Terms and Conditions

1. Acceptance of These Terms

These Terms and Conditions (the “Terms”) form a binding legal agreement between you (“Client,” “Author,” or “you”) and Pen & Laurel. By visiting our website, requesting a quote, signing a proposal or statement of work, submitting a deposit, or otherwise engaging Pen & Laurel for any writing, editing, design, publishing, marketing or related service, you confirm that you have read, understood and agree to be bound by these Terms, along with our Privacy Policy and Refund Policy, which are incorporated by reference.

If you do not agree to these Terms, you must not use our website or engage our services. If you are entering into these Terms on behalf of a company, estate, publishing entity or other organization, you represent that you have the authority to bind that entity, and “you” refers to that entity as well as you individually.

2. Description of Services

Pen & Laurel provides full-service book publishing support, which may include ghostwriting, co-writing, developmental and line editing, proofreading, cover design, interior formatting, ISBN and metadata assistance, self-publishing platform submission, audiobook production coordination, book marketing, author website design, and related creative and editorial services (collectively, the “Services”). The exact scope, deliverables, number of revision rounds, and timeline for any engagement are defined exclusively in the individual quote, proposal, invoice or statement of work (each, an “Order”) issued to you, not on this website.

Marketing materials, sample work, testimonials and pricing shown on our website are illustrative only and do not constitute an offer capable of acceptance. No Services are owed to you, and no Order is binding on Pen & Laurel, until we have issued a written Order and received any required deposit.

3. Eligibility & Client Accounts

You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of majority in your jurisdiction, and have the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract to use our Services. You are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of all information you give us, including contact details, billing information, and the substance of any manuscript, outline, brand information or reference material you provide (“Client Materials”).

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of any login credentials, shared drives, or project-management access we provide, and for all activity that occurs under your account or through your access.

4. Quotes, Fees & Payment Terms

All fees are quoted in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated in writing and are exclusive of any applicable taxes, currency-conversion fees, or third-party costs (for example, ISBN registration, stock photography, printing, or paid advertising spend), which remain your responsibility.

• A non-refundable deposit or retainer, as specified in your Order, is required before any work begins. Work will not commence, and no delivery date is guaranteed, until the deposit clears.
• For phased projects, each phase or milestone payment is due on the schedule stated in your Order and is a condition of moving to the next phase.
• Invoices not paid within the stated terms (or, absent stated terms, within 7 days of issue) may accrue a late fee of 1.5% per month, or the maximum rate permitted by law, and we may suspend work without liability until the account is brought current.
• We reserve the right to pause, delay, or terminate an engagement for non-payment, and any resulting delay to your publication or launch date is not attributable to Pen & Laurel.
• Chargebacks, payment reversals or “stop payments” initiated without first contacting us in writing constitute a material breach of these Terms; see Section 20 of our Refund Policy for details.

5. Project Workflow, Revisions & Timelines

Timelines provided verbally, in proposals, or in marketing materials are estimates, not guarantees, and depend heavily on your timely delivery of Client Materials, feedback, and approvals. Delay on your part will extend the delivery date by at least the length of the delay and may incur rescheduling fees if it requires us to reallocate resources.

The number of revision rounds, and what counts as a revision versus new-scope work, is defined in your Order. Requests that materially expand scope (additional word count, new chapters, a change in genre or direction, additional design concepts, etc.) will be quoted and invoiced separately as a change order before we proceed.

You agree to review deliverables and provide consolidated, actionable feedback within the window specified in your Order (or, if none is specified, within 10 business days). Silence beyond that window may be treated as approval for the purpose of moving the project to its next phase or milestone invoice.

6. Your Content, Representations & Warranties

You represent and warrant that any Client Materials you provide — including life stories, interviews, source manuscripts, brand assets, photographs, quotations, and factual claims — are either original to you, used with proper permission, or otherwise lawful for us to use in producing your Services, and do not infringe any third party’s copyright, trademark, right of publicity, right of privacy, or other intellectual property or personal right.

You are solely responsible for the truthfulness and accuracy of factual claims, biographical details, and statements about real people contained in your book, and for obtaining any releases, licenses or permissions required for content you supply. Pen & Laurel is not obligated to fact-check, verify, or independently investigate Client Materials, and undertaking limited editorial review of a claim does not shift that responsibility to us.

7. Intellectual Property & Ownership

Unless your Order states otherwise, and subject to full payment of all fees due, ownership of the final, delivered manuscript, cover design, and other bespoke creative deliverables created specifically for your project transfers to you upon final payment. Until final payment is received in full, all work product remains the exclusive property of Pen & Laurel, and no license of any kind is granted to you.

• Pen & Laurel retains ownership of, and you receive no rights to, our proprietary processes, internal templates, style guides, unused drafts and concepts not selected for your final deliverable, and any pre-existing tools, fonts, stock assets or code used to produce your Services (though we will ensure any licensed third-party assets included in your final files, such as stock photography or licensed fonts, are properly licensed for your intended use, as described in your Order).
• We may retain copies of your final deliverables for our own records, quality assurance, and legal-compliance purposes, and may use non-identifying excerpts, or identifying excerpts with your separate written consent, in our portfolio, case studies and marketing.
• Ghostwritten manuscripts are delivered as “work made for hire” to the fullest extent permitted by law once paid in full; to the extent any component is not eligible for work-for-hire treatment, Pen & Laurel assigns its rights in that component to you upon full payment.

8. Confidentiality & Ghostwriting Anonymity

We treat your manuscript, personal story, and business information as confidential, and we will not disclose your identity as a ghostwriting client, or the substance of unpublished work, to third parties without your consent, except to subcontractors bound by confidentiality obligations, or as required by law, court order, or to enforce these Terms.

Anonymity of our writers, editors and contractors is a standard feature of our ghostwriting service. Unless expressly agreed in writing, you may not require the disclosure of a contributing writer’s identity, and a writer’s decision not to be credited does not entitle you to a refund or discount.

9. No Guarantee of Results

Publishing is inherently unpredictable. Pen & Laurel does not, and cannot, guarantee sales figures, reader reviews, critical reception, bestseller-list placement, literary agent or traditional-publisher interest, social-media growth, advertising return on spend, or any other commercial or creative outcome. Statements about typical results, case studies, or past client outcomes are illustrative only and are not a promise of similar results for you.

We do not control, and are not responsible for, the editorial, algorithmic, or policy decisions of third-party platforms (including Amazon KDP, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble Press, Kobo, IngramSpark, Draft2Digital, social media platforms, or advertising networks), which may accept, reject, delay, remove, or reprice your book or advertising at their sole discretion and without notice to us.

10. Third-Party Platforms & Services

Where Services involve uploading, submitting, or registering your work on third-party platforms, you authorize Pen & Laurel to act as your limited agent for that specific purpose only. You remain the account holder (or will become one) and are responsible for accepting each platform’s own terms of service, tax forms, and royalty arrangements, which are agreements solely between you and that platform.

Any subscription, printing, advertising, stock-asset, ISBN, or software cost billed directly by a third party is your responsibility, whether or not Pen & Laurel facilitated the purchase on your behalf.

11. Prohibited Content & Acceptable Use

We may decline, pause or terminate an engagement, at our sole discretion and without refund of amounts due for work already performed, if a project involves content that is unlawful, defamatory, obscene, discriminatory, infringing, that promotes violence or self-harm, that facilitates fraud, or that we otherwise reasonably believe exposes Pen & Laurel, our contractors, or the public to legal or reputational risk.

You agree not to use our website to upload malicious code, attempt unauthorized access to our systems, scrape or resell our content, or misrepresent your identity or authority to engage our Services.

12. Cancellation & Termination

You may cancel an engagement at any time by written notice; cancellation is subject to our Refund Policy, and you remain responsible for payment of all work performed, materials produced, and non-cancelable third-party costs incurred up to the effective date of cancellation, plus any applicable cancellation fee stated in your Order.

Pen & Laurel may suspend or terminate an engagement immediately, without liability, for non-payment, abusive or threatening conduct toward our team, breach of these Terms, or a request to produce prohibited content described in Section 11. Sections that by their nature should survive termination — including payment obligations, confidentiality, intellectual property, disclaimers, indemnification, limitation of liability, and dispute resolution — survive any cancellation or termination.

13. Disclaimer of Warranties

EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY STATED IN YOUR ORDER, THE SERVICES, THE WEBSITE, AND ALL DELIVERABLES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING — TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW — ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, TITLE, OR THAT THE SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, OR MEET ANY PARTICULAR COMMERCIAL, CRITICAL, OR SALES OUTCOME.

14. Limitation of Liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, PEN & LAUREL, ITS OWNERS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS AND AFFILIATES WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, ROYALTIES, GOODWILL, ANTICIPATED SALES, OR DATA, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICES OR THESE TERMS, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

OUR TOTAL, CUMULATIVE LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANY AND ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICES OR THESE TERMS, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT, OR OTHERWISE, WILL NOT EXCEED THE TOTAL FEES YOU ACTUALLY PAID TO PEN & LAUREL FOR THE SPECIFIC ORDER GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM IN THE 12 MONTHS PRECEDING THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO LIABILITY. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations on liability, so some of the above limitations may not apply to you; in that case, our liability is limited to the greatest extent permitted by applicable law.

15. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Pen & Laurel, its owners, employees, contractors and affiliates from and against any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or related to: (a) Client Materials you provide, including any claim that they infringe or misappropriate a third party’s rights or are defamatory or unlawful; (b) your breach of these Terms or of any representation or warranty you make; (c) your use of the Services or published Work in violation of law; or (d) your interactions with third-party platforms, contractors or readers arising from your book.

16. Dispute Resolution & Arbitration

We encourage you to contact us first at connect@penandlaurel.com so we can try to resolve any concern directly; most issues are resolved faster this way than through formal proceedings.

If a dispute cannot be resolved informally within 30 days, both parties agree that it will be resolved by binding, individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Commercial Arbitration Rules (or its Consumer Arbitration Rules where those rules require), before a single arbitrator, seated in King County, Washington, conducted in English, and decided under the law chosen in Section 17, rather than in court. The arbitrator’s award is final and binding and may be entered as a judgment in any court of competent jurisdiction, except that either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court if it qualifies, and either party may seek injunctive relief in court to protect intellectual property or confidential information.

Class action waiver: To the extent permitted by law, you and Pen & Laurel each agree that any proceeding will be conducted only on an individual basis and not as part of a class, consolidated, or representative action.

17. Governing Law & Venue

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles, except where mandatory consumer-protection law of your own jurisdiction applies. Subject to Section 16, the state and federal courts located in that state have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute not subject to arbitration, and you consent to personal jurisdiction there.

18. Force Majeure

Neither party is liable for delay or failure to perform caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including natural disaster, act of God, war, terrorism, civil unrest, labor dispute, internet or utility outage, third-party platform outage or policy change, pandemic, or governmental action. The affected party will notify the other and resume performance as soon as reasonably practicable.

19. Independent Contractor Relationship

Pen & Laurel and its writers, editors and designers act as independent contractors in providing the Services. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, joint venture, agency (except the limited platform-submission agency described in Section 10), or employment relationship between you and Pen & Laurel or any of its contractors.

20. General Provisions

• Entire Agreement. These Terms, together with your Order, Privacy Policy and Refund Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and Pen & Laurel regarding the Services and supersede any prior proposals, discussions or agreements on the same subject.
• Severability. If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary, and the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect.
• No Waiver. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of our right to do so later.
• Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent; we may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
• Notices. Legal notices to Pen & Laurel must be sent in writing to the email address in Section 29.
• No Reliance. You have not relied on any statement, promise, projection, estimate or example of results — spoken or written, by a salesperson, writer, editor or anyone else — that is not set out in these Terms or your written Order.
• Order of Precedence. If documents conflict, your signed Order governs scope, price and deliverables; the Refund Policy governs refunds, cancellations and chargebacks; and these Terms govern everything else.
• Interpretation. Headings are for convenience only; “including” means “including without limitation”; and no provision will be construed against Pen & Laurel because we drafted it.

21. Electronic Communications, Signatures & Records

You agree that Orders, proposals, approvals and notices may be provided and accepted electronically. Clicking to accept, replying to confirm, signing through an e-signature tool, paying an invoice, or instructing us to begin work each constitutes your electronic signature, with the same effect as a handwritten signature under the U.S. Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act and the Washington Uniform Electronic Transactions Act.

• Written approval includes approval given by email, text message, chat, project-management tool comment or e-signature;
• Calls and meetings may be recorded or transcribed for quality, training, accuracy of your project brief and dispute resolution; we will tell you at the start of a recorded call, and continuing the call is your consent;
• Our business records — including emails, chat logs, call notes, delivery logs, file-access logs, version histories and payment records — are accurate evidence of what was agreed, delivered and approved, and may be relied on in any refund review, payment dispute, arbitration or court proceeding.

22. Client Conduct & Communication

We work best with respectful, timely communication. Our team responds during business hours (Monday to Friday, excluding U.S. federal holidays) within the timeframes in your Order. Harassment, threats, abusive language, discriminatory remarks, or attempts to contact our writers or contractors outside the channels we provide are a material breach of these Terms and may result in immediate suspension or termination under Section 12, without refund of amounts paid for work performed.

You agree not to solicit, hire or engage directly any writer, editor, designer, narrator or other contractor introduced to you through Pen & Laurel for 24 months after your last Order without our written consent; if you do, you agree to pay a placement fee equal to 50% of the fees paid to Pen & Laurel for the Order through which you were introduced.

23. Use of Technology & AI Tools

Your book is written, edited, designed and reviewed by people. Like most professional firms, we may use software tools in our workflow — for example transcription of interviews, research, grammar and consistency checking, file conversion, project management and, where helpful, AI-assisted tools for tasks such as summarizing notes or suggesting alternatives — always under the direction and review of our team, and never by uploading your unpublished manuscript to a public tool that trains on submitted content.

• Automated “AI-detection” and originality-scoring tools are unreliable and are not a measure of how a work was produced; a score from such a tool is not evidence of a breach and is not a basis for a refund or claim;
• If you supply text, images or other material created with AI tools, you are responsible for your rights to use it and for any platform disclosure requirements;
• Platform rules on AI-generated content (for example, disclosure questions on Amazon KDP) are answered by you as the account holder; we will tell you, on request, which tools were used on your project.

24. Reviews, Testimonials & Public Statements

You are free to share your honest opinion of our Services, and nothing in these Terms restricts truthful reviews or your right to contact any government agency. You are responsible for your own public statements; statements of fact about Pen & Laurel, our team or contractors must be true, and you must not disclose confidential information of ours or of our contractors. Any testimonial you provide may be used by us in our marketing, in the form you approved, until you withdraw permission in writing.

25. Time Limit to Bring Claims

To the fullest extent permitted by law, any claim or cause of action arising out of or relating to the Services, an Order or these Terms must be brought — by written notice under Section 16 followed, if unresolved, by an arbitration demand — within one (1) year after the claim arose. A claim not brought within that period is permanently barred. This does not apply to our claims for unpaid fees, which may be brought at any time permitted by law.

26. Collection Costs & Attorneys’ Fees

If we must take action to collect unpaid fees, or to recover amounts reversed through a chargeback or payment dispute, you agree to pay our reasonable collection costs, agency fees, payment-processor dispute fees, and attorneys’ fees, in addition to the amount owed and any late fees. In any arbitration or legal proceeding arising from these Terms or an Order, the prevailing party is entitled to recover its reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs, except where applicable law or the arbitration rules provide otherwise.

27. Waiver of Jury Trial

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, FOR ANY DISPUTE THAT IS NOT RESOLVED BY ARBITRATION UNDER SECTION 16 AND PROCEEDS IN COURT, YOU AND PEN & LAUREL EACH KNOWINGLY AND VOLUNTARILY WAIVE ANY RIGHT TO A TRIAL BY JURY.

28. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time to reflect changes in our Services, legal requirements, or business practices. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision. Material changes will apply prospectively to new Orders; changes will not retroactively alter the terms of an Order already signed and in progress unless required by law or agreed by both parties in writing. Continued use of our website or Services after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

29. Contact Us

Questions about these Terms should be directed to:

• Pen & Laurel, a Desverso LLC company
• Email: connect@penandlaurel.com
• Address: 2135 112th Ave NE Ste 201, Bellevue, WA 98004
• Attn: Legal / Client Services