who can do this. Next, the monthly Sankirtan festival.

This is, again, a lot of devotees doing a little bit. And the monthly Sankirtan festival, as an example, we started in San Jose last year and we began. Actually, I'll go into that in a second. Next, Shastradhana.

This is a program through which, as Mahatma was explaining yesterday, anyone who would like to contribute to book distribution, and there are many who would, can give their hard-earned money, and that will be funneled into the book distribution program, and then the books can be distributed in a variety of ways. Next, full sets. Very exciting program. These full sets, when you put a full set in someone's home, as we discussed yesterday, their whole life changes.

They become enlivened, their kids become smarter, can run faster and jump higher. Next, smart table. Now, a smart table is really a great idea. The smart table was conceived in Nuvrandavan, and as Prabhupada said, when a devotee has a desire to preach Krishna consciousness, then Krishna will give him or her the genius from within to figure out how to do it.

So there was one devotee there and she came to this Sankirtan seminar that we had and she really, really wanted, her name is Kamalavati. She wanted to distribute books and she called me a couple of times and said, I'm in Nuvrandavan, my service is here, taking care of the cows and I can't really get away. So how am I going to distribute books? And then one day she was in the temple room in Nuvrandavan and a gentleman came in and he was looking around impressed with the temple and then he came over and he saw this poster that was on the wall about the Bhagavad Gita you know that one that looks like a movie poster almost and he said I'd like to buy a copy of Bhagavad Gita and Kamalabhati looked around and she couldn't find a Bhagavad Gita and she ran to the book room and Bhakti had taken the key and left last week and no one could get it open except with a crowbar So, you know, she ran home in a panic.

She said, I've got to get a Bhagavad Gita. How could, you know, she's been desiring to distribute books. Now here comes somebody who wants to buy a book, and there's no book. It was unconscionable.

So she ran to her house. She got one of her own Bhagavad Gitas, brought it back, and the man gave a donation and took that Bhagavad Gita. But then, in her mind, she thought, well, if he wanted one, maybe other people do too. so she set up a table and on the table she put books and then she labeled them with prices and she put a little box there and a sign saying if you want a book put the money in the envelope put it in the box because she couldn't stay there all day and to see what happened then she came back later and after a whole weekend she came back and all the books were gone the envelopes were gone and now the test let's see what's in the box and yes the envelopes were full of Lakshmi and placed neatly in the in the hundi that's actually she was having them put it in the hundi then she upgraded the table she thought this is a winner so she uh you know got a better table a better box bolted at the table now in new vrindavan if you'll we'll see a picture here i think This smart table, they sell over $1,000 worth of books every month just from the smart table.

And it is one of the marvels of nature when you go to the Nubra Navin Temple and you just sit there and chant japa and you'll watch people all day long coming up, selecting their own book, putting the money in the box and walking away. Yeah, this is the smart table. Now, other temples are starting to do this. in every, I'm happy to report, every place where someone has set up a smart table, they've had success. In our little temple in San Jose, we started a smart table.

And immediately, we started selling books from the smart table. And you can take it with you wherever you go. If you go to a fundraising event or something like that, take your smart table. Just let it do its thing.

The devotee, there's some brahmacharis in New York who go out to a park. They sit in Chanjapa. They leave the table over 50 yards away and they let the table sell the books. So these things are painless.

Is that painless or not? I'm not lying, right? Okay, next. Smart box, the little sister of the smart table.

And we actually have a smart box in this community which will be placed in a store either tomorrow or the next day. Chaitanya Chandra, being the man of action that he is, as soon as he saw the smart table that I brought to the temple president's meeting he went home and built another one a prototype and it's sitting at his house I just saw it this morning he's got to put a little paint on it but we put the books in it took pictures of it and it's going on its maiden voyage this weekend it's the first of many because what we see is these smart boxes they'll hold some books and there's a place where people can place their Lakshmi like a little vending machine and we'll place them all over the city in many different stores Is that painless? Yes or no? Then?

Okay, next. The San Quintan Seminar. That's what we're doing now. We'll go through this quickly.

Develop infrastructure. This is one very important thing because we can talk about book distribution and we can, you know, get inspired for it, but if the infrastructure isn't there, then it won't be sustainable. Next. We have to organize. next.

Learn new methods because not everyone has the same energy, time, or proclivity for a certain type of distribution. So there are many different methods and everyone can engage to a lesser or greater degree according to their desire. But everyone should be encouraged to be a part of the Sankirtan party. Some of the senior Sankirtan devotees that are in this community who are very, very busy.

You know, just by being advocates and stepping up and being leaders by speaking about it, this will be a great boon for the community. So everyone can contribute. Next. On-the-job training.

We'll have this hopefully Sunday, unless we go out in the ice storm tomorrow. Next. After the seminar, I've become inspired to take book distribution to heart and become more sincere with distributing the mercy. Surit.

That's one of the matajis in Alachua. There we are going door-to-door and we went to many places around Alachua but door-to-door was one of them and I got a note from this nice devotee afterwards who became inspired to go out. Next. Weekend Warriors.

It's sustainable. It uplifts the entire community and there are substantial results. Next. Here's a chart from our ISKCON Silicon Valley Weekend Warriors.

In thousands of dollars we increased significantly in 2005. We started in April doing the Weekend Warriors and the monthly Sankirtan Festival. And as you can see, over the previous years where we did practically nothing, now the temple is having significant remittance to the BBT on a regular basis from a lot of devotees doing a little bit. Next.

The more you show, the more you sell. Can everyone say that, please? it's one of the ironclad laws of book distribution so you'll see here this is our harinam it's hard to see a little bit but in back is our harinam party but when we take our harinam party our smart table goes out too and you see the smart table there and there's one devotee that's actually working at the table that's ananda rupa our sankirtan leader and he's there talking to some nice person who saw the harinam and came over to buy a book at the table. And actually, we usually have a lineup at that table of people waiting to get books and find out what it's all about and take them away. So the more you show, the more you sell.

Next. And if somehow or other we place some literature in someone's hand, he becomes fortunate, Srila Prabhupada said. This is Shalesh. Shalesh had a home installation.

My friend Banabata and I went over to his house about 40 minutes away and we installed the Srimad Bhagavatam in his house with a big kirtan, a garland for the books. They cooked, his wife cooked, and they we offered everything to the books. And then we read from the books and we explained the importance of having the Srimad Bhagavatam. After that, Shailesh and his wife Kanchan, they became our biggest Sankirtan devotees at our temple.

This is him handing a book to someone. This is one of our tables outside a store where we have permission. People come and go all day on the weekends. And we just stand out there and meet people and hand the Bhagavad Gita and explain it to them and ask for donations.

On this day, just coincidentally, I took this picture so I know I was there. Shailesh collected around $420 just from selling straight books. So, it's a wonderful program. Next.

The monthly Sankirtan festival. One day a month, everyone can participate. And it means that, as we do in San Jose, one day a month, we pick an auspicious day. Like last year, we had on Neshringadev's appearance day, it was on a weekend.

So we chose that weekend for our monthly Sankirtan festival. And so what we did was, we conceived that we will worship Lord Nrsingadev in the mood of Prahlad Maharaj, which was, He was lamenting for the fallen conditioned souls. And he says in his prayers that I don't want to go to a cave. I don't want to worship separately.

I want to be out where the fallen conditioned souls are to distribute books. So anyway, on that weekend, we had a Sankirtan festival. Everyone gets involved. Some devotees cook for it.

They make the lunches so the devotees can take them out. Others help to organize, bring the boxes of books. So for instance, on a Saturday morning, what we'd have, what we do have for the Sancton Festival. Everyone comes to the Bhagavatam class that day.

And we have a special edition of the Bhagavatam class at which we specifically, well, first we chant the Brahma Samhita, the full thing from beginning to end. And then we have some Bhaktivinoda Bhajans because that's where all the power for book distribution comes from. And then we talk a little bit about book distribution and all the boxes are there ready to go. So everyone can just pick up their box that was pre-packed.

They pick up a lunch. It's already organized on the clipboard where the spots are and who's going with what team. And then we have ID badges. We have receipts.

We have credit card acceptance slips. So if you want to accept credit cards, always better service. And every week when devotees come back, we make a list of all the things they should have had that they didn't have and then we add it for the next Sankirtan festival for the always better service uh motto to fulfill that and so then a lot of devotees go out on those days so we have Friday night Harinam then the next morning the devotees go out on book distribution to various spots everyone reports back through we have what's called a yahoo group you know what that is yahoo groups and so everyone's on the same page and when when the devotees come back then they send in their scores and they most importantly they send in their good news action broadcast that's the gnab they tell what went right what was you know what was their realization for the day and all the devotees write in something that happened that day some wonderful thing so everyone gets to hear it and then the next day at the sunday on sunday some other devotees who couldn't go out Saturday go out Sunday and then at the Sunday feast on that weekend we make a special presentation for the entire audience that's there and we talk about the mission of our temple going out to bring others Krishna consciousness and we also if anybody knew went out on book distribution we have them get up and give a little testimonial of what it was like and it's wonderful some people I've never been on book distribution I didn't think I'd ever go out, but it's the most wonderful thing.

And people really believe them, too, because they know who they are. They're part of the congregation, and they can see it in their eyes. So this monthly sanctified festival builds excitement, and it's above all fun for the whole temple. Okay, next.

Now, that's a blissful face, isn't it? Aunt Supriya. She's one of the leaders of our temple. Next.

Shastradhana. Tons of books distributed by the efforts of lots of devotees giving Lakshmi. Next. Engages the congregation.

People who can't go out, they can donate money. Next. Fosters goodwill in the community. Next.

Reaches people missed by other methods. Bullsets. I described it already, how we do the installation. It transforms a home into a temple, and self-perpetuating because when we go to someone's home and we present a full set, they invite all their friends, and the friends then want to get sets.

And then we do installations at their house. It's kind of like Tupperware, only transcendental. Okay, next. The smart table works like a vending machine, attracts browsers, enhances all public programs, increases temple community awareness and book distribution.

Next. Look at this. Govinda Datta. last year, 2005, just from having a table out in front of the Los Angeles Temple on Sunday feasts, specifically targeted towards, you know, getting out the books, friendly face to meet and greet with the book table, $17,000 just from that one table last year. And this is a good example of what we call the more you show the more you sell next smart box passive book distribution easy to place unlimited scope for expansion next smart box takes off look at those smart boxes there mother akuti made those and there they are they're getting them out there in florida replacing them in in stores and such that's divyanga on the left you can see the shastra Don Banner on the left also.

Next. Tax your brain to create programs for engaging the wider and wider classes of population of Krishna consciousness. So we should tax our brains. Is there anything left on that?

Let's see. Anything else? That's it. Hare Krishna.

All required. Everyone's assistance required for this bhajan.