1) All submissions for proofreading must be as a digital file. Accepted formats include Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF.
2) If you wish to submit a manuscript of over 100 000 words for assessment, please contact us to confirm a quote and time frame. In general, fees will rise by $30 per 20 000 words over 100k. Please note that word counts are rounded up.
3) Manuscript assessments will typically be completed within two to three weeks, depending on the word count.
4) Reports for manuscript assessments are between 750 and 1250 words long, depending on the nature and length of the manuscript. The assessor may annotate part of your manuscript for demonstration purposes, but this is at their own discretion.
5) For proofreads, two versions of the file will be returned to the customer: one displaying all the revisions that were made to the text, and one copy that has been finalized.
6) Any queries regarding a proofread or manuscript assessment must take place within two weeks of the work’s completion and delivery to the customer. This also applies to refund requests.
7) Rockwaller Books reserves the right to decline manuscripts and payments at its sole discretion.
8) For the express service, if a manuscript is over 80 000 words, an additional week may be necessary in order to ensure the professional level of quality that we guarantee our customers.
9) Receiving a manuscript assessment does not guarantee that a publishing house will accept your manuscript for publication. The assessment is provided in line with current publishing standards in order to help customers polish their work. Rockwaller Books will not communicate with publishers on a customer’s behalf.
10) The author’s copyright over their work will be respected at all times. Once the proofread or manuscript assessment is completed, local copies of the file will be deleted after two weeks.
11) Copyright of assessors’ reports remains with the assessors. The reports cannot be published or otherwise used without approval from Rockwaller Books.
Payments, cancellations, and refunds
All fees over $50.00 require a 50% payment up front, with the balance to be paid upon completion of the work. Once the full payment has been received, the customer will be provided with their file(s). Cancellations by the customer made more than three days since work commenced will be charged the full amount.
Refunds are applicable in cases where the proofread text contains unacceptable oversights as a percentage relative to the tracked changes. In such cases, the work will be reviewed and an appropriate refund supplied.