There are two kinds of sankirtana: book distribution and chanting of the holy names (harinama). When Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu started the sankirtana movement, there was no distribution of books, so “sankirtana” meant literally to go out in groups chanting the holy names. When Srila Prabhupada started the Hare Krsna movement in the West, there were still no books for mass distribution, so he also instituted the public chanting of the holy names as the main preaching activity for devotees. As devotees also needed some laksmi to survive, it was common to use a box or conch-shells to receive donations from people. At this time it was also not uncommon for temple devotees (even brahmacharis) to work outside, donating their salary to the temple, since laksmi was so scarce. Srila Prabhupada himself instituted it on the basis that if someone works outside and gives his entire salary to Krsna, he is actually in the renounced order and therefore such work doesn’t conflict with his status of brahmacari. Srila Prabhupada explains this point in his purport to Bg. 18.11:

“It is said in Bhagavad-gita that one can never give up work at any time. Therefore he who works for Krsna and does not enjoy the fruitive results, who offers everything to Krsna, is actually a renouncer. There are many members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness who work very hard in their office or in the factory or some other place, and whatever they earn they give to the Society. Such highly elevated souls are actually sanyasis and are situated in the renounced order of life. It is clearly outlined here how to renounce the fruits of work and for what purpose fruits should be renounced”. 

Sometimes we get the idea that to renounce means to stop working, but that’s actually the opposite conclusion of the Bhagavad-gita. Again and again, Srila Prabhupada makes the point that to renounce actually means to work for Krsna. Nonetheless, the brahmacharis working outside were not so enthusiastic about their jobs, therefore eventually Srila Prabhupada said they could just do harinama the whole day and just surrender to Krsna, maintaining the temple with whatever donations they would receive. 

Soon the books started to come, and in big quantities, so devotes started to combine the harinamas with book distribution. Srila Prabhupada devised a plan to solve both the preaching and financial problems: sell the books with some profit, so people would get benefited both ways (by taking the books and giving donations to devotees) and the movement could use the laksmi to maintain itself and expand. The formula was simple: the BBT would produce the books and sell them to the temples at double the printing cost and the temples would sell them to the public at double the BBT cost. The BBT would use the profit to maintain itself, print more and more books and finance acquisitions of properties to open new temples and the temples would use their profits to maintain their activities. This general rule of selling for double of the BBT price doesn’t need to always be rigidly applied (Srila Prabhupada himself created many exceptions, and always emphasized that the most important thing is to increase the distribution and to make the books reach interested persons) but this is a general rule of thumb that offers a sustainable way to distribute books and at the same time financially maintain our missionary activities. The main law is that we should preach and that whatever we do needs to be sustainable.

To conciliate the goal of preaching and distributing books with the goal of getting a certain amount of profit necessary to pay for the books and maintain different activities can be a difficult endeavour. We can’t simply start to give the books away, otherwise, there won’t be money to pay the BBT, maintain the temple, the sankirtana group and ourselves. On the other hand, if we start thinking too much about the money, our sankirtana will get contaminated and we will lose the taste for it.

Instead of setting a fixed price for the books (as it was done in the beginning), nowadays most devotees ask for a donation. This offers many advantages:

a) We can develop a detached mentality: since we don’t have a direct influence on how much people are giving, we can just depend on Krsna and accept whatever comes. 

b) The book distribution becomes more like a charity fundraising activity (instead of a selling business) which raises opportunities for distribution of our books in many places where selling activities are not permitted.

c) People usually go away with a good impression, since they can give the amount they feel comfortable giving. 

Yet, there are downsides, also:

a) We can easily develop a “prostitute mentality”, stopping those who appear capable of giving bigger donations, using tricks to make them give more than they are prepared to give, etc. 

b) We can’t control how much people give, so we can’t be sure to receive a certain amount for the books.

c) There is a tendency to start begging (especially for new book distributors), which is also dangerous.

There are a few easy things we can do to reduce these shortcomings:

Don’t get attached to receive a certain amount every time. Some people may give just the BBT price, or even less, but others will give five or ten times more. It’s better to get detached and try to just keep an average, adjusting the size and the number of books given to people according to the characteristics of the people on each sankirtana field. In places where people normally give good donations, you can offer packages of one maha-big and two or three smaller books, trying to distribute multiple books every time and get substantial donations. In places where people give small donations, you can offer sets of two or three small books, or offer one book at a time. 

If a person is really interested, you may give a book even for free (the main goal is that he reads the book and becomes a devotee); but if he is not particularly interested, it’s not good to sell big books for a derisory price, since the person will get the impression that these books are something cheap. Usually what I do is to accept any donation which at least covers the BBT price, or smaller donations from people who are interested but lack the money. When a person gives too little, you can say: 

• Would you like to keep the big book, or would you like to take a small one? 

This is a nice way to present it. In most cases, the person will go for the small book or will give a little more. Sometimes we can also ask if the person can give a little more, politely explaining that we need to cover the printing costs. The secret is to do it in a soft way:

• If you like you can give a little more, this helps us with the printing costs.

This has a similar effect, transmitting the idea without forcing the person. 

Usually, people will give a little more. If not, that’s also fine, just accept whatever they are offering and go to the next person. Krsna is in control. Frequently I have experiences of multiple persons giving very small donations in a row and then suddenly Krsna sending someone to give a very big donation that more than covers them all. Since Krsna is already controlling, we don’t need to try to also control: only one controller is enough. 

During the 2013 marathon, I spent several days in front of a big shopping mall, distributing books to the people who were going there to buy their Christmas presents. I was getting very good results for a few days in a row already, but on one particular day I got a very peculiar situation: during the whole day, I was only meeting broke people, with no money. Many were interested and were eager to take books, but I was only receiving ridiculously small donations. It was a kind of miracle: just before Christmas, in front of a big shopping mall, stopping people who were supposedly going there to buy presents, and still, no one had money. Still, I was giving books to interested people, but I was definitely in the red, with less than the BBT price. Then, suddenly, when I had only a few stacks of books left, I stopped a lawyer with his wife. He was very appreciative and in the end, took three books and left a donation of R$ 100 (unusually big for Brazil). From there, I started to stop a number of very nice people in sequence, all giving unusually large donations. On the last hour, practically everyone who I stopped gave some generous donation: it was another miracle. By the end of the day, I had more lakshmi than I was getting in the previous days, most of it as a result of this miracle in the last hour. To me, this incident proved that Krsna is indeed in control, and He can control things in both ways.

Still, if you are getting less than necessary in a regular fashion, you should change your strategy, starting to offer smaller books or doing something else.

One particularly important point that we should be aware of is that donations are usually proportional to the level of interest, or to how much each person values the books. This is in turn directly connected with our presentation. Experienced book distributors get bigger donations simply because they can present the books in a much more consistent way and evoke a genuine interest and appreciation in the public. When someone appreciates the book and our preaching work, he will not hesitate to give a generous donation. First, we have to make the person interested and then ask for the donation: it’s a science. If we find the right persons and present the books in a proper way, they will be happy to support our work and money will never be a problem.

“My Guru Maharaja used to say, “Don’t worry about money. Do something nice for Krsna and money will come.” So we should always be thinking how to distribute the message of Krsna, and surely he will give us facility. Even an ordinary man, if he wants publicity, then he gives so much money for the propaganda work. Similarly, Krsna is not poor. He can supply any amount for the devotees engaged in broadcasting his glories.” (Srila Prabhupada, letter to Karandhara, 30 November 1970)

Inexperienced book distributors, on the other hand, frequently don’t know how to present the books properly, and therefore tend to just insist on the idea of donation, as if they were begging. The person doesn’t get convinced and therefore doesn’t want the book, but because the book distributor keeps insisting, he ends up giving some small donation just to get rid of him, or out of pity, and such donations are usually very small. 

“Members of the Krsna consciousness movement have no business begging. Instead, they work very hard to introduce some literatures about Krsna consciousness so that people can read them and be benefited.“ (CC Madhya 8.39, Purport)

The point is that if we are consistently receiving small donations, even from well-to-do people, we should try to improve our presentation of the books, not blame the public. It’s usually better to start with small books (which are easy to distribute and can be given for even small donations) and gradually change to bigger books as we get more experienced. 

“You should be very enthusiastic for distributing our books to schools, colleges, libraries, bookstores, and wherever else you can imagine that they will be well received. These books are so nice that anyone who reads them is sure to become Krishna Conscious. You can show them Krsna books and ask them to read any part and if they like what they have read they should purchase, and if not you will walk away. Who could resist? Krsna book is so nice that everyone will like it, either as a story book or history or philosophy or whatever, they are sure to be attracted. Simply it depends on your presentation. So do it nicely and Krsna will help you”. (Srila Prabhupada, letter to Sukadeva, 25 March 1971)

On one hand, we do need to collect some specific amount for each book to keep our preaching work. Without sufficient money, we wouldn’t be able to pay to the BBT. The BBT, in turn, would not be able to continue printing books and our whole preaching mission would be hampered. Still, we should never forget that our main business is to preach, distribute as many books as possible and thus spread the movement and help the conditioned souls. Don’t let a business consciousness get in the way. If on some days things are really austere and the contributions are small, fine. There will be days when the contributions will be good and we will get multiple times the BBT price. We just need to keep an average. 

Not everybody who takes a book will become a devotee (Krsna Himself says in the Bhagavad-gita 7.3 that out of thousands of men, one may endeavor for perfection), but everyone gets some purification, and thus gets a step closer to Krsna. In a Room Conversation in Bombay, from 10 January 1977, Srila Prabhupada makes this point:

Prabhupada: There is no consideration of big profit. Simply we want big number, distribution. That’s all.

Gopala Krsna: Also this will increase our prestige as a movement.

Prabhupada: Big number, as big as possible. My Guru Maharaja, he had magazines in six languages: English, Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, and one Bengali daily. So if our men complained that “Such and such men are not giving their subscription, so, what we can do? Stop the supply?” Oh, he would become very angry. He asked them, “Are you commercial-hired fools? No! Supply free!” He used to say like that. He was asking, “Whether we shall stop supply? The subscription is not coming.” So immediately he became angry: “Are you commercial-hired? If he’s not giving price, supply him free.” That was his policy. So less perfect or…, try to see how many numbers of books. 

In the end, these two ideas must be conciliated: that we need to distribute as much as possible and that we should somehow get sufficient money to pay for the books and maintain our missionary activities. If we take only one of these principles and forget the other, we can create havoc.