SE
Hope that you willfind that report. There is one on EBAY but I am in no position to spend $15.00 for that.
Thanks for your input.
When selling was preaching ...
by Hecce 45 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
Hecce
Another item that came to my mind is that there were quotas to fulfill and they varied from publishers to pioneers and so on. For the pioneers this was something very serious at the time of the CO visit.
-
NewYork44M
I remember as a child where the Service Meeting was all about statistics. There was a board in the back of the hall with all the placements, hours and averages. There were comparisions with national and regional statistics.
I did not know any better - I was just a kid. But as an adult, I realize that this is how a sales organization operates.
-
Hecce
Thanks
That is a fantastic reminder, not only we had that Chart in every congregation; but in the Circuit Assembly there was a part about an analytical report of all the congregations in the circuit.
Comparisons were made between the different congregations praising the stronger ones and encouraging the weaker ones to improve.
As stated in the previous comment, pure marketing and sales.
-
SadElder
Haven't found the "sales" report form yet, it may have been tucked away in one of the older books I have. I did find one of those canvas bags with Awake 5¢ on one side and Watchtower 5¢ on the other.
Remeber the chart that hung on the wall in all Kingdom Halls? Had he activity of the congo in black and red(?maybe) numbers. Showed hours etc for each category: Publishers, Pioneers, vacation pioneers. The Circuit Servant (CO) used to open out that board and castigate the sheep for their lack of ... whatever he was trumpeting that visit. Those were the days...I was a book study conductor at 16 and the Bible Study servant at 18 (part of the congregation committee).
-
NewYork44M
Let's not forget the commerce going on at the back of the hall. I was and so was my father before me a magazine and book servant. This was every bit a business; no different from Walmart. We did inventory counts and had to reconcile our cash at the end of every meeting. We extended credit and collected debt.
I spend years working the various functions of the business of the kingdom hall. Book Servant, Magazine Servant, and my favorite Account Servant.
Maybe this is why I ended up an accountant.
-
Hecce
Once again, thanks for the memories.
The CO was an auditor, one of his main functions was to check the books and magazines accounts. Remittances were sent promptly at the end of the month and if the Congregation was late, after certain time the supplies were cut off.
Those were the days.
-
jwfacts
It was not that long ago. I was a pioneer when we were able to buy the magazines at a discount to what we sold them for.
As mentioned, the only reason that it changed was due to taxation legislation and the fear of paying taxes on sales of literature. This was linked both to Swaggart and a case they lost in France demanding paying of back taxes. I personally feel the Watchtower made a huge financial mistake in moving across to a donation model, as the revenues declined rapidly since then. Since tax is only paid on profit and not revenue, the amount of tax that would have been obliged to pay would have been less than the revenue they have lost since changing from a sales to a donation model.
-
Hecce
I don’t know if this is truth or not but I have been told that they were not so much afraid of the income tax but rather of the sales tax that was going to be due with the placements or sales.
If I recall correctly the whole thing started as a State case in California over sales taxes due on the publications.
I agree that they lost their main source of revenue due to this decision.
Just my recollection.
-
fulltimestudent
I am going way, way back. History reveals that in the beginning the WT was just a publishing house, selling books and magazines; over the years it evolved into what it is today.
The placement of the original publications was mostly done thru sales people masquerading as preachers. I don’t know the English name for them; in Spanish they were called “repartidores”. These workers were getting a commission out of selling or placing their inventory; they had an account with the Central Office and submitted a report on a weekly basis with their sales activity.
I do not give a flying f**k about Jws, Yahweh, Jesus or any other religion. But this view of JW origins is quite slanted. It is quite true that there were religious tract workers (paid on a percentage basis, if you like) called colporteurs.
They were however, not unique toCharlie Russel's Bible students. If you check wikipedia's entry on colportage ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colportage ) you'll note that the term and method was used by other religions, and the practise may go back deep into the spread of modern Christian religion in the USA.
Charlie R merely adapted an existing practise, to the use of the Bible students. And as the Wiki entry points out, it is not neccessarily 'religious book peddling.'
The use of religious literature goes way back in Buddhist history also, as witness this page from the world's oldest extant printed book (the diamond Sutra), printed around 868 CE.
{{Information |Description= A page from the Diamond Sutra, printed in the 9th year of Xiantong Era of theTang Dynasty, i.e. 868 CE. Currently located in the British Library, London. |Source= [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jingangjing.jpg]
And, publishing has also been important in the spread Buddhist in the 20th C .
Note this Ph.d dissertion ( http://www.buddhiststudies.net/print_culture_dissertation.html ) that asserts:
In this dissertation I argue that print culture acted as a catalyst for change among Buddhists in modern China. Through examining major publication institutions, publishing projects, and their managers and contributors from the late nineteenth century to the 1920s, I show that the expansion of the scope and variety of printed works, as well as new the social structures surrounding publishing, substantially impacted the activity of Chinese Buddhists. In doing so I hope to contribute to ongoing discussions of the ‘revival’ of Chinese Buddhism in the modern period, and demonstrate that publishing, propelled by new print technologies and new forms of social organization, was a key field of interaction and communication for religious actors during this era, one that helped make possible the introduction and adoption of new forms of religious thought and practice.
It can also be noted that the world's largest Bible publishing house, Amity printing in Nanjing China, prints the bibles on a strictly commercial basis. How else can such activities continue?
Here's a list of religious publishers as you will not when you read down the list, many are clearly associated with one religion or the other.
