It is with mixed feelings that we announce a price increase for the 2018 Slingshot Organizer which will be out in October, 2017. It’s the first price increase for the pocket organizer since the late 1990s, and the first price hike for the spiral organizer since 2007.
Your purchase of the Organizer provides 99% of the funding source for the Slingshot Collective, which publishes this newspaper and the Organizer. Over the years, the cost of printing and mailing the organizer has crept up as has the cost of producing and distributing the Slingshot paper. We currently print over 60,000 copies of the paper a year and distribute it free of charge to infoshops, bookstores and cafes around the country (and even some outside the country) as well as to 2,000+ prisoners. We are a 100% volunteer collective and run a tight ship financially but we have had significant deficits the last 2 years and cannot continue much longer without reconciling this disparrity.
While we are against raising prices for philosophical reasons we also see our project as an opportunity for the community of radicals who loyally use the organizer to support the paper (and a good part of the Long Haul infoshop’s overhead). We want to make the relationship between the organizer and the project clear,.. organizer purchases are what make it all possible and we are very grateful to the amazing and loyal universe of Slingshot supporters! You are the engine that makes the little Slingshot train go, toot toot!
The nuts and bolts is that we will raise the wholesale prices $1 for the pocket and $2 for the spiral organizers. This will be reflected in retail prices (which we don’t have any say in).
To soften the blow, we’re going to keep the old retail prices at the Long Haul Infoshop (3124 Shattuck in Berkeley) if you can make it there and will offer a reduced wholesale price to non-profit radical projects like infoshops so they can keep the retail price lower as well.
Thanks for everyone’s amazing support of the Organizer and the Slingshot Collective over the last 29 years! We love you!!