The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 72/No. 41      October 20, 2008

 
Pathfinder volunteers
campaign to boost sales
 
BY THERESA KENDRICK  
MIAMI—Supporters of Pathfinder Press are in the seventh week of a drive to make 200 visits to bookstores, libraries, and university professors in U.S. cities by December 15. Sixty-nine visits have already taken place and 21 orders have come in. The goal is to get at least 50 orders.

A special focus is getting orders for New International no. 14, whose lead article is “Revolution, Internationalism, and Socialism: The Last Year of Malcolm X,” and its Spanish-language counterpart, Nueva Internacional no. 8. Orders have already come in from Texas, California, and Illinois.

Pathfinder volunteers are also taking advantage of the widespread discussion provoked by the capitalist financial crisis to show buyers “Capitalism’s Long Hot Winter Has Begun” in New International no. 12, “Imperialism’s March toward Fascism and War” in New International no. 10, and the book Capitalism’s World Disorder: Working-Class Politics at the Millennium.

Teams of volunteers have made trips to Portland, Oregon; Tallahassee and Tampa, Florida; and Santa Cruz, California, to expand visits and sales to even more cities and states. They have participated in book fairs and conferences, staffing booths at the “New York Is Book Country” fair, the Brooklyn Book Festival, and the Reforma library conference in El Paso, Texas.

On a trip to Portland, Oregon, volunteers met with four buyers, including one who orders backlist titles for Portland’s largest bookstore and who asked for a “shortlist” of 25 titles published before 2006 that he could review.

The teams are soliciting library subscription orders for three Spanish-language periodicals published in Cuba and distributed by Pathfinder: Granma International, La Gaceta de Cuba, and Cuba Socialista. They are also promoting several pamphlets about the case of the Cuban Five, five Cuban revolutionaries unjustly imprisoned in the United States.

Volunteers in Miami have been working with an African studies professor who ordered Women’s Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle, by Thomas Sankara, for one of his classes. Another Florida professor is using By Any Means Necessary by Malcolm X for a class. Three Miami university libraries recently ordered the video Cuba and Angola: Response to the South African Escalation to be used by African studies departments.

Pathfinder supporters will visit a number of stores over the Columbus Day holiday weekend, October 11-13.  
 
 
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