Terms of Service

01Who these terms are for

By using https://theauthoroffice.com (the "site") you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the site. When you hire us, your signed proposal records your acceptance of these terms for the work it covers.

You must be at least 18 years old to use the consultation form or to hire us. The site is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you are under 18 and have a book in you, ask a parent or guardian to get in touch for you.

"We", "us" and "the studio" mean The Author Office. "You" means the person reading this, and, once we are working together, the author.

The site exists to tell you about our services and to let you ask for a free consultation. Reading it, filling in the form, or taking the call does not create a contract for services and does not cost anything. Services are agreed only in a written proposal signed by both of us.

02What we do, and where the details live

We are a book-publishing-services studio for first-time authors. Depending on what your book needs, we offer:

• Ghostwriting. We interview you, structure the book, and write it in your voice. You approve every chapter.
• Editing. Developmental, line, copy and proof editing of a manuscript you have written.
• Cover design. The jacket, the cover under it, and the spine your name sits on.
• Interior typesetting. Page layout, typography and margins for print and e-book.
• Publishing and distribution setup. ISBN, listings and accounts with retailers and distributors such as Amazon KDP, IngramSpark and Barnes & Noble.
• Hardcover printing. Proofs first, then the run: cloth, foil, dust jacket and paper stock of your choosing.
• Audiobook. Narration, mastering and delivery to audiobook platforms.
• Launch marketing. Author website, press outreach, review outreach and advertising built around your release date. We send review copies and ask; we never buy, write or trade for reviews.

Every book is different, so none of this is sold off a menu. After the free consultation we send a written proposal that sets out exactly which services you are buying, the scope of each, the schedule, the number of revision rounds, the price, and the payment milestones. That proposal, once we have both signed it, is the contract for the work.

Payment

You never pay for the consultation, and you never pay before you have a signed proposal in hand. Payments are made in the milestones listed in the proposal. Work on a milestone begins once its payment has cleared, and each stage is delivered as the proposal describes. If a milestone payment is late, the next stage waits until it arrives, and we will tell you before anything stops.

Some services involve costs we pay to other companies on your behalf, such as ISBN registration, distribution setup fees, printing or advertising spend. The proposal lists these separately so you can see what is ours and what is passed through.

03Your side of the desk

A book is a collaboration, and a few things have to come from you. When you work with us, you agree that:

• The material is yours to give us. You own, or have the right to use, every manuscript, story, photograph, document and quotation you hand us. If part of it belongs to someone else, you have their permission.
• It is honest and lawful. You will not ask us to copy another author's work, to present someone else's writing as yours, or to publish anything that is defamatory, invades another person's privacy, or breaks the law.
• You tell us the truth about the book. If your memoir names real people, if you are writing about a former employer, or if a story could get someone in trouble, tell us. We will help you handle it carefully.
• You answer when the book needs you. Interviews, chapter approvals, proof sign-offs and feedback keep the schedule alive. If we are waiting on you, the dates in the proposal move with you, and we will say so in writing.
• You keep your own copies. We keep working copies while the project runs, but the originals you give us should stay safe with you too.

We may decline, or stop, work on content that we reasonably believe is unlawful, plagiarized, or likely to harm someone. If that happens mid-project, the Refund & Cancellation Policy explains what you are owed.

04You own your book

We are the studio, not the owner. This is the part of the agreement we care about most, so here it is without hedging.

• Copyright is yours. Everything we write, edit, design or produce for you under a signed proposal is created for you, and your signed proposal includes a written assignment of copyright to you, signed by us. Copyright in each piece of work passes to you when we deliver it. If a payment for it is still open, you may keep and use it; we will not take it back, though we may pause further work until it is settled.
• We take only what we need to do the job. While we are working, you give us a limited, non-exclusive license to copy, edit and share your material inside the studio and with the printers, narrators, retailers and other partners needed to produce and distribute the book. That license ends when the work does.
• Royalties are yours. Every dollar your book earns from sales, subscriptions, licensing or anything else is yours. We take no share of it, now or later.
• Your name on the spine, your ISBN, your accounts. Wherever a platform allows it, you open the publishing and distribution accounts yourself, in your name, and the ISBN is registered to you. If a platform makes us publish from our own account, we move the book, its ISBN, its files and its earnings to an account in your name as soon as the platform allows, and we never keep a listing you have asked us to hand over. If a platform pays us money that belongs to you, we pass it on in full, with the platform's own statement so you can check it, and we never deduct our fees from it. The payment schedule for that is written in your proposal.
• Your files come home. When the project ends you always receive the final manuscript, print-ready files and cover artwork. Working source files are listed in the proposal.
• Portfolio use only with your written permission. We will not show your cover, your pages or your name as an example of our work unless you say yes in writing. You can say no, or change your mind, at any time.

The things that stay with us are small and sensible: our templates, tools, processes, and any know-how we bring to every book. We also keep the right to use fonts, stock images and software under the licenses their makers grant, which we pass along to you as far as those licenses allow.

05Other companies in the picture

Getting a book into the world takes more than one studio. Retailers, distributors, printers and audio platforms (for example Amazon KDP, IngramSpark, Barnes & Noble, Audible and the printers we use) are separate companies. They have their own terms, their own fees, their own content rules and their own timelines, and we do not control them.

Wherever a platform allows it, you open the account yourself, in your name, and you agree to that company's terms as the account holder. We sit with you while you do it, prepare everything that goes into it, and walk you through what you are agreeing to. Where a platform offers a way for helpers like us to work inside your account, we use that; where it does not, you make the final clicks with us on the call. We never hold your passwords. Some platforms do not let an account change hands; where that is so, we move your book, its files and its earnings to an account in your name as soon as the platform allows, rather than promising to hand over the account itself. If a platform rejects, delays or removes a book for reasons of its own, we will help you respond, but we cannot override their decision.

Fees we pay to these companies on your behalf are listed in your proposal and are governed by the Refund & Cancellation Policy.

06What we cannot promise

We will make your book as good as we know how, on the schedule and to the standard set out in your proposal. But some outcomes are not in anyone's hands, and we will never claim otherwise. We do not guarantee:

• any number of sales, downloads or listens;
• a place on any bestseller list, chart or ranking;
• reviews, ratings, press coverage, awards or prizes;
• placement in any bookstore, library or catalog;
• acceptance by a traditional publisher, agent or distributor;
• any amount of income, royalties or return on what you spend.

Anyone in this business who guarantees those things is not telling you the truth. The only dates we commit to are the ones written in your signed proposal, and they depend on both of us keeping to our parts of the schedule. Anything we say in conversation, on the site or in marketing about typical timelines is an estimate, not a promise.

07Staying in touch

When you send the consultation form, you tick a box agreeing to be contacted by The Author Office by phone, text or email about your book. Here is what that means in practice:

• Consent is not a condition of purchase. You can work with us without agreeing to texts or calls; just email us instead. The box covers calls, texts and email together. If you want calls but not texts, tick it and tell the producer on the first call, or reply STOP to the first text.
• To stop text messages, reply STOP to any message. Reply HELP for help. Message frequency varies. To stop emails, reply with the word unsubscribe or write to us. Emails about an active project, such as proofs and invoices, continue until the work is finished. To stop calls, tell us once and we will note it.
• Message and data rates from your carrier may apply to texts.
• If we ever send texts or calls through an automated system or with a recorded voice, we will say so in the consent wording on the form before we start, so you know exactly what you are agreeing to.
• We contact you about your book, and nothing else. We do not sell or share your contact details for other companies' marketing.

What we collect on the site, what we do with it, where it is stored and the choices you have are all set out in the Privacy Policy. The short version: the form collects only what we need to call you back, and the site sets no advertising or analytics cookies today.

08Cancellation and refunds

You can change your mind. How much comes back to you depends on where the project is: before any work has started, once work is under way, and after a print order has gone to the printer are each handled differently, and fees we have already paid to other companies on your behalf are treated on their own.

The exact rules, the time limits and how to ask are all in the Refund & Cancellation Policy. It is part of these terms. We keep the numbers in one place so they are always current, and this page does not repeat them.

Whatever happens, the work we have delivered to you stays yours, as the section on owning your book explains.

09The limits of our responsibility

The site

The site is provided as it is, for information. We try to keep it accurate and available, but we do not promise that it will always be online, free of errors, or free of anything harmful, and we may change or remove any part of it at any time. Links to other sites are for convenience; we are not responsible for what is on them.

The services

We promise to do the work described in your proposal with reasonable skill and care. Apart from that and the promises in the Refund & Cancellation Policy, and to the extent the law allows, we make no other warranty, including any implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose (the promises the law would otherwise read into a sale). Printed copies are different: the reprint promise in the Refund & Cancellation Policy is our written warranty on them, and we do not disclaim the warranties the law gives you on printed goods, and nothing in these terms shortens them. The section above on what we cannot promise applies here too.

How much we can be responsible for

To the extent the law allows, our total responsibility to you for any claim connected with the site or the services is limited to the fees you paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose. We are not responsible for indirect, incidental, special or consequential losses, which includes lost sales, lost royalties, lost profits, lost data or the cost of a replacement service. This cap never reduces a refund you are owed under the Refund & Cancellation Policy, or money we are holding that belongs to you.

Nothing in these terms limits our responsibility for fraud, for gross negligence or willful misconduct, or for anything the law does not allow us to limit. Some states do not allow some of the limits above. If you live in one, those limits apply only as far as your state's law permits, and you may have other rights that these terms do not take away.

Your content

This part applies if someone brings a claim against us because of material you gave us: for example, that it copies their work, defames them or reveals something private.

In that case you agree to cover our reasonable costs of dealing with the claim, including legal fees, to the extent the claim comes from your material rather than from our own mistake.

In return, we will tell you promptly about any such claim, and we will not settle it in a way that affects you without talking to you first.

10Governing law and disputes

These terms, as they apply to the services, are governed by the law of the state named in your signed proposal. For anything about the site itself, the law of the state where you live applies. If your signed proposal names a way of resolving disputes, the proposal controls for the work it covers.

Most problems are misunderstandings, and most misunderstandings can be fixed with a conversation. So before either of us brings a claim, we each agree to write to the other describing the problem and what would put it right, and to spend at least 30 days trying in good faith to settle it. You can write to us at hello@theauthoroffice.com; we will write to the email address on your proposal.

If 30 days pass and we are still apart, either of us may bring a claim. Nothing here stops you from using small-claims court in the place where you live, if your claim qualifies, or from contacting a consumer protection agency. This does not take away any right you have under your card agreement or consumer law; we only ask that you write to us first.

11Changes and housekeeping

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. When we do, we change the effective date at the top of this page, and for anything significant we will say what changed. Using the site after the new date means you accept the new terms. A proposal you have already signed stays under the terms that were in force when you signed it, unless we both agree in writing to move it.

The whole agreement

These terms, together with the Privacy Policy and the Refund & Cancellation Policy, are the whole agreement between you and us about the site. Your signed proposal, together with these terms, is the whole agreement about the services. Anything said in a conversation, on social media or in marketing that is not written into one of those documents is not part of the agreement.

If part of this fails

If a court decides that any part of these terms cannot be enforced, that part is trimmed to the smallest change that makes it enforceable, or removed, and the rest stays in force. If we do not enforce a term on one occasion, we can still enforce it later.

Passing the agreement on

Because the work is personal to you and your book, you may not transfer your proposal to someone else without our written agreement. We may transfer our side to a successor that carries on the studio, and we will tell you if we do; your rights in your book are not affected either way.

12Contact

Questions about these terms, a proposal, or anything else on this page: email hello@theauthoroffice.com. We try to reply within two business days. To ask about a book, the quickest route is the consultation form at /#consult.

Legal notices to The Author Office should be sent to the same email address, with "Legal notice" in the subject line, so they reach the right person. We will give you a mailing address for paper notices in every proposal and on request.