The Ghost.Terms of business
The Ghost.Terms of business
These terms cover 2 things: using this website, and engaging The Ghost to write for you. Where a signed proposal or statement of work says something different, that document wins.
The Ghost is the trading name of Sarra Richmond, operating from 2 Blackworth Court, Highworth, SN6 7NS, United Kingdom.
The Ghost trades as a sole trader. There is no company registration number, because a sole trader is not required to have one.
Contact for all matters under these terms: [email protected].
The content on this site is provided for information. It is not advice, and nothing on it forms an offer capable of acceptance.
All text, images, marks and page designs on this site belong to The Ghost or are used with permission. You may read, print and share pages for your own reference. You may not republish, resell or use them to train an automated system without written permission.
Links to other sites are provided for convenience. The Ghost is not responsible for what appears on them.
A booked call is a conversation, not a contract. Work begins only when you have accepted a written proposal in writing and the first invoice has been paid or the first payment date has been agreed.
The proposal sets out the scope: which surfaces are covered, the volume and cadence of work, the term, the fee and the outcome we have agreed to aim at.
Written content produced in your voice, on an agreed cadence, for the term set out in the proposal. Typically 3 to 6 months.
Every piece is supplied to you for approval before publication. Nothing is published by The Ghost without your approval unless the proposal expressly grants publishing access.
Writing is a professional service, not a guarantee of commercial result. Where the proposal describes an expected outcome, that is a target we have agreed to work towards. It is not a warranty of revenue, reach, followers or enquiries, all of which depend on factors outside either party's control, including third party platforms.
Where a delay in your input pushes work outside the agreed term, the term is extended by the length of the delay. Fees are not reduced.
Each piece includes 2 rounds of amendment. Amendments are changes to a piece within the agreed scope and direction. A change of direction after approval, or a new brief, is new work and is quoted separately.
Fees are stated in the proposal and are quoted in pounds sterling. The Ghost is registered for VAT under number To confirm. All fees are exclusive of VAT, and VAT is charged in addition at the prevailing rate and shown separately on every invoice.
Monthly fees are invoiced in advance. Payment is due within 14 days of the invoice date unless the proposal says otherwise.
Where an invoice is not paid by the due date, The Ghost may suspend work on written notice and may charge statutory interest and compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. This applies to business clients.
Fees already invoiced for work performed remain payable on termination.
The engagement runs for the term in the proposal. Either party may end it early by giving 30 days written notice. Notice takes effect at the end of the notice period, and the fee for that period is payable.
Either party may end the engagement immediately in writing if the other commits a material breach that is not put right within 14 days of being asked, or becomes insolvent.
Where you are contracting as a consumer rather than in the course of a business, you have a statutory right to cancel within 14 days of the contract being made, under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. If you have asked for work to begin during that period, you may be charged for what has been supplied up to the point you cancel.
On payment of all sums due, the copyright and all other intellectual property rights in the final approved content pass to you. The library is yours, and it stays yours after the engagement ends.
Until payment is made in full, The Ghost retains those rights and any licence to publish is provisional.
The Ghost keeps ownership of its own methods, frameworks, templates and internal working documents. Nothing here transfers those to you.
Drafts, working notes and unused material are not part of the deliverable unless the proposal says they are.
Everything you share is treated as confidential and is not disclosed to anyone else without your permission, except where disclosure is required by law.
The Ghost will work within any non disclosure agreement you are subject to, provided you tell us about it. Where a story involves your own clients, it is written to name the problem, the stakes and the room, never the client, unless you have their written permission and pass it to us.
The ghostwriting relationship itself is confidential. The Ghost does not claim authorship of your content, publicly or privately.
The Ghost may describe the work in anonymised form, for example by trade and outcome, with no name, company or identifying detail. If you would rather that did not happen, say so in writing and it will not.
Your name, logo, likeness or a quotation attributed to you will only ever be used with your written permission, which you may withdraw at any time.
You are the author of record. Once you have approved a piece and it is published under your name, you are responsible for it, including for the accuracy of any claim, figure or fact you have supplied or verified.
The Ghost will not knowingly write anything false, defamatory or in breach of a third party's rights, and may decline to write something it believes falls into that category.
Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited. Your statutory rights as a consumer, including those under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, are not affected.
Subject to that, The Ghost is not liable for loss of profit, loss of business, loss of anticipated savings, loss of goodwill, or any indirect or consequential loss.
Subject to that, the total liability of The Ghost in connection with an engagement is limited to the fees paid by you under that engagement in the 12 months before the claim arose.
Neither party is in breach because of an event outside its reasonable control, including illness, bereavement, failure of a third party platform, or loss of utilities or connectivity. The affected party will tell the other promptly and the timetable will be adjusted by agreement.
Personal data is handled as described in the privacy notice. Where The Ghost processes personal data on your behalf, a separate data processing agreement will be put in place on request.
If something has gone wrong, write to [email protected] with the detail. You will get an acknowledgement within 5 working days and a substantive reply within 20 working days.
These terms and the proposal together form the whole agreement between us and replace anything said or written beforehand.
A failure to enforce a term is not a waiver of it. If any provision is found to be unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.
Neither party may transfer the agreement to somebody else without written consent.
Nobody who is not a party to the agreement has any right to enforce it under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.
These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.
These terms may be updated. The version in force for your engagement is the version published on the date your proposal was accepted, and it is kept on file. Changes do not apply retrospectively.