BY JEFF HAMILL
SEATTLE-A week-long Pathfinder sales trip to Seattle,
Bellingham, Portland, and other parts of the Pacific
Northwest reaped good results here May 2-8. The goal of the
trip by Pathfinder business manager Sara Lobman was to help
give a boost to the efforts of workers and youth in the area
who want to help make Pathfinder's books on revolutionary
politics available in as many bookstores and libraries as
possible.
Ten local Pathfinder supporters accompanied Lobman as sales teams at different points during the week, meeting with buyers at 22 bookstores and libraries. The sales teams also met with professors at three colleges and universities to urge them to utilize Pathfinder titles in their classes. In addition to the volunteers from Seattle, a volunteer in Portland set up four appointments there. Seven bookstores placed orders on the spot for a total of 89 books.
The most frequently ordered title was the Pathfinder edition of The Communist Manifesto with an introduction by Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky. This is the 150th anniversary of the Manifesto, which was written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in 1848.
Four stores ordered a total of eight copies of the pamphlet. "Thank you for showing me your edition," one buyer said. "These have been selling like hotcakes." This same store had several copies of Pathfinder's An Action Program to Confront the Coming Economic Crisis prominently displayed. Several professors commented on the attractive cover and readable type of Pathfinder's Manifesto. Books on the labor movement were popular. Orders included 3 copies of The Changing Face of U.S. Politics: Working-Class Politics and the Trade Unions by Jack Barnes, as well as copies of Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay by Marx and Leon Trotsky, Teamster Rebellion by Farrell Dobbs, and American Labor Struggles: 1877-1934 by Samuel Yellen. The buyer at one community college bookstore, who ordered several of these titles, noted that the workers at the school have a strong union and that many of the students work full-time before and after class.
Eighteen of the 89 books ordered were related to the Cuban revolution. These included four copies each of Che Guevara Speaks, Pombo: a Man of Che's `guerrilla', and To Speak the Truth: Why Washington's `Cold War' against Cuba Doesn't End were ordered. Four copies of John Coltrane and the Jazz Revolution of the 1960s and three of Black Music, White Business, both by Frank Kofsky, were ordered.
Five of the bookstores were ordering Pathfinder books for the first time. Several buyers noted how useful it was to have local representatives who were knowledgeable about the books available to help them think out orders on a regular basis. "You'll be my local sales guy, right?" one buyer said to Seattle Pathfinder volunteer John Naubert after placing an order for 18 books.