Introduction
With the beginning of the subscription book sales program among
Seventh-day Adventists in the 1870’s, the need arose for capable
canvassing agents to recruit colporteurs and train them for service.
The pioneer in this important endeavor was George Albert King, our
first literature evangelist. He had initiated the idea and demonstrated
that Seventh-day Adventist books could be sold successfully from
house to house. In 1882 he sallied forth with fifty new and attractive
copies of Uriah Smith’s Thoughts on Daniel and the Revelation and
sold every one of them.
Church leaders were impressed by his success, and the die was cast.
An enthusiasm for book sales to non-Seventh-day Adventists arose
from King’s faithful work in this field, and the fire kindled by his effort
more than a century ago has never gone out. Indeed, today Seventh-day
Adventist subscription book sales represent a bright flame, the light
and warmth of which can be seen and felt around the world. More than
fifty Seventh-day Adventist publishing houses now print more than
$100 million worth of books and magazines every year, a considerable
proportion of which is sold by nearly 20,000 literature evangelists.
This enormous sales program and soul-winning work is made
possible mostly because of the well-organized sales program of the
General Conference Publishing Department, working closely with
church administration. Today hundreds of capable men and women
acting as publishing secretaries and associates lead literature evange-
lists in their field work—teaching them in actual door-to-door sales
contacts and providing helpful instruction in institutes for the study of
successful literature evangelism.
In the development of this large denominational sales program
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Ellen White’s counsels played a major role. Through her repeated
written and oral testimonies she called for recruits from among the
best men and women and youth of the church, intelligent, God-fearing,
truth-loving, but not from among the floating element who had never
succeeded in doing anything else. Often men and women of pleasing
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