© 1987 Urantia Foundation
The Trustees of URANTIA Foundation and the Board of Directors of Amadon Corporation are pleased to announce a new policy designed to encourage additional bookstore s throughout the world to carry copies of The URANTIA Book Le Livre d’ URANTIA for display and sale.
The centerpiece of this program is our enabling readers everywhere - on their own and independent of any relationship with URANTIA Foundation - to help place copies of The URANTIA Book and Le Livre d’ URANTIA in bookstores. One thousand copies of The URANTIA Book and four hundred copies of Le Livre d’ URANTIA have been set aside respectively by URANTIA Foundation and Amadon Corporation (an affiliate of URANTIA Foundation and the authorized distributor of Le Livre d’ URANTIA for consignment to bookstores anywhere in the world.
A reader simply needs to approach a bona fide bookstore, requesting it to carry The URANTIA Book, presenting it with an order form (which, for want of a better name, we’ve entitled “Consignment Request”). If the dealer wishes to carry The URANTIA Book, he or she need merely to filI out the short form and mail it to us, and we will send postage pre-paid up to two copies of the requested book direcfly to the dealer for display and sale. A copy of the Consignment Request (which you may freely copy) is enclosed with this newsletter along with an addressed return envelope. You can begin right away. (The Consignment Form is also currently being prepared in French and will be available shortly.)
The proposing reader can (and should) check from time to time with the dealer to see how new reader interest develops and sales progress. When the volumes are sold the dealer can remit our share of the proceeds directly to us (in U.S. dollars). Thereafter, we hope the dealer will reorder, prepaying. If not, URANTIA Foundation will refill the order up to two additional times to the extent our inventory designated for this purpose lasts. If the volumes do not sell through any particular book dealer, we will pay the return postage to URANTIA Foundation.
Will this work? We don’t know, but we are going to try it. Come on and join us.
Whatever our speculation as to the success of this program, it cannot begin until you visit your favorite book dealer(s) with the Consignment Request. In doing this, please approach only those dealers who are not already carrying The URANTIA Book or Le Livre d’ URANTIA, as one goal of our program is to enlist new dealers as much as possible, adding to our already developed network of book distributors.
Once copies of books have been ordered by and placed with a dealer, it is of tremendous importance that the reader who first contacted the dealer continue personally to stay in touch with that dealer just to see what dealer reaction is (dealer reaction may be resistant) and what interest there is from prospective readers. Please do keep us informed.
The Trustees of URANTIA Foundation have been approached by a number of individuals and groups who sincerely wish to help in the placement of The URANTIA Book Le Livre d’ URANTIA. After discussing this matter with some of them and further discussion among the Trustees and the Board of Directors of Amadon Corporation, the best idea with the least amount of red tape appeared to be this new program.
One disadvantage of this program is that a number of books may in fact be lost (well, at least from inventory!). The Trustees of URANTIA Foundation and the Board of Directors of Amadon Corporation are willing to take this risk. After a year or so of trying this program the Trustees will reassess its workability and overall effect, continuing, modifying, or terminating the program.
The Trustees of URANTIA Foundation believe that “simple is best,” and we intend to keep this program as simple as possible.
In proceeding as outlined above we wish to emphasize, that it is the certain policy of the Trustees of URANTIA Foundation to encourage the slow, quiet, person-to-person dissemination of the teachings of The URANTIA Book. Consistent with this policy of slow and sure growth the Trustees wish to use normal channels of distribution but without fanfare and rank commercialism. While striving to maintain a broad representation among professional book wholesalers and distributors throughout the world, sales and marketing gimmicks are not appropriate for the dissemination of the teachings of The URANTIA Book.
The URANTIA Book is being given to the world long before its world-wide mission.
While we are eager to see a wide availability of The URANTIA Book and Le Livre d’ URANTIA and other translations of The URANTIA Book, URANTIA Foundation is not in the 'business" of selling copies of The URANTIA Book and translations thereof for commercial gain or financial profit. Our purpose is the supportive nurturing of the natural evolutionary spread of the teachings of The URANTIA Book, using, however, prudent business judgment in the administration of our trust. Hence this proposal, supplementary to our other distribution efforts, encourages the presence of The URANTIA Book and Le Livre d’ URANTIA on bookstore shelves as broadly as possible, but on a quiet, person-to-person basis.
Following the implementation of this program, we would be interested in your reactions and actual experiences as you participate with us on your local level in this promising - though untried - program. We will report to you from time to time as to the progress of this new program. In the meantime, happy hunting!
The Trustees of URANTIA Foundation wish to send special greetings to our Finnish friends. As previously reported, the Finns have been engaged in the production of the Finnish translation of The URANTIA Book since 1969-70, under license from the Trustees of URANTIA Foundation. Their loyal, volunteer work translating The URANTIA Book into Finnish has been steadily progressing in full and open cooperation with the Trustees of URANTIA Foundation over all these years. It has been our special privilege to be associated with these dedicated and sincere spiritual servers. We wish them Godspeed in their spiritual endeavors and on a more practical level hereby pledge our full support for the realization of their translation project, personal, moral and financial.
But there is something else we should not lose sight of. Long before our now-announced program for book placement in book stores and our program for book placement in libraries, the Finns BOUGHT 51 copies of The URANTIA Book for placement with libraries within Finland (Suomi). They took strong and effective action without impinging upon copyright or trademark considerations. They have well exemplified the effectiveness of unselfishness and dedication to a worthy cause without the need for self-aggrandizement. We hope to see many of the Finns soon.
We also wish to send our sincere best wishes to our French readers, some of whom were instrumental in the development of our new program for placement of The URANTIA Book and Le Livre d’Urantia in bookstores throughout the world. A job well done!! We look forward to spending more time with these dedicated workers.
And last but surely not least, our best fraternal greetings to our friends “down under” who have undertaken the task of placing copies of The URANTIA Book in libraries in various places within tlre grand continent of Australia. Keep up the good work!!
And best wishes to each of you who have evinced a genuine interest in the advancement of the ameliorative effects of the teachings of The URANTIA Book throughout the world toward the goal of world peace and brotherhood, under the Fatherhood of God.
Sales of The URANTIA Book for the first six months of this year have significanfly increased in comparison to the same period in 1986. If this trend continues, it is quite possible that more copies of the book will be sold this year than have been sold in any previous year since the publication of the book. It is interesting to note that orders are up, in some cases quite significantly, from those of our distributors that serve the bookstore trade, and this is true also of Waldenbooks, the largest bookstore chain in the United States. The reasons for this increase are not entirely clear at this time, but, it is known that book sales, overall, have been increasing at an appreciable rate for the last several years. We will explore this increase in sales more fully in the next issue of this newsletter when the data available for analysis will be more complete.
In a related matter, Amadon Corporation, an affiliate of URANTIA Foundation that publishes the French translation of The URANTIA Book, reports that it has contracted for another reprinting of Le Livre d’ URANTIA.
This is the fourth reprinting of the French translation since 1982 and the contract calls for the production of 5,OO0 copies. When production of this reprinting is complete, it will mean that well over 16,0O0 copies of Le Livre d’ URANTIA have been printed since 1982.
We also wish to report that from May 23 through 26, URANTIA Brotherhood Corporation (UBC), sales agent, and URANTIA Foundation hosted a booth which displayed both the English and French versions of The URANTIA Book at the annual convention of the American Booksellers Association held in Washington, DC. The Foundation provided the funds for UBC to attend the convention, while UBC purchased a modular display unit to use in the booth. The primary purposes of the booth are to increase awareness of the availability of The URANTIA Book within the publishing industry, as well as to encourage the appreciation of the Foundation and Brotherhood as operating within the standard channels of book distribution.
The booth was staffed by representatives of both the Foundation and the Brotherhood. More than 100 people visited the booth, and the majority of these visitors were representatives of bookstores or book distributors. Additionally, more than 100 copies of the book were purchased or ordered from the staff in the booth.
Andite Corporation is pleased to report to the Trustees of URANTIA Foundation that work on the Spanish translation of The URANTIA Book continues. Part IV, The Life and Teachings of Jesus, which constitutes about one-third of thepages of The URANTIA Book, has been completed.The translators are now making steady progress in Part III, The History of Urantia. There is still considerable finishing work to be done before the text will actually be ready for the printing process and, therefore, one cannot easily determine just when a Spanish translation of The URANTIA Book will be available to the general public. Nevertheless, the process continues and we again thank all those who have helped and are helping us financially and with their moral support to render The URANTIA Book into the Spanish language. This is truly an exciting project for all concerned.
“What can I say? It took me over a month to read through The URANTIA Book and it makes so much more sense than all the things I’ve been taught that I’m almost afraid to believe it. But I’ve lost the fear that I’ve lived with for so long. I literally stumbled across The URANTIA Book when I was looking for another [book]. And since I’ve read it, it’s like this planet is a whole new world and I feel like a whole new person - not that ‘born sinner’ but one of God’s children. Yes, please, I definitely want to contact other readers . . . .”
“Few persons live up to the faith which they really have. Unreasoned fear is a master intellectual fraud practiced upon the evolving mortal soul.” UB 48:7.4
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