Report on enthusiastic Book Distribution
Hari Sauri Dasa: Another report on book distribution in America arrived today. Mid-morning Hansaduta read out a letter from Tamal Krishna Goswami. Tamal Krishna wrote that the Radha-Damodara Traveling Sankirtana bus parties (RDTSKP) are now distributing 50,000 hardbound books per month. The book-distribution figures from RDTSKP and the airport distributors amazed Srila Prabhupada. Tamal Krishna Maharaja reported that November's sales were 25,000 Caitanya-caritamritas and 112,000 Back to Godheads, with collections totaling some $120,000. This month they were ordering 50,000 big books, an amount they hope to maintain regularly. One distributor, Panca-tattva, sold 311 books in one day, a new world's record. Tamal Krishna Goswami said that the party was donating $5,000 per month to the Dallas gurukula and another $12,000 per year to the ISKCON Food Relief program. He has also bought two large diesel powered trailers and plans to tour the country, holding Ratha-yatra festivals. At the end, he requested permission to be Srila Prabhupada's personal secretary for January. Prabhupada's response was one of complete satisfaction. He has a high regard for the activities of the all-brahmacari RDTSKP and sent an enthusiastic reply, "Your letter is very, very encouraging to me. I do not know how you are selling so many books. There is no instance in history where religious books were sold with such enthusiasm and success. Is there any such history? The Christians have spread their teachings all over the world, and they have got only one book, so we have got already forty big books published in English. Therefore if we distribute as you are distributing, we cannot even imagine the result. Your program is very nice; please continue more and more.... Your idea for holding Jagannatha festivals in the big cities is approved by me, do it. Yes, you come in January."
When Kirtanananda Swami had first arrived he reported that sometimes books distributed in America were being ripped up by antagonists. Prabhupada took the bright side and compared the distribution to hot sugarcane juice: too hot to take and too sweet to resist. Whether one admires them or not, his books are potent, which makes them irresistible. Prabhupada's optimism about the effect of massive book distribution is not unfounded. Almost daily he receives positive evidence of how people's lives are being changed by reading his books.
Reference: Transcendental Diary Volume 1 by Hari Sauri Dasa
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