Basic HTML Version
·
�
·
-2-
effort should be made to make the members and the ministers more
fully aware of the value of QUEST/78 to the Work.
During the last few months, I have had opportunities to discuss
QUEST/78 in great detail with Mr. Armstrong and to share my views
with him. Consequently, he has decided that his comments (quoted
above at the board meeting in January) reflected.clearly and accurately
his current feelings about the continued publication of QUEST/78 for
the rest of the year. Accordingly, he instructed me to arrange for
the extrication of the Church from direct involvement in the publishing
activities of QUEST/77 at the earliest possible moment, consistent with
good business practice, and to find a buyer, if at all possible, before
the end of the calendar year 1978.
Responding to this directive, Ray Wright, Vice-President for Financial
Affairs, and I went to New York last week and took immediate steps to
separate the Church from all of the direct publishing activities of
QUEST/78. We also initiated discussions with prominent publishers and
other institutions who have evinced an interest in acquiring QUEST/78.
Naturally, we cannot approach the sale of a valuable asset without
exploring all of the possibilities, and at this point of time we do
not know whether we will be able to find a buyer at what we consider
to be an appropriate selling price within the next few weeks, or even
by the end of 1978. However, it is unlikely that we will have to fund
QUEST beyond December 31, 1978 in light of the profit projections that
.
.
•
0
were made available to us last January -- projections which are being
�
brought up to date for us at the present time.
�
In any event, the magazine will now be published, as was originally
contemplated by Mr. Armstrong, entirely by outside professionals who
were engaged at Mr. Armstrong's direction. Church personnel who, for
one reason or another, were added to the staff of QUEST/78 in New
York have been reassigned to the publishing field within the Work
where they will be able to use the valuable experience that they gained
while working with QUEST/78. This experience includes exposure to
commercial circulation, production, promotion and even editing tech
niques in the publishing industry at large. Naturally, we expect that
this experience will be of inestimable value to The Plain Truth, Good
News, and
:
the various church publications.
During the last several weeks, in furtherance of Mr. Armstrong's
directions concerning the ultimate sale of QUEST and the curtailment
of the church's activities with respect to the publishing activities
of QUEST/78, we have discontinued the International Edition.
The International Edition was undertaken in the very first part of
1978, although Mr. Armstrong and I thought at the time that it was a
premature effort in light of the short time that the U.S. Edition
was in publication. That has proven to be the case, as well as a
very expensive operation. The International Edition will no longer
be in newsstand circulation in England and the European continent.
We shall, however, continue to fulfill our subscriptions that had
been received as a result of the circulation of the International
Edition in both areas since January 1978.