Author Production Agreement

1. Parties and acceptance

This Author Production Agreement (the "Agreement") is between [Voicewright entity — LLC name and state of formation to be confirmed], operating as Voicewright Studio ("Voicewright"), and the person or entity accepting it (the "Author").

The Author accepts this Agreement by checking the acknowledgment box and paying the deposit for a project. That click is the Author's electronic signature, and the acceptance — including this document's version — is recorded on the project. Each project the Author engages us for forms its own engagement under this Agreement, on the economics stated in that project's Quote.

The Agreement incorporates the project's Quote, the Refund & Revision Policy, the Terms of Service, and the Privacy Policy. If this Agreement conflicts with the Terms of Service for a production engagement, this Agreement controls.

2. Definitions

• "Manuscript" — the text the Author submits for production, together with any guidance (character notes, pronunciations, direction preferences).
• "Quote" — the fixed price, deposit amount, included revision allowance, and scope shown on the project's quote page, calculated from the actual Manuscript.
• "Audition" — the sample narration produced for the Author's approval before full production.
• "Draft" — a produced version of the audiobook delivered for the Author's review.
• "Approval" — the Author's acceptance of the finished audiobook in the review studio.
• "Deliverables" — the finished audio package: per-chapter masters, a retail sample, and a platform-ready package.
• "Revision" — a requested change to a produced segment, as defined in the Refund & Revision Policy.

3. The engagement

Voicewright will produce an audiobook of the Manuscript as described in the Quote: casting and voice design, line-level direction of the performance, quality control, mastering to retail loudness specification (EBU R128-based: −19 LUFS integrated, −3 dBTP true peak), and packaging of the Deliverables.

The narration is Human-directed AI narration — a synthesized performance created with voice-synthesis technology and directed by human producers. It is not a recording of a human narrator. Section 10 covers what both parties may and may not represent about it.

4. Process and approvals

The engagement runs through the stages the product shows the Author: quote, deposit, Audition, Audition approval, production, Draft delivery, review, Approval, payment of the balance, delivery. Two approvals belong to the Author alone: approving the Audition (which starts full production) and approving the finished audiobook (which makes the balance due).

The Author agrees to review Auditions and Drafts in a reasonable time — our target is a first response within [14 days per review round — to be confirmed]. If a project sits inactive for an extended period ([90 days — to be confirmed]) we may, after written notice to the Author's account email, pause or close it; amounts already paid are then treated under the cancellation terms of section 7.

5. Fees and payment

The Quote is fixed once it is confirmed from the actual Manuscript; it does not change unless the scope changes (section 6). All payments are in U.S. dollars through Stripe-hosted checkout.

• Deposit — due before production starts. It funds the hard costs of production (casting, voice design, the Audition, engine compute, setup). Its refundability is governed by section 7 and the Refund & Revision Policy.
• Balance — the remainder of the Quote, due only at Approval. It is never charged before the Author approves the finished audiobook.
• Revision fees — changes beyond the included allowance accrue the per-change fee shown in the project's revision panel and are settled together with the balance at Approval.
• Delivery of the Deliverables is conditioned on payment in full. Voicewright has no obligation to deliver while any part of the balance or accrued fees is unpaid.
• Taxes required to be collected will be added at checkout where applicable.

6. Revisions and changes of scope

The Quote includes the free revision allowance stated on it, and revisions run per the Refund & Revision Policy. Changes to the Manuscript itself after production has started — rewritten passages, added chapters, structural changes — are not revisions; they are a change of scope. Voicewright will quote the additional work before performing it, and neither party is obligated to proceed until the change is agreed.

7. Cancellation and refunds

Either party may end an engagement before delivery:

• By the Author, before Audition approval — the engagement ends and the deposit is refunded in full.
• By the Author, after production has begun — the engagement ends; the deposit is non-refundable (it has been spent producing the book); no balance is or becomes due.
• By Voicewright, at any stage — if we cannot or choose not to complete the engagement (including for rights concerns under section 13, content we decline to produce, or loss of access to production technology), everything the Author has paid is refunded in full, deposit included.
• On cancellation, the production license in section 9(c) ends, except for records we are legally required to keep. Refund mechanics (method, timing) follow the Refund & Revision Policy.

8. Author responsibilities

The Author will provide the Manuscript and reasonable guidance (pronunciations, character intent), respond to reviews as described in section 4, and designate one person with authority to approve. Voicewright is entitled to rely on approvals and instructions given through the Author's account.

9. Intellectual property

• (a) The Manuscript stays the Author's. The Author retains every right in the Manuscript and the underlying work. Nothing in this Agreement transfers any of it to Voicewright.
• (b) The finished audio becomes the Author's. Upon payment in full, Voicewright assigns to the Author all right, title, and interest it holds in the delivered audio recordings of the Manuscript, and the Author may use, distribute, and sell them without restriction, subject to (e) and section 10. Until payment in full, production work product remains Voicewright's.
• (c) Production license. The Author grants Voicewright a limited, non-exclusive license to reproduce, process, and transmit the Manuscript — including to the third-party voice-synthesis providers used in production — solely to produce the audiobook under this Agreement. Voicewright does not use the Manuscript to train machine-learning models. The license ends when the engagement ends.
• (d) Voicewright's tools stay Voicewright's. Production tooling, workflow, direction templates, prompts and recipes, and general know-how remain Voicewright's, including anything improved in the course of the engagement — none of it restricts the Author's ownership of the delivered audio.
• (e) Voice identities. The synthetic voices used in production are licensed through Voicewright's voice-synthesis providers. The Author's ownership of the delivered audio includes the right to distribute and sell that audio. It does not include the voice identity itself: the Author may not extract, recreate, or use a production voice to generate new audio outside this engagement. [Provider commercial-use and retail-distribution terms to be confirmed in writing before paid production — launch-plan Step 25.]

10. Synthetic narration and disclosure

Both parties will be honest about what the narration is. The audiobook's narration is Human-directed AI narration; it is not a human recording, and no voice in it is a clone of an identifiable person made without that person's documented consent.

• Voicewright labels the narration accordingly on its own surfaces and includes machine-readable synthesized-voice disclosure flags in retail packages where a channel requires them.
• The Author will not represent the narration as a human recording, and is responsible for making the disclosures required by any platform where the Author distributes the audiobook.

11. Distribution and platform acceptance

Deliverables are produced to common retail technical specifications. Retail platforms set and change their own policies on synthesized narration, and Voicewright does not warrant that any platform will accept, list, or keep listed the audiobook. Guidance we give about specific platforms reflects the state of their policies at the time, not a guarantee.

12. Optional storefront listing (dormant until the store opens)

Voicewright operates a storefront for finished audiobooks. Listing is entirely optional and requires the Author's separate, explicit opt-in — nothing in this Agreement lists the audiobook or grants storefront rights by default. This section pre-agrees the frame so that opting in later is simple:

• If the Author opts in, Voicewright may list, market, and sell the finished audiobook on its storefront at the price agreed at opt-in.
• The Author receives a royalty of [royalty share — percentage of net storefront revenue, to be set before the storefront opens] on each sale, accounted and paid per a Storefront Schedule provided at opt-in.
• Either party may end the listing at any time; completed sales and purchasers' licenses survive delisting.
• The opt-in grants Voicewright the non-exclusive right to sell the audiobook to listeners under the storefront's consumer license; it transfers no ownership.

13. Author warranties and indemnity

The Author warrants that: the Author owns or controls the rights needed to have the Manuscript produced as an audiobook, including audio rights; the Manuscript does not infringe anyone's rights and is not unlawful; and any material the Author supplies (cover art, quotations, guidance) comes with the rights needed for its use. The Author will defend and indemnify Voicewright against third-party claims arising from a breach of these warranties.

14. Voicewright warranties

Voicewright warrants that production will be performed in a professional and workmanlike manner and that Deliverables will materially conform to the specifications in section 3. The remedy for non-conforming Deliverables is correction and re-delivery per the Refund & Revision Policy. Beyond that, the service is provided as-is: Voicewright does not warrant sales, reviews, critical reception, or platform acceptance (section 11).

15. Confidentiality

Unpublished Manuscripts and unreleased audio are the Author's confidential material. Voicewright will not share them except with the service providers needed to produce the audiobook (under section 9(c)) and will not publish excerpts, the Author's name, or the work's title in its portfolio or marketing without the Author's prior written consent.

16. Limitation of liability

Neither party is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or lost profits, arising from this Agreement. Each party's total liability under an engagement is capped at the total fees paid or payable for that engagement. These limits do not apply to the Author's indemnity in section 13, to either party's breach of section 15, or to liability that cannot be limited by law. [Caps and carve-outs to be confirmed by counsel.]

17. Stored payment method

[Reserved. Voicewright does not currently offer card-on-file billing. If it is offered in the future (launch-plan Step 10, Model B), this section will contain the Author's authorization for saving a payment method at deposit and charging the approved balance to it off-session, with the pay-by-link path as fallback.]

18. General

The parties are independent contractors. Notices go by email — to Voicewright at support@voicewright.studio, to the Author at the account email. Voicewright may assign this Agreement to a successor of the business (including the operating entity on its formation); the Author may assign it together with the rights to the underlying work. This Agreement plus the documents it incorporates are the entire agreement for the engagement and supersede prior discussions. Changes to an active engagement's terms require both parties' written agreement. If a provision is unenforceable, the rest stands.

This Agreement is governed by the laws of [the State of Voicewright's formation — to be confirmed]. [Venue and dispute process — court vs. arbitration, small-claims carve-out — to be settled with counsel, matching the Terms of Service.]