First of all, you excuse Submitit for having much of the below sound as if it were written by a lawyer with minimal literary aptitude.

 

Assignment of Rights:

You authorize Submitit to act in good faith as an agent, editor, and advisor in the submission of your work in your name.

 

You give Submitit the right to manage, in your name, a dedicated email account and submission profile(s) for the submission of your work. Submitit manages these accounts securely and uses them exclusively for submitting your work in your name. Submitit will use author names (or pen names) exclusively for the services outlined on Submitit’s Services page. 

 

Privacy Statement:

Under no circumstances will Submitit share any of your private information. Uploaded stories and bio information, which are included in submissions, are thus not considered private, for as long as the terms of this agreement apply; this strikes us as a no-brainer. At the termination of services, Submitit will delete your story or stories. Submitit will use stories only for services described on our Services page, unless given written permission by you. 

 

Third-Party Providers:

You acknowledge and agree that Submitit works with third-party providers to allow for the completion of our services, namely email services (see Shared Email below) and submission services associated with journals, such as Submittable. Submitit is not responsible for any issues, claims, costs, or lawsuits associated with these third-parties.

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Shared Email:

In order to sign up for submission services or send emailed submissions on your behalf, we create a shared email address called an "alias," via an email hosting company called Fastmail (www.fastmail.com). Fastmail, based in Australia (servers in America), has been around for over twenty years. It is similar to Gmail, and secure (but they don't steal our data!). If you have any questions about the shared email, please let us know. (Note: only clients who sign up for a submission service need shared emails.)

 

Your Story:

You, not Submitit, have sole responsibility for the accuracy, quality, integrity, legality, reliability, appropriateness, and copyright of your story and bio information. Submitit is not responsible or liable for the deletion, correction, destruction, damage, loss, or failure to store any such information. Submitit deletes stories approximately one year after the last time the story was modified (we do not store stories indefinitely).

 

Editing:

Submitit will do our best to maintain the effectiveness, accuracy, correctness, and quality of our editing services, and to ensure that all submitted stories and accompanying bios and cover letters are free of any grammar or usage errors, or mistakes of any kind. However, you understand that mistakes may occur, for Submitit is not Bryan A. Garner or God (if, indeed, there is a difference), and you will not hold Submitit liable for any damages that may relate to such mistakes. Also, by accepting these terms, Erik assumes you have reviewed his approach to editing here.

 

Indemnification:

You agree to protect, defend, indemnify and hold us harmless from and against any and all claims, causes of action, liabilities, judgments, penalties, losses, costs, damages and expenses (including attorneys’ fees and all related costs and expenses for litigation and/or arbitration) suffered or incurred by us as a result of the submission of your Stories, including, without limitation, any claim arising from any copyright infringement claims.

 

Guarantees and Refund Policy:

We do not guarantee that your work will be published. We do guarantee that we will carefully read your work; we will thoughtfully and strategically come up with a list of journals that we think may publish your work; we will submit your work, correctly formatted, as specified by each journal, to the best of our ability; and we will be available if you have any questions or concerns. If you’re not completely satisfied with our submission services, we offer a full refund within 30 days of receiving your work (submission services only—we do not refund payments for editing work because of the time involved). Perhaps it goes without saying, but we do not offer refunds in the event of early service termination due to an accepted story.

 

Defunct Journals:

Yes, journals go defunct. This is a sad fact of life in the world of literary journals. You can read more about this on our blog. Here's our policy: (1) If a first-round journal goes defunct before we get to the second round, we will add a replacement journal to the second round. (2) If a second-round journal goes defunct within three months of submissions, we’ll submit to a replacement journal upon request.

 

Termination of Services:

Submitit reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to terminate your services, for any reason (such as, for example, if you’re especially mean or hard to work with) and at any time without prior notice. Submitit also reserves the right to modify or discontinue, either temporarily or permanently, any part of its Services with notice. And of course you may terminate working with Submitit at any time, but we will be very sad about this (unless you’re especially mean or hard to work with, in which case we might not be that sad about it). Luckily, we very much enjoy working with most of our clients, and the feeling seems to be mutual, so let's hope for no terminations all around.

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