“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(We’ve lost the old sense of freedom we had with Prentice-Hall, where we can just do our work, ship it to them, and expect it to be well handled, with royalties paid every so often and a trust both felt and expressed between the two sides. Now we’ve become suspicious of everything they tell us. Jane still has on hand the contracts for Mass Events and God of Jane waiting for these to be straightened out: amended with Tam’s promised “superamendment” that’s supposed to protect us in the rights departments, paperback covers, and all the rest; jacket copy, etc. Prentice-Hall even wanted to have Jane sign contracts giving them the right to take money from Mass Events to pay for God of Jane. I sometimes have the feeling that we’re little more than ciphers to them. I for one am in favor of taking a stand, as Jane well knows, but as I’ve told her, I don’t expect her to go along. I think she’d be too terrified to be without a publisher, if it came to that, whereas my fighting blood is aroused and I’d be perfectly willing to let the chips fall where they may.

(So as I write this on Wednesday morning at 11:20 we expect to receive from Tam today a “care package,” as he put it, of the latest correspondence involving our foreign hassles. I intend to finish this session today, and make preparations to resume painting each day. I think at the moment that I’ll continue to rise early to get three hours in on Mass Events in the mornings, paint and run errands in the afternoons, and have evenings for either sessions or more work on Mass Events. Let’s hope things run smoothly enough. As I told Jane last night, there isn’t much more we can do about foreign rights; let’s hope that challenge has been met.)

I am in no way putting the business world down. People in it have their own abilities and drives. As a rule, however, it is foolhardy to expect them to have a sense of the artist’s values, whatever the art may be, and then to become upset when they do not live up to that picture.