The agreement
Read the contract before you're in one
Every engagement here runs on one standard agreement plus the writer's own terms. This page is the standard text in full, readable before you have an account.
What the writer sets
Scope · §1
What the book is, what gets delivered, how many revision rounds are included, and the delivery date if you fix one.
Price and stages · §3
The total, how it splits into two to six stages, and what the client receives at each one. We never price your work.
Rights · §4
Full assignment, credited collaboration, or rights language you write yourself, which replaces ours entirely.
Your own terms · §7
A section that is yours. Whatever the standard text doesn't cover about how you work goes here, word for word, with the same weight as everything above it.
What the platform fixes
The hold
Each stage payment is held from the moment it's paid until the client approves that stage, or releases automatically if they go quiet.
The fee
Our percentage of each stage, recorded at acceptance so a later rate change never touches a contract underway.
The freeze
Acceptance snapshots the exact words. Nobody edits a signed agreement, including us. Changes are change orders, signed by both.
The review
The client's right to review anonymously once the whole contract is paid. It's the credential this place exists for.
The finish line
The process here ends at the finished manuscript. Publishing, printing, and launch are the author's. A contract can also cover just the start: a paid book plan, or a proposal with sample chapters, each a complete engagement of its own.
The full text
SPECIMEN · THE $78,000 MEMOIR, AT SIGNING · VALUES IN ‹BRACKETS› AND THE STAGE FIGURES ARE ILLUSTRATIVE
NOTICE: This document is a working draft pending review by a lawyer. It is provided so both parties can see the terms they are agreeing to in the platform, and it has not been settled by counsel. Neither party should rely on it as legal advice.
GHOSTWRITING AGREEMENT — A full-length memoir (specimen)
Template version: v0.3-pending-legal-review
Between the Client, ‹the client's name›, and the Writer, ‹the writer's name›.
1. THE WORK
This engagement covers the writing of the full manuscript described below.
A full-length memoir of up to 60,000 words: recorded discovery interviews, a chapter-level outline, a complete draft, and a final proofed manuscript.
The fixed price includes the interviewing, writing and editing described above, along with 2 round(s) of revisions requested by the Client after delivery. That allowance is the whole of it: revisions beyond it are agreed as a change order, priced by the Writer, and never assumed.
No final delivery date has been fixed.
2. WORKING TOGETHER
The engagement begins from a clear foundation: the book plan, the direction on voice and style, background materials, and an agreed process for interviews and source material.
The Client will provide interviews, recordings, documents, approvals and other source material in a timely way, so the writing keeps moving. If other people will read the manuscript or give input, the Client will name one person to gather and deliver that feedback. As stages are delivered, the Client will respond within the schedule the parties agree — clear comments are what make a revision round work.
If the direction of the book changes materially after work has begun — a new audience, a new structure, substantial new material, new decision makers — the parties will pause and agree what that means for the schedule and the price before continuing. On this platform that agreement is a change order, proposed in writing and signed by both parties; neither party can impose it.
Delays in interviews, source material, approvals, feedback or stage payments move the manuscript timeline with them. If the project goes inactive for an extended period, resuming may require a new plan — agreed the same way, as a change order.
3. PRICE AND STAGE PAYMENTS
The total fixed price for the Work is $78,000, payable in the following stages:
Stage 1: Signing — $9,750
Contract execution, project brief, and recorded discovery interviews with transcripts.
Stage 2: Outline approved — $17,250
Full chapter-level outline, plus one sample chapter written to final standard.
Stage 3: Full draft — $23,400
Complete manuscript, delivered for review.
Stage 4: Final manuscript — $27,600
Revision rounds incorporated, final proofed manuscript delivered.
Each stage payment is made through the platform and is held from the moment it is paid until the Client approves that stage's deliverable, or until 7 days after the Client is notified of delivery, whichever comes first. This is a payment hold and is not an escrow arrangement.
The platform's fee is 15% of the first $30,000 of a book and 10% of the rest. On this contract that is 11.92%, retained at that one rate from each stage payment. The remainder is paid to the Writer on release.
The total and the stage schedule are fixed at acceptance. Changing either requires a change order agreed by both parties.
4. AUTHORSHIP AND COPYRIGHT — FULL ASSIGNMENT
Upon receipt of the final payment under this agreement, the Writer assigns to the Client all right, title and interest in the copyright of the Work, throughout the world, for the full term of copyright.
The Writer asserts no authorship credit in the Work and waives any moral rights in it to the extent permitted by law. The Writer will not represent publicly that they wrote the Work.
The Work is created for the Client's use alone. The Writer does not share in any speaking fees, consulting fees, publishing deals, film or television deals, royalties, or any other compensation the Client earns from the Work or from anything derived from it.
Until final payment is received, the Writer retains copyright in all delivered material. Nothing is assigned by a partial payment.
5. CONFIDENTIALITY
Each party will keep confidential the other party's involvement in the Work, the contents of the Work, and any material shared in the course of it. The Writer will not reproduce or disseminate any proprietary information the Client shares.
The Writer will not disclose that they wrote the Work, name the Client, or use the Work in a portfolio, except as expressly permitted above.
This obligation does not prevent the Client from leaving a review on the platform. Reviews are published without the Client's name, employer, or the title of the Work, and nothing in a review identifies either party.
6. ENDING THE ENGAGEMENT
The Client may stop the engagement at any time and owes nothing for stages never funded. A stage payment already released to the Writer is not refunded. A stage that has been paid but not yet approved stays held and follows the platform's ordinary approval and issue process — the money does not move until that stage is resolved.
7. THE WRITER'S OWN TERMS
Alongside the platform's standard language, the Writer sets terms of their own for this engagement. They are part of this agreement and carry the same weight as everything above:
Interview time — the fixed price includes up to 10 hour(s) of interviews. Time beyond that is agreed between the parties before it is spent.
Interviews run weekly, are recorded, and total up to ten hours. Feedback on each delivered stage arrives within two weeks. Travel, if we agree any is needed, is billed at cost.
8. QUESTIONS BEFORE SIGNING
Neither party should sign an agreement that does not look right to them. Questions and concerns about any part of this document — before signing, or later, when reviewing a delivered stage or the full manuscript — go to the platform through its contact page, and a person reads every one. The platform's standard text, and how a writer proposes an amendment to it, is published at /standard-agreement.
9. AGREEMENT
This document is snapshotted verbatim when the Client accepts it. Both parties can download this exact text at any time afterwards. Later changes to the platform's templates do not alter it.
NOTICE: This document is a working draft pending review by a lawyer. It is provided so both parties can see the terms they are agreeing to in the platform, and it has not been settled by counsel. Neither party should rely on it as legal advice.
Template v0.3-pending-legal-review
Section 7 above is a specimen of a writer's own terms. Every real contract has that section, written by the writer. When a client accepts a contract, this text is frozen word for word with both signatures on it; later changes to our template never touch a signed agreement.
Writers: make it yours
You don't need our permission to work the way you work. Two parts of every contract are yours outright: the rights section, where you can replace our standard language entirely, and your own terms section, where anything the standard text doesn't cover (interview caps, feedback windows, travel, materials) goes in your words. The client reads both before accepting, and they bind like everything else.
Propose an amendment
If a clause in the standard text itself doesn't fit how you work, or just doesn't look right to you, say so before you sign anything. Write to hello@notableauthors.com with the section number and what you'd change. A person reads every proposal; what we adopt goes through the lawyer and becomes a new template version, and what applies only to you goes in your own terms. Either way you get an answer.
Clients: the same address is yours. If something doesn't look right at any point, in the agreement, a delivered stage, or the full manuscript, say so before you approve. A raised issue freezes the money until a person has worked it out.