Terms of Service

Who you are contracting with

Novel Maestro is a service of Large & Stoker Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17448669, whose registered office is at 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom. In these terms, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Large & Stoker Ltd, and “Novel Maestro” or “the Service” means the product.

1. These terms

By creating an account or using Novel Maestro you agree to these terms. If you do not, please do not use the Service.

If you are buying as a consumer — for purposes wholly or mainly outside a business — you have rights under consumer law that these terms cannot reduce, whatever they say. Section 15 sets out where that applies. If you are buying for a business, including an editor or agent working on a client’s manuscript, section 16 applies to you instead of section 15, and the consumer protections do not.

2. Your account

You must be at least 16 to use the Service. Keep your login details to yourself: an account is for one person, and access you buy covers your use of it rather than a team’s. You are responsible for what happens under your account, and you must give us accurate information when you register and keep it current.

3. What Novel Maestro is, and what it is not

Novel Maestro reads a complete manuscript and produces editorial analysis of it: an editor’s letter, structural diagnostics, character and scene analysis, suggested revision tasks and related reports.

It works by artificial intelligence, and you are always dealing with software rather than a person. Every report, letter, diagnostic, score and suggestion the Service produces is generated by AI models. Nothing in the Service is written or reviewed by a human editor before you see it, and we say so plainly here because we would rather you knew than inferred it.

Three consequences follow, and they matter.

The analysis is editorial opinion, not fact. AI models can be confidently wrong. They can misread a deliberate choice as an error, miss a pattern a human would catch, and occasionally assert something about your book that is simply not in it. Read what you are given as you would read notes from a well-read stranger: useful, arguable, and yours to reject.

We do not guarantee any outcome. Nothing in the Service is a prediction or a promise of publication, representation, sales or critical reception, and no part of it should be relied on as one.

The editorial decisions remain yours. You are responsible for what you do to your manuscript. We are not liable for revisions you make, or decline to make, on the strength of what the Service tells you. That is not a disclaimer of our own obligations — section 15 sets those out — but a statement about where authorship sits.

The Service does not write, rewrite or generate prose for your novel, and it is not designed to.

4. Your manuscript

Your manuscript is yours, entirely and throughout. Uploading it transfers nothing. We claim no ownership, no licence to publish, and no share of anything it earns.

You grant us only what we need to run the Service for you: permission to store, copy, process and analyse your text for the purpose of producing your reports and operating the features you use, and to pass it to the AI providers we use for that processing. That permission ends when you delete the work or your account.

We do not use your manuscript to train AI models, ours or anyone else’s, and our contracts with our AI providers do not permit them to either.

You confirm that you own your manuscript or otherwise have the right to upload it, and that doing so breaks nobody else’s rights.

5. What we produce for you, and what you may do with it

The reports, letters, diagnostics and other analysis the Service produces about your manuscript are yours to keep and use without restriction — quote them, ignore them, send them to your agent, publish them if you like. They stay readable and exportable whatever happens to your access.

We keep the intellectual property in the Service itself: the software, the diagnostic methods, the prompts and templates, the craft library, and the sample material. You may not copy, resell, redistribute or reverse-engineer any of it, or use the Service to build a competing product.

Two honest notes. AI-generated text may not attract copyright protection in every country, so we cannot promise you an enforceable copyright in a report; what we can promise is that we will not assert one against you. And the Service may produce similar analysis for two manuscripts that raise similar problems, so nothing we give you is exclusive to you except where it quotes your own words.

6. Acceptable use

You agree to use the Service lawfully and as it is meant to be used. You may not:

• share an account or a purchase between several writers;
• access the Service by automated means, or in bulk, or scrape it;
• use one purchase to put a succession of different manuscripts through the Service;
• upload material that is unlawful, or that you have no right to upload;
• upload another person’s manuscript without their permission;
• attempt to bypass security, limits or payment;
• resell access, or offer the Service to third parties as though it were your own; or
• use the Service to produce material for someone else who has not agreed to these terms.

7. Suspension and ending your access

We would far rather resolve a problem by talking to you, and almost always that is what will happen.

But if you materially break these terms we may suspend your access; and if the breach is serious, or continues after we have raised it with you, we may end it. If we do either, we will tell you why.

We will give you at least 30 days to export your manuscript and your reports before anything is deleted, unless the law requires otherwise or we must act immediately to protect the Service or someone else. Ending your access gives us no claim over your work: your manuscript remains yours and section 14 still applies to it. Where we end paid access because of a serious breach we may decline to refund it, and we will tell you so at the time.

You may close your account whenever you like, from your account page. Closing it deletes your work irreversibly, and does not entitle you to a refund except where the law gives you one or section 11 applies.

8. What your payment buys

Access is granted by purchase, by gift code or by voucher. A purchase covers one manuscript — the one you apply it to, or the first one Novel Maestro reads for you if you bought before choosing a book.

For purchases made on or after 26 September 2026, access to that manuscript does not expire. One payment, no renewal, nothing to cancel.

What “lifetime” means. It means the lifetime of the Service, not your own, and we would rather say so here than let you discover it. We cannot promise to operate Novel Maestro for ever, so what your purchase gives you is access for as long as we make Novel Maestro generally available, with no end date of its own. Section 13 says what happens if we stop, and what you would be entitled to.

Your access is personal to you and to the manuscript it covers. It is not transferable to another person and it does not extend to your other manuscripts.

Purchases made before 26 September 2026 were sold on a twelve-month term, and that term is what applies to them. Where access of that kind was still active on 26 September 2026 we removed its expiry, so that early customers are not left worse off than later ones.

Gift codes must be claimed within 365 days of purchase. We show that date in the buyer’s confirmation email and print it on the certificate. If a code has not been claimed in time, please write to us — we would far rather reissue it than keep money for something nobody received. Access under a gift begins on the day it is claimed and, from that day, does not expire.

The free tier includes one complete reading of one manuscript, counted against your account rather than against each project, together with a small allowance of editorial questions. It costs nothing and needs no card.

9. Payments, prices and tax

Payments are taken by Paddle, which acts as the authorised reseller and merchant of record. Your purchase contract for the transaction is therefore with Paddle, and Paddle’s buyer terms and refund policy apply alongside these terms. Refunds are processed through Paddle. This does not reduce our own obligations to you under these terms or under consumer law.

Prices are shown on the pricing page and at checkout. Paddle shows you the price in your own currency, with the tax that applies where you are, before you pay. In some countries, including the United States and Canada, the figure shown on our marketing pages is exclusive of sales tax, which is added at checkout; where that is the case our pricing page says so. Nothing is charged until you confirm.

We may change our prices. A change never affects a purchase already made.

10. Beta access

Some accounts hold free access granted for testing. That access is time-limited, is not a purchase, and ends on the date we have given you — nothing is charged when it does, and there is nothing to cancel. While the Service is in active development, features may change.

11. Cancellation and refunds

Your statutory right to cancel. If you are a consumer in the UK or the EU you normally have 14 days from purchase to cancel a contract for digital content and get your money back. That right can be lost once we begin supplying the content, but only where you have given express consent to us starting before the 14 days are up and acknowledged that you will lose the right by doing so. If we have not obtained both from you, you keep the right, and you owe nothing for what has been supplied in the meantime.

Our own promise, which is wider. Separately from anything the law requires: if a report is not useful to you, write to support@novelmaestro.com within 14 days of your purchase and we will arrange a refund through Paddle. We do not ask you to justify it. Our Refund Policy sets this out in full.

You can also see what the Service does before paying anything at all: the free tier reads a complete manuscript and returns a full editor’s first take. We would rather you bought on the strength of that than on the strength of a promise.

None of the above affects your rights if the Service is faulty, materially not as described, or not supplied with reasonable care and skill.

12. Limits on use

Some parts of the Service carry limits, and we would rather describe them than leave you to discover them.

• Editorial questions are allowanced on the free tier.
• Within any rolling thirty days there is a ceiling on how many times a whole manuscript may be read again from the beginning. It is set well above what revising a novel requires — the most-read manuscript in our history has been read four times — and it exists to protect the Service rather than to ration your work.
• Having your revisions read is not rationed. The only limit on it is a daily ceiling high enough that ordinary revision will never reach it, which is there to stop runaway automated requests.
• The Service will decline to read a manuscript that has not changed since it last read it, and will tell you when a change is too small to be worth reading again. You can overrule the second of those.

Where a limit applies to you, the Service tells you. We may change these limits; if we lower one in a way that would affect how you normally use the Service, we will tell you before we do. We do not publish the exact figures, because they move, and a number printed here would be wrong the first time it changed.

13. Availability, changes, and if we stop

The Service is provided as it is and as available. We work to keep it running and cannot promise it will never be interrupted, and we may change, add or withdraw individual features as the product develops. Where a change would remove something material that you use, we will tell you.

If we discontinue the Service we will:

• tell you, by email to the address on your account and on the site, at least 90 days before your access ends;
• keep your ability to export your manuscript and every report produced for you available throughout that period; and
• refund in full anyone who bought within the 90 days before we gave that notice, through Paddle. If you bought earlier than that, no refund is automatically due — by then the reports you paid for have been delivered and are yours to keep — but write to us and we will consider it.

If Novel Maestro is transferred to someone who continues to operate it, your access and the promises in this section transfer with it, and we will tell you who has taken it on. A transfer of that kind is not a discontinuation.

The 90 days above is what we undertake to do without being asked. It does not replace your statutory rights: if the Service is faulty, materially not as described, or not supplied with reasonable care and skill, you may be entitled to more, and nothing here limits that.

14. Your work, backups and loss

Please treat Novel Maestro as a place to work on your novel, not the only place it is kept. When you upload a manuscript you upload a copy; keep your original. Anything you write or change in our editor exists only on our servers until you export it, and you can export at any time from the Export tab, in Word, PDF or plain text.

We take reasonable care to keep your work safe on managed, access-controlled infrastructure, encrypted in transit. If you delete a chapter or scene you can undo it immediately; deleted chapters and scenes are kept for 30 days, during which support@novelmaestro.com can recover them, and are then permanently erased. Deleting a whole project, or your account, is permanent.

15. Our responsibility to you — consumers

What we do not limit, and could not. Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for:

• death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
• fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation;
• failing to supply digital content of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose, or as described, or in accordance with the pre-contract information we gave you (Consumer Rights Act 2015, sections 34 to 37 and 41);
• failing to perform a service with reasonable care and skill (section 49 of that Act);
• anything else the law does not allow us to limit.

What we are not responsible for. We are not responsible for losses that were not reasonably foreseeable when you bought, for losses caused by your own actions — deleting your own work, for example — or for business losses such as lost income, missed deadlines or lost publishing opportunities, since the Service is supplied to consumers for personal use.

Our cap. Subject to everything above, our total liability to you in connection with the Service is limited to the greater of £250 and the total amount you have paid us in respect of the Service. This cap does not apply to any of the liabilities listed as unlimited above, and it never operates to prevent you recovering the price you paid.

16. Business customers

If you use the Service for business purposes — as a freelance editor, agent, publisher, teacher or writing service — the consumer protections in section 15 do not apply to you, and the following does instead.

We supply the Service with reasonable care and skill. Subject to that, and to the exclusions below, our total liability to you in connection with the Service, in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty or otherwise, is limited to the total amount you have paid us in the twelve months before the claim.

We exclude all implied terms to the fullest extent the law allows, and we are not liable for loss of profit, revenue, business, goodwill, anticipated savings or data, or for any indirect or consequential loss, however caused. Nothing here limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.

If you are putting client manuscripts through the Service you must have your client’s permission, and each manuscript needs its own purchase. Please talk to us about volume terms rather than working around the per-manuscript model.

17. Data and privacy

We handle personal data in accordance with our Privacy Policy, which explains what we collect, why, on what legal basis, who processes it and how long we keep it. Large & Stoker Ltd is the data controller. We keep your manuscript only for as long as your account is active and you choose to keep the project on our servers, and you can export or delete it at any time.

When you delete a novel it comes off your shelf immediately and we keep it recoverable for thirty days, so that a deletion made by mistake can be undone on request. After thirty days it is erased, together with everything attached to it. Deleting your account erases everything at once, with no recovery window.

18. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. If a change is significant we will tell you by email and on the site before it takes effect, and we will date it.

A change that would reduce access you have already paid for does not apply to that purchase: the terms in force on the day you bought are the ones that govern it. Where a change is wholly to your benefit we will simply apply it, and tell you we have.

19. Governing law, your local rights, and disputes

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction.

If you are a consumer, that does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory consumer law of the country where you live, and you may bring proceedings in your local courts where the law gives you that right.

If something goes wrong, please write to support@novelmaestro.com first — most things are quickly sorted. If we cannot resolve it between us, UK consumers may be able to use an alternative dispute resolution scheme or the courts, and EU consumers may have equivalent routes locally.

20. General

Assignment. You may not transfer your rights under these terms to anyone else. We may transfer ours — for example if the business is sold — and where we do, the promises in sections 8 and 13 transfer with them; we will tell you.

Things outside our control. We are not liable for failing to provide the Service where the cause is genuinely beyond our reasonable control, including the failure or withdrawal of an AI provider we depend on. Where that happens we will tell you and do what we reasonably can.

Severability. If any part of these terms turns out to be unenforceable, the rest stands.

No waiver. If we do not enforce something straight away, we have not given up the right to enforce it later.

Third parties. These terms are between you and us. Nobody else may enforce them.

Entire agreement. These terms, our Privacy Policy and our Refund Policy are the whole of the agreement between us about the Service. This does not limit your remedies for anything we have told you fraudulently.