If you are a long-time customer, then you’ve watched as Special Ideas went from just producing our own collection of Baha’i teaching materials, to selling teaching materials and other people’s books, to selling teaching materials, other people’s books, and our own collection of interfaith and character education materials.
As we continue to try to simplify our lives, guess which of these categories is the one we are slowly dropping so we can focus more on our teaching materials. Yep. It’s the one that starts “other people’s….” We’ve tried to keep the sacred texts from Baha’i Publishing in stock, but as they continually change their discount structure, it is becoming harder and harder. So this is a “head’s up.” Over the next year we will be reducing the number of books we sell even further, including most of the Baha’i Publishing titles not directly related to teaching. Since you will still be able to get them from Baha’i Distribution Service, we don’t feel too guilty. We will also stop selling the Ruhi books as we run out.
What this means is that we are looking for more ideas that support our core mission! Many of our best teaching material ideas come from customers just like you. What would you like to see produced for you and your community to use? More pamphlets? stickers? prayer cards? Bicentenary materials? Send us your ideas. If we use them, not only will we give you credit for the idea, but we will send you free samples when they are done.
Producing teaching materials is not necessarily the most profitable way to run a business, but it is the one we are most inspired by. Others have tried to do what we do, and we bless their efforts, but it is harder that it looks. One such group is the Baha’i Blog, which hoped to use T-shirts as a source of income. After several years, they’ve decided to get out of the T-shirt business, while continuing their blogs and other activities. Here is a link to their closeout sale. I encourage you to support them in this way while you can, and support them in other ways in the future. If you don’t see any T-shirts you like there, you can always come back to our T-shirt page and get a classic.