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There're very few... How many color illustrations in it?

Expressions researched:
"How many color illustrations in it" |"There're very few"

Conversations and Morning Walks

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Just take quotation. If you can, you print here.
Conversation with Yogi Amrit Desai of Kripalu Ashram (PA USA) -- January 2, 1977, Bombay:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: You got a copy, eh, Easy Journey to Other Planets?

Prabhupāda: It is very attractive.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: You like it? We only did ten thousand each, but I think we'll sell it out in Kumbhamela. And if we have these two pandals in Ludhiana and Mathurā...

Prabhupāda: So why don't you order more?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Right now I don't have much money, so I'm going slow. But when we sell, we'll get the money back, print more.

Prabhupāda: No, I can give you some loan.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. We will do that. We may need a small loan because... Also the printer came to see me. I told him to bring down the Bengali Gītār Gān price, and I'll think we'll print only one lakh here because his quality is much better than a small letter press in Calcutta.

Prabhupāda: So if you regularly do businesslike, I can give you loan.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. We may need a small loan, Śrīla Prabhupāda. I'm not asking till it becomes...

Prabhupāda: No. For printing books I'll give you loan.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually the BBT's turnover now is around four lakhs. A year ago we opened this BBT account with only two thousand rupees in the bank. Now it's gone to four lakhs.

Prabhupāda: Books which are sellable, you can print in quantity. That will be cheaper. These books I think will be...

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. We're going to sell this for one rupee, fifty paisa.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi)

Indian: Yes. Prabhupāda, I am taking two books. (mixed Hindi and English)

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, we purposely did not have a spine here. We wanted to keep the cost low. You know you cannot get everything. If you want to keep the cost low, then you have to make some small sacrifice.

Prabhupāda: (yawns) We want first quality.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: But for Hindi books, Śrīla Prabhupāda, we find pricing is also very important. Because in Hindi and Bengali books, they cannot sell for more than a rupee or rupee, fifty. In English books...

Prabhupāda: So at what price you are selling?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: This is costing us seventy-eight paisa. So BBT will sell it to the temples for eighty paisa, and the temples are free to sell it for one, one-fifty. So we're charging reasonable price, so we can go after quantity.

Prabhupāda: No, if it can be sold at two rupees, you spend little more. Yes.

Indian: That's what I said.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I selected the most popular pictures for covers because people buy in India on the basis of covers.

Prabhupāda: Yes. It is very nicely selected. Both pictures are very nice.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: All the three books, I think, the pictures have come out quite nice.

Prabhupāda: There are others also?

Indian: I went to the printing press, and I asked him "Why don't you print like the other books you have, Easy Journey to Other Planets?" So he said that "We have done little mistake, and the next printing it will be better."

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: It's not a mistake. We perfectly agreed. You told me so, that (Hindi).

Prabhupāda: What will be price for one lakh?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Of this? I think it will go around a velo(?), because the real book cost seventy-eight paisa; paper is about forty paisa. So paper, whether you buy one or one lakh, it's the same. Printing is about thirty-eight paisa. And out of thirty-eight paisa, plate-making and all will come to about ten paisa.

Prabhupāda: Plate is already made.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, that's what I'm saying. No, I'm just saying by increased run how much can you save? So I imagine you save about three paisa, four paisa more per book. It's not enough to warrant extra investment. I have analyzed the difference between doing large print runs India and America. In America and Europe labor is very expensive. So to them, to stop the machine in between and start again, it's very expensive, so it makes a lot of difference. But in India labor is cheap. So for them to stop the machine in between and then start again, it's not so expensive. So the ceiling is not as great as the extra investment you have to put in. Therefore I'm not doing large run except where it's absolutely necessary.

Prabhupāda: No. Items which are selling, that we can do because...

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Like Bhagavad-gītā we did one lakh.

Prabhupāda: ...to wait means that waste of time.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. But Bhagavad-gītā, we're doing one lakh copies now, and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is our first experiment with the paper manufacturer here. He's making paper for us exactly like American, especially for us. So I've given Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, First Canto, Part Two. We are printing ten thousand. Four thousand we'll print on this government paper, softbound, for cheap distribution, and six thousand on expensive American paper, hardbound, for export, because we will be able to export it for a dollar forty, which is two dollars below what Los Angeles charges. Substantial... So as an experiment, I only wanted to... I've ordered paper for six thousand expensive hardbound. Let's see how the paper is. If it's good, then we'll use the same paper for one lakh. Before taking a risk on one lakh, I wanted to experiment on a smaller run.

Trivikrama: So I'm also thinking about printing again. Now we have just enough...

Prabhupāda: We can print here.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We have very good arrangement.

Prabhupāda: At what price you are printing?

Trivikrama: Pretty cheap.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Hong Kong is very expensive.

Prabhupāda: No no, let him say.

Trivikrama: Well, you know the book we have, six chapters.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Trivikrama: It costs seventy-five cents, U.S...

Prabhupāda: Seventy-five cents. So multiply it by six.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: It comes to about six rupees.

Prabhupāda: It's costly. I think here it must be cheaper.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: There're very few... How many color illustrations in it?

Prabhupāda: Just take quotation. If you can, you print here.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: And if it is for export, it will be even cheaper.

Prabhupāda: We can take quotation.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. How many color plates do you have? Hm, 298, 300. Well, we can take a quotation and see.

Prabhupāda: Here it must be cheaper.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Have you seen the Gītās we printed in India? Here are our samples. They're very good. Actually, I mean I'm not trying to be rude... Because I was negotiating the prices for the Chinese Gītā when... You know that time. Sevānanda was telling me all the prices of the worst of Hong Kong for that time. It was above a dollar.

Trivikrama: Yeah, I know, but that was in Hong Kong. We got it printed in Taiwan for cheaper.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh. Because he sent me for dollar forty, dollar thirty. I have the prices with me.

Trivikrama: And this was... That was also for the corrections. No, the price is about seventy-five cents.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Only thing I've told Jayatīrtha and Bali-mardana Prabhus to do is to open a letter of credit now because we are going to be exporting these Gītās at export price. And the bank is giving our printer a loan of ten lakhs. So he has to show the bank a letter of credit, so I hope they send it, and then this will start rolling. End of February is our first shipment. We're going to ship ten thousand Gītās.

Page Title:There're very few... How many color illustrations in it?
Compiler:Marc, SunitaS, Rishab
Created:17 of Aug, 2011
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=1, Let=0
No. of Quotes:1