“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane also discussed with Tam a number of points growing out of our last royalty statements; some of these are quite legitimate gripes that we’ve kept quiet about for some time. Her implications to Tam were clear enough—we hope: that for the first time she was thinking of alternate courses of action to being published by Prentice-Hall, perhaps trying other publishers, Eleanor Friede among them. I was all for that, I told her. During the week after the Dutch edition arrived, we received from Tam the contracts for God of Jane and Mass Events, both of which contain phrases and clauses in an effort to get around Prentice-Hall’s habit of withholding percentages of earnings against returns. She told Tam she wouldn’t sign them, nor do I want her to. Prentice-Hall even wants to apply any losses for God of Jane against Mass Events after 18 months, in an effort to make one book pay for another! As it is, Prentice-Hall is now applying earnings from the paperback Politics against the hardcover losses—a method Tam says is common in the trade, but which I think is ethically dishonest, to say the least. They did the same thing with Adventures; in this case, that action wiped the board clean for the hardcover Adventures, and even showed a small profit from the paperback sales. But still, it costs us. I view such tactics as the publisher’s way of guaranteeing their publishing costs with no risk to themselves. Instead of charging hardcover losses against taxes as a business expense, say, they charge the author for them; this means they do not have to pay the author any royalties on paperback sales, for at least several years. I don’t think Jane yet grasps the implications here.

In the dream they both stood for completely different attitudes of your own, and here you see them objectified in your separate parents—for you do indeed identify those different tendencies with your parents to a strong extent.

I do not want to upset you, but if the Dutch may cut a bit here and there, you might find that any French or Spanish translation might add a flourish here or there.

(But not from me, I told Jane the other night. I think that here Seth referred to Jane’s and my upset over the small amount of her royalty check this fall, and the way Prentice-Hall has taken to withholding certain percentages of profits against returns.)

(Is Seth saying here that Jane and I actually created, or wanted, the foul up with the Dutch edition? I should have asked, but Jane’s delivery was rather fast; nor did I particularly think of it, let alone not being in the mood.)