“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(All of this material is on file in detail. Yesterday Jane confirmed with Tam by phone that we will take full control of foreign rights; not to try to make a lot of money, because we don’t think it can be done, but simply to prevent our being taken advantage of by any more foreign publishers. In all probability taking control of foreign rights merely means that there won’t be any. I’ve already written Ariston that we will sell them no more work after their dishonesty with Seth Speaks, and plan to do the same thing soon with Ankh-Hermes. At the moment we’re waiting to learn their reaction to correspondence from Prentice-Hall, demanding that the cut portions of the book be restored—a move I cannot see them complying with for economic reasons alone.

(I also think Prentice-Hall will go through the formality of protesting the cuts to the foreign publishers, without exacting much of any retribution, especially with all that money invested in plates. Jane and I will be left with the situation as it exists, then. Except that theoretically at least we’ll be able to prevent it happening any more if we control foreign rights from now on. There doesn’t appear to be any money worth mentioning involved, at least for us. I always thought the foreign sales were great for the foreign publishers, though, since they owe Prentice-Hall only 6%.