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[How This Book Came To Be, A Letter From Thaddeus Golas Part 5]
I got wonderful fan letters, some from people who said that while reading they suddenly found themselves out of their bodies. I don't know how I managed to achieve this, so I am reluctant to change a word of the book, even though I know now it was an error to speak of "rapid vibrating" as a high state of consciousness. The book communicates the reality of the spirit, beyond the literal meaning of its sentences.
The book was selling so fast it was obvious by the first week of August 1972 that a second printing would be necessary at once. (One store in Palo Alto sold six hundred copies during July.) When I suggested this to Joe C, he said he had to go camping in the Sierras for a weekend to cool out. He had never paid the last half of the printing bill and was out of money, though he would not say so. Of course, I never saw any royalties. He left for the weekend and did not come back for three weeks.
When he returned, he was still disorganized. I gave him another week to get started on the second printing, and then sent him a registered letter dissolving our agreement on the grounds that he was not performing his responsibilities as a publisher. For the time being, the future of the book was in limbo.
I left the house where I had been staying in San Rafael and moved back to 1541 California Street in San Francisco. The manager remembered me and let me have a room even though I would not have the week's rent for a few days, when I got my VA check. Returning there felt like a disastrous retreat. I had no money and no prospect of keeping the book in print. The future was deep black. But coming back was the luckiest move I could have made, because 1541 California was the address in the Guide.
One evening someone knocked on my door and said I had a call on the hall phone. It was Deray Norton calling. He had just been told by Book People that the book was out of print. (Deray had added a room onto the back of the Plowshare Bookstore in Palo Alto, stocking it with metaphysical books and naming it Seed Center. It was he who sold six hundred copies of my book in July.) I told him briefly what had happened, and he said he would take up the publishing.
Deray, along with his lady Sura, came to visit, and I explained the Joe C. situation in more detail. Deray was satisfied there was no legal impediment to taking over the book. Deray and Sura were both drop-out Mormons, whom I have found the most reliable people to do business with. Deray had taught economics and had done well in the stock market but left that career to work in the bookstore.
Fortunately, he was able to get the page negatives from the printer and made an arrangement with another printer in San Jose to produce twenty thousand copies, specifying better paper and cover stock. He made this deal on a handshake, not even paying any money until returns from sales came in months later. He paid me a royalty of 10 percent, which he later increased to 15 percent retroactively on his own initiative. He has always been an exquisite bookkeeper, and on this score I could not have been more fortunate. Like a good angel, he saved the Guide.
How This Book Came To Be
A Letter From Thaddeus Golas
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Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment Contents
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