Things people ask before sending a manuscript

No — and it's a reasonable thing to worry about, so I'd rather you asked outright. Before any work begins I sign a confidentiality agreement stating that your manuscript stays confidential without limit of time, that I won't use it for any purpose other than typing it, that no part is shown to anyone else, and that typing it gives me no rights over it of any kind. Every copy I hold is deleted when we finish, and I confirm that to you in writing.

No, and I'd rather you didn't. Photographs or scans taken on a phone are enough for me to work from — scans are preferable if you're able to manage them — and either way the manuscript never leaves your house. If photographing hundreds of pages isn't practical, we can talk about alternatives — but posting an irreplaceable original is the last resort, not the first.

Almost certainly. I transcribe seventeenth-century legal documents for a living, where the letters aren't even formed the way modern ones are. Modern handwriting, however untidy, is rarely the hardest thing on my desk. Send a page or two and I'll tell you honestly.

It depends on the length of the book and on how readable the hand is, so any figure I gave you here would be wrong for somebody. What I will do is quote a delivery date at the same time as I quote a price, once I've seen a few pages — and I'd rather give you a timetable I can keep than a flattering one I can't. Longer manuscripts are delivered in batches as they're done, so you aren't waiting until the very end to see anything.

It's marked clearly in the text so you can see exactly where the doubt is, and it goes into a full written report that comes to you with the finished manuscript — every query, every flagged passage, and how each uncertain reading was marked. What I won't do is guess and present the guess as though it were certain — you'd have no way of knowing, and that's how errors get into print.

No. This is a manuscript service and nothing else — no dissertations, no minutes, no business documents, no scanning or file conversion. I type books, for the people who wrote them. It's a narrow trade deliberately: it means I'm good at it, and it means I understand what you're handing over.

Only if you ask. By default I type exactly what you have written, because it's your book and your voice. Obvious slips of the pen get flagged in the report rather than silently changed. If you'd like a light corrective pass, say so and I'll quote for it.

Tables and straightforward diagrams are no trouble, and are included in the ordinary rate. Formulas and equations are a different matter — a wrong subscript or sign is the kind of error that doesn't announce itself, so I don't retype these freehand at the standard rate. Where a manuscript includes genuine formulas, I usually lift them as images from your original pages rather than retype them as text, the same way I handle diagrams and illustrations, and quote for a project like this individually. Send a few sample pages and I'll tell you honestly what's possible.

That's more common than you'd think, particularly with books written over many years. I don't offer a page-sequencing or reordering service, so the pages need to be in the order you'd like them typed before you send them. If you're not sure of the order yourself, it's worth sorting them first, or asking someone who knows the book to help — I'm happy to advise on numbering once they're in sequence.

These are some of the most rewarding projects I take on, and I treat them with the care they deserve. One practical note: owning the physical manuscript and owning the right to publish it are not the same thing. If you're thinking of publishing rather than simply preserving it for the family, it's worth establishing who holds the copyright before you go far.

Yes. Send a few pages and I'll complete a free manuscript assessment — the opening 1,000 words — with no obligation. It's the fairest way for you to judge, and it tells me how quickly your handwriting actually reads, so the written quote I give you afterwards is accurate rather than hopeful.

A Microsoft Word document, properly formatted, with consistent chapter headings, page numbers and a table of contents where it helps. A PDF as well if you'd like one. Alongside it, a full written report — every query, every flagged passage, how uncertain readings were marked — so you know exactly what's definite and what's worth a second look. It's ready to send to an agent, upload to a self-publishing platform, or simply print and give to your family.

Tell me and I'll put it right at no charge — I don't bill for correcting my own errors. And because longer manuscripts are delivered in batches, you can stop at the end of any batch, pay only for the pages delivered, and owe nothing further.