Refund Policy

01The principle behind this policy

Every SJF Ventures LLC engagement is priced and scheduled before it begins. You receive a written roadmap that sets out the scope, the milestones, the timeline, and the cost — including the services we would advise you to skip. You commit only after you have read it.

From that point, the policy follows a single rule: you pay for work that has been done, and you do not pay for work that has not. Everything below is an application of that rule to a specific situation.

02Consultations and roadmaps

The initial consultation and the written roadmap that follows it are provided at no charge and carry no obligation. There is nothing to refund, and nothing to cancel — if the roadmap tells you the honest answer is to publish elsewhere, or not yet, you are free to take it and go.

03The deposit

A deposit is payable on signature of your engagement agreement. It reserves a production slot in our schedule, commissions the editors and designers assigned to your book, and covers the project setup work that begins immediately.

04Milestone payments

Beyond the deposit, engagements are billed against milestones — for example, developmental edit, copy edit, cover design, interior typesetting, distribution setup, and launch campaign. Each milestone is quoted separately in your roadmap, so the boundary between paid and unpaid work is always visible.

If you cancel mid-project

• Milestones not yet started — refunded in full, or never invoiced. You owe nothing for work we have not begun.
• Milestones in progress — refunded pro-rata against the work genuinely completed at the point you cancel. We will show you the working, not simply assert a figure.
• Milestones completed and delivered — not refundable. The edited manuscript, cover files, interior files, and any other delivered asset are yours to keep, use, and take to another provider.

Non-refundable third-party costs

Some costs are paid out to third parties on your behalf and cannot be recovered by us once spent. These are always identified as pass-through costs in your roadmap before you approve them.

• ISBN purchases and barcode registration.
• Copyright registration and Library of Congress filing fees.
• Print proofs, physical review copies, and shipping.
• Distributor and retailer setup or title fees.
• Advertising spend already placed with Amazon, Meta, BookBub, or similar platforms.
• Licensed stock imagery, fonts, and third-party editorial reviews.

05Revisions before refunds

Most dissatisfaction is a brief problem, not a quality problem, and it is nearly always cheaper for you to have the work fixed than to unwind the engagement. Every deliverable therefore includes a defined revision allowance, stated in your roadmap.

• Cover design — initial concepts, then two full rounds of revision on the chosen direction.
• Interior design and typesetting — two rounds of layout revision after the first proof.
• Editorial work — one round of author queries and clarification following delivery of the edit.
• Marketing and launch copy — two rounds of revision per asset.

If a deliverable does not match the agreed brief, we correct it at our cost — that is not a revision round, it is our error, and it does not count against your allowance. Tell us within 14 days of delivery and we will fix it.

Requests that change the brief rather than correct it are new work, quoted separately and approved by you before anyone starts.

06If we cancel or cannot deliver

If SJF Ventures LLC is unable to complete your project for any reason within our control, you receive a full refund of all payments made for work not yet delivered, plus any pass-through costs not yet spent. We will also hand over every file, draft, and account in a usable format and, where you want it, introduce you to another provider.

If a project stalls on our side for more than 30 days without a substantive update from us, you may cancel on the same terms as though we had cancelled.

07Dormant projects

Books stall for real reasons, and we do not penalise that. If your project pauses on your side, your paid milestones and your place in our records are held for 12 months at no additional charge, and you can restart whenever you are ready.

After 12 months of no contact we will email you twice before closing the file. Closing a file does not create a refund entitlement for work already completed, and it does not delete your delivered assets — those remain available to you on request under our retention schedule.

08What we cannot refund for

We are a services company, not a guarantor of commercial outcomes, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. Refunds are not available on the following grounds.

• Sales performance. No publisher can guarantee copies sold, rankings, reviews, or revenue. We commit to the quality and delivery of the work, not to the market's response to it.
• Subjective taste after approval. Once you have signed off a cover, an edit, or a layout, later changes of mind are new work rather than refundable defects.
• Retailer or platform decisions. Category placement, algorithmic visibility, account approvals, and content policy rulings are made by Amazon, Ingram, Apple, and others, and are outside our control.
• Author-supplied material. Delays or costs caused by late, incomplete, or rights-encumbered material provided by you.
• Advertising spend already placed. Once a campaign runs, the spend is gone regardless of result.

09How to request a refund

Write to hello@sjfliterature.com with your name, the title of your book, and what you would like resolved. There is no form to complete and no escalation ladder to climb.

If you disagree with our decision, tell us and a director will review it personally. We would far rather resolve a dispute across a table than through a chargeback, and we will engage in good faith to do so.

10Chargebacks

If you intend to dispute a payment with your bank or card issuer, please contact us first. A chargeback filed without prior contact freezes the project and the funds while the issuer investigates, which helps neither of us and delays any resolution you are owed.

Filing a chargeback does not extinguish amounts properly due for work already completed and delivered.

11Precedence and statutory rights

Where your signed engagement agreement contains refund terms specific to your project, those terms take precedence over this page. This policy governs anything the agreement does not address.

Nothing here limits any non-waivable statutory right you have under the consumer protection law of your jurisdiction. Where such a right conflicts with this policy, the statutory right prevails.