In future when physical books are replaced by digital books how will we distribute books?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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So, Prabhupada said, print my books and distribute. Now, we can’t actually say distribute laptops or phones containing Prabhupada’s books.
We have to distribute physical books. So, what do we do? Actually, I think our generation’s problems are enough for us to deal with. Future generations, Krishna will send intelligent, devoted souls in each generation of his mission to carry on his mission.
So, we can focus on our generation and we can, of course, have leaders who are doing some succession planning but we just can’t foresee the future too far into the future. We will force it a little bit. So, two points I would say about this.
First is that, in general, the digital distribution and the physical distribution they are not competitive. They are actually complementary. That means that there are some people who read only digital books and they don’t read physical books.
So, if we keep our message restricted only to physical books, we will not reach them. And there are people who read physical as well as digital. So, if our message is available in the digital books, digital format also, then those people may connect with that and so many people prefer to read short things on computers or phones.
And when they want to read something, they just browse through books and look at their excerpts, look at some sections. This seems interesting. Then they get a physical copy and they read it.
So, the digital presentation of our message can actually expand the physical presentations. So, especially the younger generation, it’s mostly on the digital devices. So, it’s not that they don’t read books, but first they explore on the digital platform.
The Pew Research Foundation, which is especially known for doing surveys about religious organizations, into religion, they found that in the last 20 years, in the last one or two decades basically, in the age group of 15 to 40, the people who converted to Christianity, almost 40% of them were introduced online to Christianity. That’s 40%. So, it’s a substantial number.
So, if we are not presenting our message, others are going to present their message anyway. Then people will go over there. So, we have to present in the traditional format for people who are ready to take in the traditional format.
We have to present in the contemporary format for those who are ready to take in the contemporary format. We have to present wherever people are present, so that Krishna physically available to them. And how to do it in future generations? We really don’t know at this stage how the world will change.
Maybe 5-10 years ago, people had thought that the physical books are going to go out of it. Because digital books are going so much. But at least last year’s survey indicates that again physical books are going up.
People still want to feel books in their hands. Digital books have been going up also, but physical books have had a resurgence. So, we can’t, the world is changing so fast.
In the past, changes that would take 50 years or 500 years, now they are happening in 5 years. So, we can’t really predict much in the future. But we have to be resourceful.
Make Krishna available in whatever form people are searching for. Does this answer your question?