We Don't Keep Your Manuscript: A Plain-English Privacy Promise for Authors

Short answer: Your manuscript is used to build your book, and then it's done. It is not kept as a working copy, and it is never used to train a model — not ours, not anyone's. A publisher can choose to keep a finished book in a library on the platform, and an author can choose, book by book, to keep the text so it can be re-set later — but both are deliberate, opt-in acts, off by default and deletable. The raw manuscript file itself is not retained by design. And TimePress typesets; it doesn't edit — your words arrive on the page exactly as you wrote them.

That's the whole promise. Here's why it matters and what sits behind it.

Why authors are right to be wary

The last few years have taught writers a hard lesson: their words are valuable to machines, and not everyone asks permission. Whole platforms have quietly fed user content into training pipelines. So when an author is asked to upload a manuscript they've spent years on to some new tool, a healthy caution kicks in — where does this go, and who gets to keep it? That caution is correct. A book you love is not a file to be casually harvested. TimePress is built so that caution never has to apply here.

What "training data" means — and why we don't touch yours

"Training data" is the material a model learns from. When your text becomes training data, fragments of it can be absorbed into a model's behaviour, beyond your control and impossible to withdraw. We don't do this with your manuscript, full stop. Your book is composed — set into a designed interior — and that is the entire transaction. It isn't a teaching set. It isn't a corpus. It's your book, being made into your book.

Build, then gone

The principle is simple to say and it's the one to remember: build, then gone. Your manuscript is the input to a production job. Once the job has produced your book, the raw manuscript's purpose is complete. It isn't retained as a standing copy waiting to be useful to us later. There's nothing we want to do with it after the book exists, so we're not built to hold onto it.

The exceptions, and they're yours to make

There are exactly two places something is kept, and both are choices, not defaults.

A publisher can keep a finished book — the produced, designed object — in a library on the platform, so their catalogue lives in one place. That's about the finished book, opted into deliberately. It is not the raw manuscript, and it never becomes training material.

An author can keep a book's text for re-setting — tick "Keep this manuscript so I can re-set it later" when you build, and we hold the book's text as the engine read it (never your original file), so a new trim, binding, or style later is one click instead of a re-upload. It's off by default, it's marked plainly on your shelf, it never becomes training material, and "forget it" deletes it at once.

The distinction matters: the book is a thing you chose to make public; the manuscript is the private working thing behind it — and it stays private, and stays gone, unless you deliberately ask otherwise.

Set, not rewritten

One more piece of the same promise, because it's part of trust: TimePress is a typesetting and production engine, not an editor. It doesn't rephrase you, "improve" your sentences, or run your prose through a model that changes it. The only place AI touches the book is a single step that reads structure — this is a chapter, this is a heading — so the engine knows how to set it. Everything that reaches the page is your words, deterministically arranged. Set, not rewritten.

Testimonial slot — insert a real author quote about trust/privacy e.g. "It was the first tool I actually trusted to hand my manuscript to." — First name, place

The short version

Your manuscript is yours. It's used to build your book, not to train anything, and it isn't kept sitting around afterwards. A finished book can live in your library if you choose; a book's text can be kept for re-setting if you choose; the raw manuscript file never is. And your words are set, never rewritten. That's not a legal manoeuvre — it's how a tool made for writers ought to behave.

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Frequently asked questions

Does TimePress use my manuscript to train AI?

No. Your manuscript is used only to build your book. It is never used as training data for any model.

Is my manuscript stored after my book is made?

Not unless you ask us to. By default nothing is kept — the manuscript is gone the moment the build finishes. If you tick "Keep this manuscript so I can re-set it later" when building, we keep the book's text (never your original file) until you delete it from your shelf. Either way, it is never training data.

Does TimePress edit or change my writing?

No. TimePress typesets; it doesn't edit. Your words appear on the page exactly as you wrote them. AI is confined to a single step that identifies structure so the engine knows how to set the book.

Who can see my manuscript?

It's a private input to your production job, not published or shared. The finished book is what becomes public — only if and when you publish it.