In one sense, book distribution is a simple activity: we just try to present spiritual knowledge to people. Still, when we come to the practical application of this simple idea, the details start to multiply unlimitedly. These are a few points that I can present according to what I have heard from seniors and from my personal experience. 

1- Not spacing out

The first important point is to learn how to use our time in an effective way. Just like we understand that laksmi belong to Krsna and should be properly used in His service, our time on book distribution also belongs to Krsna and needs to be used in an effective way. We should be attentive to spend our time really stopping and talking to people, and not just spacing out and wasting time. Apart from our consciousness, there is also a mathematical facet to book distribution: the more people we stop and talk to in a proper way, the more books we will distribute. Even on the most difficult days, if we keep stopping people, some of them will take, and by stopping a number of people, we will end up distributing a number of books. On the other hand, if we become dispirited and start spacing out, time will just pass, and the books will remain in our bags. 

We should also be aware of the time when talking to people. Sometimes, it may be just one’s style to talk longer with people, to make each encounter very personal, but in general it’s not necessary to spend more than two or three minutes with each person to distribute a book: we just need to keep it simple and light, and bring the person to the “why not?” point, where he gets interested in the book and once understanding that the book is not expensive, he just takes it. 

2- The opening question

The first step is to look at the person and try to make eye contact. Then we say “hello” or wave, some kind of a greeting to attract his attention. If he looks and shows some interest, then you ask a question; something simple, just to break the ice and start a conversation. After the person stops, you can present yourself and start your mantra. 

You may start with questions like: “Where are you from?”, “Are you from here?“, “Do you work here?“, “You always walk here?“. While these also work, the best is to formulate questions in such a way that the person always gives a positive answer. For example, if you ask “Do you work here?“, the answer may be “yes” or “no”, and it’s not so good to begin the conversation with a “no”. 

You can try questions like: “Are you from here or from out of town?“, “Do you work here or are you just passing by?“. This way you always get a positive answer: “Yes, I work here“, or “Yes, I’m just passing by“, which is a good start. These questions about what the person does, where he lives or works, etc. are usually the most used by book distributors (normally people feel great pleasure in talking about themselves), but you can also use other types of questions. When I’m on a crowded street, full of busy people running around, I sometimes start to ask questions like: “Why are people always in such a hurry nowadays?”, “Do you think people don’t have time, or don’t know how to use their time?”, “Are you in a good mood, bad mood, or just busy?”. 

Many people really stop and start to think, giving us a chance to start a conversation and present the books. You can use other questions that make people think a little bit to give an answer like, for example, “How many books did you read this year?”. I try to use these questions in a light way, smiling, joking and so on, and this usually has the effect of making people relax and open up.

If I see a nice person who is rushing I sometimes just ask “You are in a hurry right?” When he confirms, I say “We have a nice book for busy people, take a look!”, and from there I start the mantra with something that fits in his immediate mood, like for example: “These books teach how we can find inner peace amongst the chaos of modern life.” By starting with something that gets a person’s attention from whatever it was previously, we can make a person stop to hear for a minute and thus give him a chance of taking a few books before resuming his busy schedule.

We can get a lot of information by the way each person reacts when we greet them, especially by their facial expression. You can combine this with other clues you can get by the way a person dresses and presents himself to decide what kind of question you can use on your approach. The best is to develop a repertory of different questions, so you can present a variety of questions according to the person. There are also many cases where a simpler approach, with a small compliment (“Nice hair!”, “Nice shirt!”, etc.) or some small joke is more effective than a question, and also cases of persons who are open or favourable, where you can just use a direct approach like “can I show you a book?” or “did you see our books already?”. Each person is an individual case. Ideally, you should train to be able to understand the general mood of each person and use an individual approach to each. This is an art that we can normally master only after many years of practice, but the result is going to be very positive to your book distribution.

Sometimes, depending on the public you are speaking to, you can even go to direct questions, like: “In your opinion, what is the goal of life?”, “What do you think about atheism?”, “Do you think our society is evolving in the right track?”, “Who do you think created the universe”, “What do you think about the evolution theory?”. Many people do stop to answer (and some give quite surprising answers), and from there it’s easy to involve them in a conversation and start presenting books. The secret, in this case, is to smile and keep the conversation light, without being confrontational (which just makes people defensive). The idea that we try to transmit is that we are not evangelizing people, but just presenting something new. Generally, it’s much more effective to make people curious than to try to directly convince them. A person who becomes curious about a book will probably buy it, while someone who you are trying to convince will probably just get defensive and eventually just leave (many times after dragging you into a long discussion). 

If, for example, someone says that he doesn’t agree with the theory of evolution (and it’s surprising how many don’t agree, especially older people), you can offer a Life Comes from Life, explaining that we’ve published this book exactly to give him all the arguments to defeat these pesky evolutionists and prove that God is the creator, and so on. 

HG Navina Nirada Prabhu: When we meet people, it’s important that we have a very positive attitude. People are facing a lot of negativity, a lot of rejection, a lot of boredom, a lot of depression and aggression, in life, so if they meet a devotee, they want to feel that relief, that mood, that spirit of fearlessness. If we have that by carrying a very positive attitude, a Krsna Conscious attitude, people will automatically become attracted. 

When I meet people, I usually greet them, and I ask them: “Hi! How are you doing?”, an opening question that gets them to talk, and in this way, I engage them in a conversation. I ask everybody: “Where are you from?”, and they say: “Oh, I’m from Oxford”, then I say: “That’s where all the nice people live, right?”. So I say something nice, I say something positive, and they agree. If you get people to smile twice, they will take the book. If they ask: “What is this?”, I say: “We call them books!”, or: “Books on yoga, meditation, teaches you how to get free from stress. Have you heard of stress before?”. 

Often, I tell them: “I teach happiness, have you heard of happiness? You can’t buy it in the store, everyone talks about it, but where is it? It’s right there in your own heart. This book teaches you how to reconnect with the happiness in your own heart”. If they are a little bit more interested, I get in the topic of spiritual practice, mantra meditation… we have to be sensitive and see how much time do people have, how much are they open, how much are they going to listen, otherwise just make a connection, give them some words of encouragement, give them one of Prabhupada’s books and ask them for a contribution. It can all happen in a couple of seconds, it doesn’t take that long. It’s a matter of being focused, in being connected with Krsna’s internal potency; like Arjuna in the battlefield: he was connected with Krsna’s internal potency, so he saw a target and he did not miss anyone, because he was Krsna’s instrument, so if we see ourselves as Krsna’s instruments, our goal should also be: don’t miss anyone, don’t let anyone escape, try to give Krsna consciousness to every person that you meet. (Podcast to London devotees, Winter Marathon 2016) 

To use questions is difficult in the beginning, because our reaction has to be very fast. The right question needs to come immediately to our mind, as if some kind of muscular memory. We don’t have time to stop and think. One time, I talked with a martial arts instructor. He explained that in any martial art, the secret is to train every stroke and technique exhaustively, thousands of times. You have to train a punch two thousand times, he said, to have a chance of using it correctly one time during a fight. Similarly, to use questions in the right time and circumstance, we need to train thousands of times. That’s why it’s important to be persistent. It may be difficult in the beginning (just like learning kung-fu), and it may take years to fully master it, but it’s the right path for developing your book distribution. Without developing the art of asking questions, one will stay indefinitely on the mantra stage, just repeating the same mantra with every person that passes.

3- More on questions 

One very important thing about questions is to master the exact timing to use them. Also, you can’t ask the same questions to every person that passes, this will just sound ridiculous. In other words, don’t waste your questions: Ask your questions to nice people who you see as real candidates to take books. 

Actually, our goal with these questions is not to make every single person stop, but to select the nice people and make them stop in a favourable mood. Even if there was some miraculous approach that would make everyone stop, it would not be very productive, since we would end up stopping all kinds of grumpy people and have many unpleasant interactions. Not everyone in the street is ready to take a book, therefore it is better to use positive and polite approaches, that allow us to stop the ripe fruits and make them open to hear the mantra and take a book. The ones who are not so ripe may stop and take some other day, when they are ready. 

The first step is to look the person in the eyes and say some small greeting. From the way they react, you can quickly understand if there is a real possibility of them stopping and taking a book or not. If the person doesn’t look back, then you can just go to the next one. To the ones who look back or give some kind of answer you may proceed asking a question or giving a compliment, and from there to a full mantra. The advantage of using greetings to select our public is that we can do our book distribution in a very sattvic way, just walking and greeting people, talking only with the ones who are more or less favourable or receptive, with who we can create some connection. These are the persons who are real candidates to take books. With experience, this can become a very effective and energy-efficient way of distributing books. 

We can also say, “May I ask you a question?” or “Can you answer a question?” after the greeting, and proceed to ask questions to the ones who stop or who we see are curious or willing to give us attention. This extra question makes the process less efficient, since it’s less spontaneous, but at the same time makes it easier and can be used even by new book distributors. To say  “May I ask you a question?” is also very polite, so it works well with older and upper-class people, who expect a more formal approach. 

One good way to use it is to combine with the classical “are you a nice person?”:

• Hello, good morning! (person apathetically answers: “hi…” and continues walking)
• May I ask you a question? (He stops, looks like caught by surprise. “Yes, ok…”)
• (Smiling) Today we are talking to all nice persons, are you a nice person?? (Person smiles, “Yes, I guess so…”)
• (Big smile) Oh, that’s good! Then I can show this to you… (handling a book and starting the mantra).

This can also be combined with a compliment, which makes it more effective, like: “You look like a very intelligent person, can I ask you a question?” or: “Oh, you are such an elegant lady, can I ask you a question?”. 

We should try to get used to adapt quickly according to the person’s reaction. If you try a spontaneous approach and he doesn’t stop, you can quickly use the “may I ask you a question” or some other line when he is about to pass, for example. If it works, then you can just continue from there. 

The best platform for distributing books is when we can be informal with people. In an informal conversation, it’s very easy to break the ice and create some personal connection, and from there it’s easy to distribute a book. Naturally, you should consider time, place and circumstance. In Brazil, for example, people like to be informal, so to be very open and informal is the most effective way to distribute books. A typical approach would be to combine a greeting, a small compliment and a question, like, for example: “Hello! (pause) You look like an intelligent person, can you answer a question? (pause) Why do people rush so much nowadays?” 

In other places, people may not be so open, so you may have to use a more cultured and polite approach, or use a mixture of different approaches according to who you are speaking to. In any case, you should keep in mind that a more cheerful and laid-back attitude is usually much more conducive to book distribution than a very formal attitude, so you should try to find ways to make people open-up as far as possible. Being informal as much as possible, but at the same time be polite and respectful to people.   

HG Navina Nirada Prabhu: I try to be very happy with the people, because people are living a boring life, and they are looking for some positivity, they are looking for something that uplifts them. So, by having a positive attitude, and being helpful, being in a prayerful mood, being humorous, we will help people to appreciate Krsna consciousness. Often we can just use parts of slokas, like I speak about the panditah sama-darsinah, that a wise person sees and appreciates life everywhere, not only the human form, the animal forms, in the plants, but everywhere, and people appreciate this equal vision, it is an universal concept, to appreciate equal vision. Also to appreciate inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness, that is very much appreciated. So when we connect with people through some simple forms of communication, it makes so much easier for them to appreciate Krsna consciousness. (Podcast to London devotees, Winter Marathon 2016) 

Questions are highly dependent on the culture, language and mentality of people in each country. We should use sentences that sound funny or witty in the local language and resonate positively with the local mentality. For example, when distributing in Brazil I use approaches, questions and jokes that are probably only going to work in this particular country. If it’s raining I sometimes ask people “Are you always here or you came just because of the rain?“. If it’s cold I could use something like: “Do you know when the mayor is going to install the heater here in downtown?“. Somehow these lines sound funny in Brazil, but in other places it would not make sense. You should create your own lines, or get some from local book distributors.
Another approach that I use frequently is to use affirmative sentences to stop people instead of questions. This has a more subtle twist and is a little more difficult to get right, but it has a few advantages: it is faster and it tends to create a more natural flow, putting the conversation in a lighter mood from the start.

First step (as always) is to smile and greet the person in a friendly way. If you can create an emotional connection with the person at this stage, you can just use a short sentence to stop them, like: “We are talking with all nice persons.”, “We are showing these books to all busy people.”, “We are talking with all intelligent people.”, etc. The main advantage of this approach is that it is very direct. If everything goes well and they stop, you can start showing the books right away, instead of having to first start a conversation. The main difference in this approach (and what makes it more difficult to master) is that you need to create a connection with the person right from the beginning, when you greet them, instead of doing that through a conversation. It works well with certain people but not with everyone.