Some Facts on Publishing books on Religion and Philosophy

[Guest guest]

Namaste:

 

I am writing this to provide some facts that I have observed through

my various contacts with individuals and institutions. The bottom-

line is that those who write religious books (such as the book by

dear Dennis-ji - " Back to the Truth " ) are doing it only for the

reason that they want to share their knowledge with others. Writing

a book is a time consuming process and selling a book requires tons

of marketing efforts. The authors (including Dennis-ji) have little

control over the price of the book and once they sign the contract

with the publishers, almost all the rights are transferred back to

the publisher. The price of the book is determined by the cost of

printing, cost of marketing and by the minimum expected number of

sale of books. A book can be sold for a lower price when the author

agrees to buy back a large number of copies to sell through his/her

own distributional channel. Only authors who are head of big

religious institutions such as churches, Vedantic institutions such

as Chinmaya Mission, Ramakrishna Mission, etc., are be able to do

that. This may explain why institutions such as Chinmaya Mission,

Ramakrishna Mission, Ramanashram, etc., are able to sell books at a

lower price than individual authors. Individual authors such as

Dennis-ji can never match the price offered by religious

philosophical institutions with large memberships and consequently

we the members of this advaitin list should come forward and provide

our support and encouragement.

 

Those of the members who have been in the list for a longer duration

would have noticed Dennis-ji's generous contribution in the

promotion of Vedanta. Sri Dennis-ji along with Sri Greg-ji, Sri

Ananda-ji, Sri Frank-ji and other members with non-India background

are the true ambassadors of Vedanta. They are doing a great job in

spreading the message of Advaita by publishing books, contributing

to the list discussions and by maintaining home pages on Vedanta.

Their services are very much needed in spreading the message of

Vedanta so that the universal population gets the knowledge that

they deserve. We the members of the list from Indian origin are

very fortunate that these stalwarts who love and cherish Vedanta

have joined with us as a single family. Are we not obligated to

take the necessary steps to encourage and support their activities?

 

As a first step, those who can afford should go ahead and order a

copy of the book and donate it to a local library as our service in

spreading the message of Vedanta.

 

With my warmest regards,

 

Ram Chandran