p. 28 | OUR PUBLICATIONS by James White

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 20, 1876

FromThe Review and Herald, Review and Herald, Vol. 48, No. 4.

OUR PUBLICATIONS.

By James White

Our publishing work is the right arm of our strength in spreading abroad the last message. True, but little could be done in building up the cause by the publications alone; and it is as true that our ministers would build up very slowly without the publications. But when our ministers unite with their ministry the commendable work of colporteurs, and solicitors of subscriptions for our periodicals, it is then that they increase their usefulness and their strength to build up the cause of truth ten-fold. Under these circumstances our publications become the right arm of our strength.

With these facts full in view, we set at work a few years since to hold out every inducement for our people to engage in the circulation of our periodicals, tracts, and books. We have regarded the tract and missionary work as one of the very noblest and best, and have done all in our power to encourage it, by heavy discounts on publications, and in offers to send out the larger portion of our periodicals at times at half price.

But our motives have not always been understood, and our efforts have not been fully appreciated. We have put our periodicals to the poor, and to those who are investigating, at half-price, when paid by tract societies, or by the friends of the cause to send to their friends, to encourage our people to cheerfully pay full prices for themselves, and to obtain all the full-paying subscribers possible. We did not expect that our unparalleled liberality would be the cause of greatly reducing the lists of full-paying subscribers.

But not a few have looked only on the selfish side. And by different means many are paying half-price for our periodicals who have in time past paid full prices. And there are no good reasons why this change should take place. The selfish means used, and the small bare-faced tricks practiced by some, to take advantage of our liberal offers are a trifle disgusting. One man writes: “Here are fifty cents for the REFORMER to my brother one year. And you may stop my REFORMER, as I live so near to my brother that I can read his.”

Now this blessed man does not seem to comprehend the fact that the means by which we are able to send his brother the REFORMER at half-price is that he also takes the journal at full price. When we had 5,000 full-paying subscribers we could afford to send out the second 5,000 at half-price. But as our lists of full-paying subscribers have become very much reduced for want of proper co-operation by the professed friends of the REFORMER, we are deprived of the pleasure of offering this journal to the tract and missionary workers, and to those who wish to send it to their friends, at half-price.

During the period that the REFORMER has been furnished to Tract Societies, and to other parties, for half-price, we have published the journal at financial loss. At the last settlement, in April, the figures showed that expenditures for less than one year had exceeded receipts nearly three hundred dollars. At our request, and with the understanding that this half-pay should cease, the trustees of the S. D. A. Publishing Association took the journal off our hands, and had the liberality to go back in the settlement nearly one year, and assume the three hundred dollars loss, and not let it fall on us. This is the result of working so many of our full-pay subscribers into half-pay. We no longer publish the REFORMER. We have given that journal to our Publishing Association. And as President of the Association take the matter in hand to secure its support.

The REFORMER, at corresponding prices of other health journals, would be $1.50 a year. Our price is $1.00. With 5,000 full-pay subscribers it could just live at fifty cents for 5,000 more. But when full-pay is less than 4,000 and half-pay 6,000, and postage paid at that, the journal cannot live. We are grieved and humiliated that our liberality has not inspired a corresponding liberality in our patrons.

Much that we have said in the case of the REFORMER is also true respecting the REVIEW, INSTRUCTOR, and books. We engaged in the enterprise of widely circulating our periodicals and other publications with full expectation that all our friends would stand by us. In this we are sadly disappointed. The book fund is so far drained that we can give but one-fourth from it to the T. & M. Societies, and that only on tracts. And the largest discount we can give on the REVIEW, SIGNS, REFORMER and INSTRUCTOR to any party, is one-fourth; excepting on the REFORMER, where special agents are employed, and the REVIEW on four months trial.

It is a living shame that our liberal offers and sacrifices to spread the truth should have the effect to dampen the interest of our preachers and officers of our churches in obtaining full-pay subscribers. Our ministers have their small salaries, which in most cases are a liberal competency, and their expenses are paid. Under these circumstances, and with the facts before them that the Press is the right arm of our strength, it is right to expect of them, as fellow-laborers in the cause of Christ, that they will urge our papers upon the people everywhere at full prices, which, considering the fact that postage is paid by us, are very reasonable. And reasonable men and women will not ask them for less than the small sums named as the subscription prices, after they have become acquainted with their merits.

And we will here repeat what we have before stated, that the REVIEW is our church paper, while the SIGNS OF THE TIMES is designed for a pioneer sheet. The two papers will be prepared for these two distinct fields. We urge those who are able, to take both. The REVIEW will contain matter not so well suited to new fields, and we therefore urgently request our people, for the highest good of their friends to whom they would send one paper, that they do not send the REVIEW, and that they send the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, published at Oakland, Cal. While we are attending camp-meetings it is not possible for us to furnish sketches of Mrs. W.’s life, and other important matter which we have promised for the SIGNS. These will be resumed for the benefit of that paper as soon as possible.

Let it be borne in mind that the SIGNS OF THE TIMES is offered to the Tract and Missionary Societies for $1.50 a year, and that it is designed expressly to go abroad everywhere to those who have yet to learn the facts relative to our views and our people. The REVIEW AND HERALD is our church paper, and will contain matter to meet the condition of the church, which will not be fully understood and appreciated by the outside world.

It has been urged by several of our laborers that the REVIEW and also the SIGNS should be offered to the people in those localities where interests have been raised by lectures given in tents or elsewhere for a short period, at a reduced price. We here state conditions, giving the parties interested their choice in the papers. We should, however, prefer the SIGNS, as that paper is giving a series of consecutive articles on our faith and hope and will be greatly improved in this respect in a few weeks. We offer the REVIEW or the SIGNS, postpaid, four months for fifty cents, as long as these terms can be confined to the labors of our preachers in new fields.

The Michigan Publishing Association has sunk thousands in its liberal discounts on periodicals and books, for want of corresponding liberality on the part of our patrons. And as we rally to regain our footing we appeal to our ministers and the officers of Tract Societies and churches, and to all our friends, to do all in their power to assist us in reviving our lists of full-paying subscribers. When this shall be done and such lists can be maintained, then our Association can furnish a limited amount at reasonable discounts. But the plan to furnish our periodicals at half their low prices, postage paid, without the most watchful and vigilant co-operation of all our ministers and people is one that we are forced to abandon in order to avert financial ruin. We have been obliged to go to the banks for help since this year commenced, for the first time in twenty years, and we now re-adjust matters with the design never to be compelled to take this step again.

JAMES WHITE, Pres. S. D. A. P. A.