In this book, I speak mainly about person to person sankirtana, which is my main style. However, you should be aware that person to person is not the only style of book distribution, and in many places it’s not even the best one.
Person to person is effective in places where there is a strong flux of people. Usually, the best places are commercial districts (where people go to buy) and leisure places (where they go to relax and have social life). In such places, people are usually in a favorable mood and every day you have new persons, therefore it is easy to distribute books. A third field are transportation hubs, like metro stations, train stations and bus terminals. It is usually not so good as the first two options, but it can work as a “bread and butter” field for distribution on working days.
The traditional European model is to build cities around a crowded downtown area, where most of the commercial establishments are concentrated. Usually, there is one or a few very busy streets that concentrate the pedestrian flux of the whole city. Even people who usually move by car have to park it and walk around there doing different things, so it’s a very good place to distribute books. Most cities in Brazil where I distribute follow this model, so for me the most effective way is to go to the main street in each city and to distribute person to person. Even relatively small cities, with 40.000 or 50.000 inhabitants usually have a busy street suitable for book distribution.
In many countries, cities follow the American model, where the stores, banks, malls and other commercial establishments are spread-out around the city, and most people move to different places by car. Frequently in such cities, there is not an obvious spot to distribute books, because the pedestrian traffic is spread-out through the city. Consequently, the opportunities for person to person sankirtana are more limited, and one has to be creative to find other ways to distribute books, exploring book distribution in apartments, offices and other niches, like parking lots and universities.
Every big city has an almost unlimited amount of residential apartments. By finding creative ways to get in and talk with the residents, and learning the best times and the best ways, we can not only distribute a lot of books, but also create a database of favorable persons, who you can cultivate and thus convert into new devotees.
Usually, in apartment blocks where there are no security guards, you can enter by following some resident who is entering, or by calling one of the flats thru the intercom and saying that you need to enter but don’t have a key (which is actually not a lie, since it’s true that you need to enter and true that you don’t have a key). It helps a lot if you can learn people’s names and call them by the name when you ring the door, or call thru the intercom. Sometimes, the name is written in the mailbox, or at the door, other times you can ask the neighbors (when talking with the first person in a building, you can ask the name of the next, and so on). If you don’t know the name, you can just answer “It’s me!” when they ask who it is. If you can reply with conviction, it works. As far as possible, you can try to build networking, asking favourable people to present you to the neighbors. If they go with you and present you to the other dwellers they are friends with, it becomes easy.
Distribution in offices, stores and businesses allows us to talk to people during the working hours, when we are not going to find them at the street or at home. By combining street sankirtana with apartment blocks and offices it’s possible to have a much bigger field for distribution and to distribute around the clock, going to apartments in the mornings and evenings, and to offices and busy streets in the working hours, for example.
At the same time, a proper cultivation program will open the doors to the distribution of sets, which add a whole new field. As always in spiritual life, the best results can be obtained by combined efforts. As Srila Prabhupada used to say, we need to tax our brains to find new and creative ways to distribute books and make devotees.
Traffic lights are another field that should not be underestimated. They not only frequently offer a more diverse public than person to person, but also present a captive public, that is already stationary, simply waiting for our approach. The secret on traffic lights is to create simple and catch mantras, with one or two strong sentences, that attracts one’s mind and makes him take a book quickly, before the intelligence starts questioning.
You can find a traffic light that stays closed for a little longer (many may stay closed for up to two minutes), use a very short pre-mantra to select persons who are promising, and use the complete mantra (that should also be short, from 10 to 20 seconds) on the ones who show some interest. In this way, with some practice, you may be able to approach 10 or 12 persons with the pre-mantra, and give the longer mantra to two or three persons every time the signal closes. It’s definitely more mechanical than person to person, but offers the opportunity to talk to more people. Experienced devotees usually can distribute more on person to person, especially big and maha-big books, but new devotees usually find the traffic lights much easier.