Chapter 14—Prices of Our Publications
Some things of grave importance have not been receiving due
attention at our offices of publication. Men in responsible positions
should have worked up plans whereby our books could be circulated
and not lie on the shelves, falling dead from the press. Our people are
behind the times and are not following the opening providence of God.
Many of our publications have been thrown into the market at so
low a figure that the profits are not sufficient to sustain the office and
keep good a fund for continual use. And those of our people who
have no special burden of the various branches of the work at Battle
Creek and Oakland do not become informed in regard to the wants
of the cause and the capital required to keep the business moving.
They do not understand the liability to losses and the expense every
day occurring to such institutions. They seem to think that everything
moves off without much care or outlay of means, and therefore they
will urge the necessity of the lowest figures on our publications, thus
leaving scarcely any margin. And after the prices have been reduced to
almost ruinous figures, they manifest but a feeble interest in increasing
the sales of the very books on which they have asked such low prices.
The object gained, their burden ceases, when they ought to have an
earnest interest and a real care to press the sale of the publications,
thereby sowing the seeds of truth and bringing means into the offices
to invest in other publications.
There has been a very great neglect of duty on the part of ministers
[78]
in not interesting the churches in the localities where they labor, in
regard to this matter. When once the prices of books are reduced, it
is a very difficult matter to get them again upon a paying basis, as
men of narrow minds will cry, Speculation, not discerning that no
one man is benefited, and that God’s instrumentalities must not be
crippled for want of capital. Books that ought to be widely circulated
are lying useless in our offices of publication because there is not
interest enough manifested to get them circulated.
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