Careful Management and Promotion
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wide circulation of papers, tracts, and pamphlets, the instrumentalities
to produce these publications have been crippled and embarrassed.
There is ever danger of carrying any good work to extremes. Respon-
sible men are in danger of becoming men of one idea, of concentrating
their thoughts upon one branch of the work to the neglect of other parts
of the great field.—
Testimonies for the Church 4:597
.
Mistakes in Lowering Prices—As a people we need to be
guarded on every point. There is not the least safety for any unless
we seek wisdom of God daily and dare not move in our own strength.
Danger is always surrounding us, and great caution should be used that
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no one branch of the work be made a specialty while other interests
are left to suffer.
Mistakes have been made in putting down prices of publications to
meet certain difficulties. These efforts must change. Those who made
this move were sincere. They thought their liberality would provoke
ministers and people to labor to greatly increase the demand for the
publications.
Ministers and people should act nobly and liberally in dealing with
our publishing houses. Instead of studying and contriving how they
can obtain periodicals, tracts, and books at the lowest figure, they
should seek to bring the minds of the people to see the true value of the
publications. All these pennies taken from thousands of publications
have caused a loss of thousands of dollars to our offices, when a few
pennies more from each individual would scarcely have been felt.—
Testimonies for the Church 4:598
.
Books Sold Too Cheaply—Then instruction was given to Elder
Haskell that in his anxiety to supply the people with the precious truth
contained in his books, in his desire that all should feel that the books
are worth more than they cost, and that all should be encouraged to
give them a wide circulation, he was selling his books too cheap, and
thus making his own burden too heavy.
Our Counselor said: “The books should be sold in such a way that
the author will not be left barehanded and that the publishing house
shall have a proper margin so that it will have means to carry on its
work.”—
Testimonies for the Church 9:73
.
Low Prices Poor Policy—There had been with A and yourself a
mistake in lowering the prices of our books so low that the office could
not prosper. This was poor policy. These plans appeared right to you