Terms and conditions

These terms and conditions apply to any work I (Sanderling Editorial) do for you (the client).

You are under no obligation to offer me work, and I am under no obligation to accept work offered to me.

I will provide services as mutually agreed, confirmed in writing by you.

Our communication in writing via email, where deadlines, fees and type of service are specified, constitutes a valid contract.

The work will be carried out unsupervised at such times and places as I see fit, using my own equipment.

I confirm that I am self-employed, responsible for my own income tax and similar contributions, and for paying VAT (where applicable).

All work will be carried out by me, without any subcontracting.

I normally charge a flat fee for the job, but some jobs will require charging by the hour.

My copyediting and proofreading services include one round of implementing minor changes in response to queries but not an extra round of checking the whole manuscript.

The completed work will be delivered on or before the date agreed, for the agreed fee, and in the agreed medium and format.

If, however, on receipt of the item to be worked on or at an early stage, it becomes apparent that significantly more work is required than had been anticipated in the preliminary discussion, I may renegotiate the fee, the deadline, or both. This can also happen when the sample that the original quote was based on is not representative of the quality of the work as a whole.

Similarly, if you request additional tasks, I may renegotiate the fee, the deadline, or both.

If the project is lengthy, I may invoice periodically for completed stages.

Any content I create as part of the copyediting or proofreading process will become your copyright after full payment, unless otherwise agreed.

I will not take any responsibility for legal actions arising from the Client’s writing (e.g. copyright infringement, libel).

You are responsible for the factual content of your work.

The nature and content of your work will be kept confidential and not made known to anyone without prior written permission. I can sign NDAs for added reassurance, if necessary.

If particular details of my work are unsatisfactory, I will rectify them in my own time and at my own expense. However, perfection is impossible to achieve, and I (like most experienced editorial professionals) make no promises of a 100% perfect, completely error-free finished product.

Edits are suggestions. It is your responsibility as the author to review and accept or decline them as you see fit.

Unless agreed otherwise at the outset, payment will be made within 30 days of receipt of my invoice.

The information that I may keep on record is covered by the terms of the General Data Protection Regulation. No more such information will be held than is necessary, at any time, to comply with those terms and with any compliance statement or privacy policy. We agree that, where consent is required to hold or process such data, such consent has been requested and obtained and both facts can be demonstrated. Either may view the other’s records to ensure that they are relevant, correct and up to date.

We both have the right to unilaterally terminate a contract for services if there is a serious breach of its terms.

I am entitled to invoice and be paid proportionally for work done up to that point if the contract is terminated due to a serious breach of its terms on your part.

I may use your name in my promotional material.

I may ask you for a testimonial, including your name and relevant professional information (e.g. place of work, works written), to be used on my website and any other promotional material. You are under no obligation to provide this.

I will not post a public review of your work once it’s published. There are ethical considerations around this, and it breaches the terms of use of certain websites (e.g. Amazon), which could get you in trouble. I am normally happy to help out a little with promotion (e.g. telling my Twitter followers about books I’ve worked on and retweeting news about the book).

You are not required to credit me in the acknowledgements. If you would like to credit me, you should let me know and allow me to review the mention prior to publication. I may decline to be mentioned.