Manuscript Submission, Assessment & Confidentiality Terms
Exisle Publishing, EK Books and related brands
These terms apply to manuscripts, proposals, synopses, sample chapters, illustrations, supporting materials and other content (“Materials”) submitted to Exisle Publishing, EK Books, or any related brand, program or service operated by us (“we”, “us” or “our”).
They apply whether Materials are submitted for consideration for publication, editorial review, manuscript assessment, consultation, a competition or submission opportunity, or through one of our publishing programs, including Children’s Publishing Academy.
By submitting Materials to us, you agree to the following terms.
1. Your ownership of the Materials
You retain ownership of and copyright in your Materials. Submission to us does not transfer copyright or other intellectual property rights to us.
You grant us a limited, non-exclusive licence to receive, store, copy, access, process and share the Materials to the extent reasonably necessary to evaluate them, provide an assessment or service, administer the relevant program, and communicate with you about your submission.
This licence does not give us the right to publish, sell or otherwise commercially exploit your manuscript without a separate agreement with you.
2. Who may review your Materials
We may share your Materials, in whole or in part, with people we reasonably consider appropriate to the assessment or evaluation process.
This may include our employees, editors, publishers and other members of our team, as well as external editors, assessors, consultants, freelancers, contractors, specialists and other professional advisers or service providers engaged by us.
This is intended to allow us to draw upon the people and expertise we believe will provide the most useful, informed and commercially realistic assessment of your work.
3. Use of technology and AI-assisted tools
Publishing and manuscript assessment increasingly involve the use of digital and AI-assisted tools. You acknowledge and agree that we and the people engaged by us may use professional tools and technologies at our or their disposal where reasonably considered useful in evaluating your Materials or providing feedback.
These may include, without limitation:
- artificial intelligence and generative AI tools;
- AI detection and authorship-analysis tools;
- plagiarism and similarity-detection software;
- editing, proofreading and language-analysis tools;
- research and fact-checking tools;
- market, audience and comparable-title research tools; and
- other software or technologies that assist professional editorial or publishing judgement.
Such tools may be used, in combination with human expertise, to help assess matters including writing quality, originality, structure, positioning, market potential, suitability for publication, potential use of AI-generated material, and other editorial or commercial considerations.
Experienced human judgement is vital. A manuscript will never be assessed solely by artificial intelligence. Our objective is to enable our team and professional assessors to use their expertise, judgement and the tools available to them to provide authors with the most useful and realistic assessment reasonably possible.
Where a third-party tool is used, Materials or extracts from Materials may be transmitted to and processed by that provider to the extent reasonably necessary for the relevant assessment or analysis.
We do not knowingly authorise an author’s unpublished Materials to be used for the purpose of training a public or general-purpose artificial intelligence model. However, third-party technologies are governed by their own technical systems, privacy practices and terms of service, which may change from time to time.
4. Confidentiality and reasonable handling
We recognise that unpublished manuscripts and creative works are valuable to their authors and will treat submitted Materials with reasonable professional care.
We will not intentionally make an unpublished manuscript publicly available merely because it has been submitted for assessment or consideration.
However, submission should not be understood as creating a fiduciary relationship, agency relationship, formal duty of confidentiality, or publisher-author relationship beyond the obligations expressly stated in these terms.
Where Materials are shared with members of our team, contractors, freelancers, assessors or service providers, they may access and process those Materials for purposes connected with the relevant assessment, service or submission process.
5. Automated and AI detection is not definitive
You acknowledge that plagiarism detection, AI detection, authorship analysis and similar technologies are imperfect and may produce false positives, false negatives or uncertain results.
Any output from such a tool may therefore be considered as one source of information rather than conclusive proof of how a manuscript was created.
Where we provide an assessment or publishing decision, we may combine technological analysis with the professional judgement, experience and opinions of our editors, assessors and other experts.
6. Nature of manuscript assessments
An assessment represents professional opinion and judgement. Publishing is inherently subjective, and different editors, publishers, agents, booksellers and readers may reach different conclusions about the same work.
We do not guarantee that an assessment will identify every issue in a manuscript or that following our feedback will result in publication, representation, commercial success, sales or any particular publishing outcome.
Where we comment on marketability, commercial potential, audience, comparable titles or prospects for publication, these comments represent an assessment based on the information and circumstances available at the time.
7. Publication decisions
Submission of Materials, including submission through a paid assessment, course, academy or other service, does not guarantee publication or create an obligation on us to offer a publishing agreement.
Where a program provides priority consideration, priority submission or another publishing opportunity, that opportunity remains subject to our normal editorial and commercial judgement unless expressly stated otherwise.
Any offer to publish a work will be governed by a separate publishing agreement.
8. Your responsibilities when submitting
By submitting Materials, you confirm that:
- you have the right and authority to submit them;
- to the best of your knowledge, doing so does not infringe another person’s copyright or other rights;
- you have obtained any permissions reasonably required for third-party material included in the submission; and
- the information you provide to us in connection with the submission is substantially accurate.
Where relevant to an assessment or submission process, we may ask you to disclose whether and how generative AI or other technologies were used in creating the Materials.
9. Similar works and ideas
Publishing businesses routinely receive works containing similar subjects, concepts, themes, settings, titles, characters, arguments or ideas.
Submission of Materials does not prevent us from considering, developing, acquiring or publishing another work that contains similarities to your Materials, provided that we do not unlawfully copy protected expression from your work.
10. Storage and deletion
We may retain copies of submitted Materials, assessments and related correspondence for reasonable administrative, legal, editorial and record-keeping purposes.
We may also delete Materials when they are no longer reasonably required.
Where Materials have been processed through third-party services or technologies, deletion from our own systems may not necessarily remove copies or processing records retained independently by those providers in accordance with their own policies and legal obligations.
11. Children’s Publishing Academy and other programs
For the avoidance of doubt, these terms apply to manuscripts and other Materials submitted for assessment, feedback, review or publishing consideration through Children’s Publishing Academy, including paid manuscript assessments and Materials submitted as part of courses, workshops, mentorships, certification programs or related services.
Participation in such a program constitutes agreement that Materials may be reviewed and processed in the manner described in these terms.
12. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms from time to time to reflect changes in our services, publishing practices, technology, applicable law or the tools used in manuscript assessment.
The terms applicable to a submission will ordinarily be those made available to the author at the time the relevant Materials are submitted.
13. Questions
If you have questions about how your manuscript or other Materials may be handled as part of an assessment or submission process, please contact us before submitting your Materials.