Alan Earney, October 15, 1963

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters

142 Columbia Heights

Brooklyn 1, New York

October 15, 1963

Dear Alan,

I was quite pleased with the cover of Advertisements that you put out. You really do good jackets over at Corgi, and if Advertisements doesn’t do well, the physical production of the book can hardly be blamed.

But now I have a bit of news which I expect will prove upsetting to you. Caught in a financial situation which seemed to offer no issue, I talked Walter Minton into releasing me for one novel, and I’m now going to do a serial which will be printed in ten-thousand-word installments over the next eight months. I also signed a contract with Dial and Dell for hard cover and paperback rights and they agreed to pay a vast, indeed an unbelievable sum for the book. As part of the arrangements they insisted upon buying the English paperback rights for a paperback company which is their subsidiary or associate in England. I did my best to try to strike this last clause, because as I say I’ve been quite pleased with the way you’ve presented my books. In fact, as I all but told Victor Weybright, you were doing a tastier job. But the amount of money was so vast and indeed the amount offered by the English paperback company was so great, that I was not able to afford to refuse this extra specification of the English rights. Indeed there was not even opportunity to consult you, for the transaction took place in a record forty-eight hours. The wheeling and dealing was much like Hollywood. While I know this news can give you small pleasure, I would like to repeat that I have no ill feeling towards your house—quite the contrary—and expect that we’ll be together again after this serial is published.

Cordially,

Norman Mailer

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