Terms of Service

Agreement and electronic acceptance

These Terms form a binding agreement between you and Spine & Stature Inc. (“Spine & Stature,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), a Missouri corporation operating from Clay County, Missouri. By creating an account, checking an acceptance box, purchasing a service, redeeming a credit, or using the Studio, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agree to these Terms, the Privacy Policy, and the Refund Policy.

You consent to conduct transactions electronically. Your checkbox, button click, purchase record, or other affirmative electronic action constitutes your electronic signature. You must be at least 18 years old and legally capable of entering a contract.

Services and editorial relationship

Spine & Stature provides AI-assisted and human-directed editorial development, manuscript organization, downloadable files, Message Extenders™, cover creation, and related tools. We serve as an editorial service—not your publisher, literary agent, attorney, accountant, or business manager.

Each project is shaped by the source material, selected service, customer participation, and editorial judgment. Examples demonstrate possible presentation and scope but do not promise identical wording, length, design, or commercial performance.

Accounts, security, and communications

• Provide accurate, current information and keep account credentials confidential.
• You are responsible for activity performed through your account unless you promptly report unauthorized access.
• We may send receipts, access notices, project communications, policy updates, and legally required notices electronically.
• Do not share Studio access, bypass project limits, manipulate credits, or interfere with security or service operations.

Customer content and permissions

You retain ownership of original content you lawfully submit. You grant Spine & Stature a limited, nonexclusive license to receive, store, process, reproduce, format, analyze, edit, and transmit that content solely to provide, secure, support, and improve the purchased service.

You represent that you have all rights, permissions, releases, and lawful authority needed to submit the material. You must not upload infringing, unlawful, defamatory, deceptive, malicious, confidential, or privacy-violating content. You remain responsible for names, quotations, facts, claims, citations, permissions, and publication decisions.

AI-assisted editorial process and final review

Automated systems may assist with organization, analysis, drafting, formatting, and design. AI output can be incomplete, inaccurate, or unsuitable. You must review and approve every final file before publication or public use. Spine & Stature may require clarification, decline unsafe or unlawful instructions, and apply editorial safeguards.

Studio Project Acknowledgments

During a project, the Studio may require you to check a box, select an approval, or click a confirmation before work advances. Each action is a project-specific electronic acknowledgment incorporated into these Terms. It records the instruction, representation, review, or approval shown beside it; it does not replace these Terms or create a new policy.

Depending on the project stage, you may be asked to confirm one or more of the following:

• You own the submitted source material or have the licenses, releases, consents, and permissions needed for Spine & Stature to process it.
• You have reviewed names, quotations, citations, confidential information, third-party material, factual claims, and required attributions.
• You understand when source material becomes locked, when an available unlock or rebuild may be used, and when a new credit may be required for additional source material or regeneration.
• You have reviewed the Book Blueprint, manuscript, cover, Message Extender™, or other project stage and authorize the Studio to continue.
• You accept responsibility for final proofreading, permissions, factual accuracy, publication compliance, and the decision to publish, print, sell, distribute, or give away a deliverable.
• You understand that finalizing or downloading a completed deliverable ends further Studio editing or regeneration under that credit unless the Studio expressly offers another review step.

Spine & Stature may retain the account, project, policy version, displayed language, selection, date, time, and related technical evidence for each acknowledgment. If a checkbox conflicts with these Terms, these Terms control unless the checkbox clearly identifies a specific written amendment authorized by Spine & Stature.

The binding arbitration agreement is presented and accepted conspicuously at checkout. Studio Project Acknowledgments document project decisions and do not introduce a separate arbitration agreement.

Ownership of deliverables and editorial credit

After full payment, you may use approved final deliverables created specifically from your lawful source content, subject to third-party rights, licenses, and these Terms. Spine & Stature retains its preexisting methods, systems, templates, prompts, processes, software, trademarks, service marks, and general editorial know-how.

Where included in a deliverable, the editorial and design credit identifying Spine & Stature Inc. may not be falsely altered to misrepresent who performed the credited work. No ownership of the Spine & Stature name, marks, Studio, or underlying production system transfers to you.

Pricing, payment, and taxes

The price, billing frequency, included credits, and introductory or promotional terms shown at checkout govern that purchase. Current advertised pricing includes Single Manuscript at $167, Monthly Author Membership at $247 per month, Annual Author Membership at $1,347 as a one-time annual payment, Message Extenders™ at $129 each, and Complete Cover Creation at $57 each, unless a different price is clearly displayed and accepted at checkout.

You authorize our payment provider to charge the selected payment method. You are responsible for applicable taxes, bank charges, and accurate billing information. Failed, reversed, or disputed payments may suspend access while investigated.

Plans, credits, and expiration

Single Manuscript

A Single Manuscript purchase provides one project entitlement and 90 days of Studio access beginning on the purchase date. It is not an accumulating subscription credit.

Monthly Author Membership

After each successful monthly payment, the membership issues one manuscript credit, one Message Extender™ credit, and one complete cover credit. Monthly credits may accumulate only while the membership is active. Each unused credit expires individually 12 months after issuance, and every remaining unused credit expires at the end of the final paid billing period when the membership ends.

Annual Author Membership

The annual plan issues six manuscript, six Message Extender™, and six complete cover credits at purchase. All unused annual credits expire at the end of the 12-month term. The annual plan is a one-time purchase and does not automatically renew unless a later renewal is separately offered and affirmatively accepted.

General credit rules

• Credits have no cash value and cannot be redeemed for cash.
• Credits are nontransferable except through an approved gift feature or a written exception from Spine & Stature.
• A credit is redeemed when the service is selected, required source material is supplied, and Spine & Stature accepts the project.
• Expiration prevents initiation of a new project but does not cancel a properly redeemed project already underway.

Studio access, delivery, and inactivity

For a properly redeemed membership project, project-specific Studio access continues until 45 days after final delivery, even if the membership or unused credits expire earlier. Download your final files before access ends. We may close access and remove project or source files after that period without an obligation to restore them.

If required content, feedback, approval, or responses remain outstanding for 60 consecutive days, we may suspend or administratively close the project after email notice. Restarting substantial work may require a reactivation fee or a new credit.

Cancellation and refunds

Monthly memberships renew until canceled. Cancellation stops future billing at the end of the current paid billing period; it does not create a prorated refund, and unused credits expire when the membership ends. Annual plans do not automatically renew. Refund eligibility is governed by the Refund Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms.

Acceptable use

You may not use the services to violate law or another person’s rights; create malware, fraud, impersonation, harassment, or exploitation; extract or reverse-engineer protected systems; automate abusive access; resell account access; evade limits; or submit content you are not authorized to use. We may investigate, restrict, suspend, or terminate access to protect customers, the service, third parties, and Spine & Stature.

No publishing or commercial guarantee

We do not guarantee factual accuracy, legal compliance, publication acceptance, sales, rankings, reviews, distribution, audience growth, speaking opportunities, or any financial result. Publishing platforms, retailers, printers, payment providers, and other third parties control their own services and decisions.

Disclaimers and limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, services and deliverables are provided “as is” and “as available.” Spine & Stature disclaims implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, noninfringement, and uninterrupted or error-free operation.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Spine & Stature and its directors, officers, employees, contractors, and service providers will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages; lost profits, revenue, data, opportunity, reputation, or business; or third-party platform decisions. Our aggregate liability arising from a claim will not exceed the amount you paid Spine & Stature for the specific service giving rise to that claim during the 12 months before the event. Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Spine & Stature and its directors, officers, employees, contractors, and service providers from claims, losses, liabilities, damages, judgments, and reasonable costs arising from your submitted content, unlawful use, breach of these Terms, infringement of third-party rights, or publication and distribution decisions. This obligation does not apply to the extent a claim results from Spine & Stature’s own unlawful conduct.

Dispute resolution and binding arbitration

1. Informal notice. Before filing arbitration, the complaining party must email a detailed Notice of Dispute to hello@spineandstature.com. The parties will attempt in good faith to resolve the dispute for 30 days.
2. Small claims. Either party may pursue an eligible individual claim in small-claims court instead of arbitration.
3. AAA arbitration. Unresolved covered disputes will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its applicable Consumer Arbitration Rules and Consumer Due Process Protocol. The Federal Arbitration Act governs the arbitration agreement where applicable.
4. Neutral arbitrator and relief. AAA will administer selection of a neutral arbitrator if the parties do not agree. The arbitrator may award any individual remedy available under applicable law and will issue a reasoned decision when required by the governing rules.
5. Individual proceedings only. To the fullest extent permitted by law, disputes must proceed individually and not as a class, collective, consolidated, coordinated, mass, or representative action. If a court finally determines that a particular waiver cannot be enforced for a specific claim or remedy, that claim or remedy will proceed in court after all arbitrable matters are completed.
6. Jury-trial waiver. For disputes subject to arbitration, each party knowingly waives the right to a jury trial.
7. Costs and hearing. Consumer filing fees and business-paid fees will be allocated under AAA’s consumer rules and applicable law. Hearings may be conducted virtually unless the rules, arbitrator, or law requires otherwise.
8. Opt out. You may opt out of arbitration without affecting your purchased services by emailing your full name, account email, purchase date, and a clear opt-out statement within 30 days after first accepting these Terms. An opt-out applies only to the accepting individual.
9. Emergency and intellectual-property relief. Either party may seek temporary or emergency injunctive relief from a court with jurisdiction to protect intellectual property, data security, account access, or the integrity of the service while arbitration is pending.

Governing law and venue

Missouri law governs these Terms without regard to conflict-of-law principles, except that the Federal Arbitration Act governs covered arbitration provisions where applicable. Matters not subject to arbitration will be brought in an appropriate state or federal court serving Clay County, Missouri, and the parties consent to that venue.

Changes, severability, and complete agreement

We may update these Terms prospectively. Material changes will be posted with a revised effective date and communicated when legally required. Terms accepted at checkout govern that purchase unless law or a mutually signed writing requires otherwise. If a provision is unenforceable, it will be limited or severed to the minimum extent necessary, and the remaining provisions will continue. These Terms and incorporated policies are the complete agreement concerning the services they cover.

Legal notices

Notices to Spine & Stature must be sent to hello@spineandstature.com. We may provide notices to the email associated with your account. A physical or mailing address will be added when the company establishes one for legal correspondence.