Terms and Conditions
By working with the Editor (Taija Morgan of T.Morgan Editing Services), the Author and/or Publisher (terms used interchangeably henceforth) agrees without reservation to the legally binding Terms and Conditions laid out below, which are subject to change without notice:
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
PAYMENT AND LIMITATIONS
DIVISION OF RESPONSIBILITIES
ERROR DETECTION RATES AND RESOLVING CONCERNS
SOFTWARE: ISSUES, REQUIREMENTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
INDEMNIFICATION AND LEGAL LIABILITIES
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- All material to be edited remains the intellectual property of the work's Author. The editing service provider is not responsible for the content or end use of any material supplied and reserves the right to return or reject any material that is illegal or deemed to be inappropriate.
- All work is handled with discretion and will not be disclosed or distributed by the editing service provider without express permission from the author.
PAYMENT AND LIMITATIONS
- The quoted price of manuscript editing includes and is limited to one hour per one thousand words. In the event that the work requires more significant editing than is possible in this timeframe, the editing service provider will complete the maximum number of hours allotted to the project and any additional hours will be billed separately after consultation with the work's Author.
- The Author agrees to pay the Editor the agreed upon amount within the timeframe negotiated or as indicated on the invoice provided by the Editor, either in one bulk payment or by paying half upfront and the remainder upon completion of the project and return of the manuscript.
- If the Editor is unable to complete the editing project, for any reason other than the Author's interference and unrelated to the Author, and must willingly relinquish the project, the Editor will provide a full refund.
DIVISION OF RESPONSIBILITIES
- The aim of all Editors is to revise text in order to improve it. Depending on the scale of a project, an editor can have a significant influence on a manuscript or other piece of writing. When it comes to content editing, the editor does not make large scale alterations themselves, but may often suggest such alterations to the author of the text in order to repair issues with such things as plot holes, inconsistencies, characterization, suspension of disbelief, and so on. In these cases, the Editor returns the edited document with suggested substantial revisions and leaves the pursuit of these revisions in the hands of the author.
- In the case of copy (also known as “line”) editing, an Editor suggests alterations to the text at a very small word-level scale. These changes are generally tracked, and when they are not tracked they will be otherwise noted. Such changes may include things like punctuation, spelling (including conformity to Canadian, UK, or American English, and so on), suggested changes to sentence structure, POV, tense inconsistencies, word usage, and other minute alterations that as a whole contribute vastly to the overall readability of a text and the enjoyability of the reading experience for the reader. In combination, content and copy editing work together to ensure a professional end product. The Editor will make and generally track such changes but it remains the responsibility of the Author to accept these changes.
- If the Author chooses to undertake substantial or even minor revisions post-edit, the Author accepts the inevitability of introducing new errors into their document. This will be the case even if the document is reviewed by other readers who wish to submit their own suggested alterations to the text post-edit; every alteration of the text, however minor, inevitably risks the introduction of new errors. As such, it is recommended that prior to printing or final publication, the Author engages a specialist proofreader to review a book (or other text) for remaining or introduced errors.
- Once leaving the Editor’s care, the Author is responsible for ensuring that all recommendations made by the editor are accepted (the Editor acknowledges that the Author is at complete liberty to reject suggested changes and even encourages the Author to do so if the Author feels the changes may impede upon the Author’s intended meaning, style, or voice).
- Unaccepted changes may result in accepted errors; and in rejecting changes, this is a risk the author accepts.
ERROR DETECTION RATES AND RESOLVING CONCERNS
- Although the Editor works to extremely high professional standards, editors are still human and it is impossible to catch every single error in a document. For major publishing houses, one book will be reviewed by several editors and proofreaders before print, and the expectation is that it will still have an error every few pages. In the case of freelance Editors, they are often the only Editor for a client’s work. The Editor maintains an extremely high error-detection rate. A few errors are inevitable, particularly once a manuscript leaves an Editor’s hands, and often what one person may perceive as an error is, in fact, a stylistic choice. The Editor takes every measure to ensure that the document is edited to the highest professional standards, but it remains the author’s responsibility to ensure that the final product is as carefully prepared as possible.
- Copy editing and content editing are not equivalent to pre-print proofreading and require very different skillsets. After delving so deeply into the plot and characters of a manuscript for multiple passes, Editors (like Authors) become less able to spot surface typos. That’s why content editors and copy editors tend to be the people who see a manuscript in the middle of the publishing process, not at the end. They suggest important revisions to bring a story up to a higher level, and there tend to be revisions made after their involvement with the manuscript—sometimes multiple drafts occur between content and copy editing and the final pre-print proofread of a book. As such, it is recommended (though certainly not required) that a pre-print proofreader look at the print-ready, formatted book before it is taken to print, for one final sweep to catch any typos that may have slipped through.
- If the Author feels that the editing of their manuscript has not lived up to their expectations the Author is responsible for bringing the matter to the Editor’s attention within 30 days of the edit so that the matter can be rectified. The Editor will address their concerns at no charge to the Author, within the Editor’s available timeframe. Refunds will not be granted, but mutually negotiated resolution of the problem will be undertaken under most circumstances until the Author is satisfied with their results. It is best to bring concerns to the Editor as quickly as possible, as in most circumstances the cause of the concern ends up being a technical document conversion issue in which the edits are not showing up properly or there’s simply a misunderstanding pertaining to style guides that can be easily fixed. The editor is always happy to discuss edits with the Author at no charge through email.
SOFTWARE: ISSUES, REQUIREMENTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
- Any computer software or hardware glitches or compatibility issues must be addressed during the editing process. If edits are lost or the document is compromised due to computer issues and this is not brought up to the editor to be resolved during the editing process, the editor cannot be held responsible for any quality issues that may arise as a result. Please bring up any concerns immediately and without hesitation for prompt resolution.
- It is the responsibility of the author to utilize MS Word properly to accept changes and make them permanent in the document and, if needed, to ask for assistance in this process during editing. Failure to do so may result in loss of edits and, therefore, and a low-quality manuscript. It is imperative that all changes be accepted using MS Track Changes to be made permanent in the document and the author accepts full responsibility for doing so.
- Due to the nature of computer-based editing, the editor also recommends the author complete a final, careful read-through of their manuscript after all changes have been accepted to ensure no errors were introduced by MS Word’s Tracked Changes program.
INDEMNIFICATION AND LEGAL LIABILITIES
- The editor is indemnified from any harm or financial and/or non-financial loss associated with a project; errors in the final deliverable; damage to property or people (including readers); direct or indirect forms of harm associated with the project; and any extenuating expenses that may arise in association with the editor’s involvement in the project.
- The editor is not liable for any errors, omissions, or text issues (including typos, incorrect information, unclear meaning, confusion from punctuation or other text issues, etc.), and any such liability falls to the content creator or publisher.
- The content creator or publisher is responsible for ensuring the text is accurate and for final approval of text before printing.
- The editor is responsible only for improving the text as much as possible.
- The editor is not responsible for, and therefore indemnified from, any form of third-party infringement, copyright infringement, use of material in the work for which permission was not granted, or any associated damages to the publisher or the owner of the content or external sources.
- The Professional Editorial Standards of Editors Canada (Standard A9.1) states that an editor should flag potential legal concerns when possible and when known, but the standards do not go on to give the editor more responsibility. Editors do not have authority to enforce changes to address plagiarism or content use, nor final approval of material prior to publication. As such, the editor is completely indemnified from legal responsibility related to a client’s or author’s text.
- The editor is further indemnified for any issues arising regarding plagiarism, fraud, or libel.
- The author is singularly and completely responsible for the content, end use, and quality of their work.