“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(All during this time, October–November, we’ve also been involved in a series of hassles with the foreign publishers Ankh-Hermes and Ariston. We’ve learned to our sorrow and rage that both entities have cut their versions of Seth Speaks, without our permission or knowledge, and have struggled to exert what force we could in order to rectify the situation. I thought it much more likely that these sorts of challenges were much more likely to be behind my problems. We do feel let down on the issue of foreign rights by Prentice-Hall, and the overseas publishers as well. As I’ve said to Jane more than once, “I wonder what we ought to know that Tam hasn’t told us”—meaning of course that every time a hassle develops with Prentice-Hall we find out a new batch of information that Tam has known all along but never relayed to us. This makes for a series of ugly surprises along the way of our travels with Prentice-Hall, since they always seem to involve money in a negative way, or royalties being withheld, etc.

(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.

(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%.

(9:20.) Now you are in a position where you see the intersection point where art meets the practical world. That point is the publishing house. With painting it would be the gallery. You do not understand that your own abilities give you a far clearer picture of the “ideal,” for example. You have understood that visually you see details that others do not—simply the world at large. In the same fashion, however, you see, say, book jackets, ideal situations, in a way that the people in the business world simply do not—and you do become literally outraged when their vision proves to be so inadequate.

There was no ill intent on the part of the Dutch publisher, or the German. They wanted the books to start with because they did indeed respond to the books’ vision—but the versions they came out with represented the gap between what they understood and what they could not understand.

Give us a moment.... in a fashion Ruburt and Tam’s seemingly emotional, fairly spontaneous relationship has represented good common business sense on Ruburt’s part. Regardless of what better deals businesswise you may or may not have made in the past, both of you would have been highly discomfited by any frequent change of publishers. Part of your personal problem now is because you feel you have cut off the easy flow of creative energy into your painting and into Mass Reality, and even to some extent—on your part, now—because the contracts are unsigned, and the flow in that area momentarily is somewhat impeded.