“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane immediately called Tam, to learn that, ironically, all of the bigwigs at Prentice-Hall are in Europe, attending the book fair at Frankfurt, Germany, I believe is where it is. It appears that we can do little until the 22nd of October, although I plan to start writing letters before that. I bitterly resent the cutting in the first place, and the time that will be spent away from Mass Events, now, as I do all the work necessary to make our points. Jane finally agrees that we must take certain actions now in our professional lives, and we don’t know what will happen. I can only think at this writing [on the 14th] that we must do all we can to stop such practices by foreign publishers, or we’ll surely regret it deeply in the years to come. We definitely know we’ve been taken advantage of, but basically feel it is Prentice-Hall’s fault for not checking the work in progress.

(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.

Now: Good evening.

My own position cannot be as immediate as your own. I respect your emotional reactions whatever they are, and your right to them. (Loudly and amused:) Seth, it seems, speaks a bit more briefly in Dutch than he does in English —but the material is there, and if the Dutch have cut it, or your notes, it is, in the most basic of terms, now, their loss.

Of course, probabilities always operate, and I am speaking now of the situation as it stands. Prentice has also given Ruburt some considerable freedom, with the exception of Emir, to write a variety of different kinds of books—something that some larger corporations might well indeed not do.

He will shortly find that some days he can walk fairly easily—perhaps 10 steps—in that manner, or maybe even twice in one day, while for a few days in between he is not in good-enough balance. I would suggest walking three times a day now, as he has been doing, but one more time.