Transparency Is a Promise
Not a feature, No fine print surprises
11/2/20263 min read
Round glasses covered in water droplets focus on condensation and moisture.
Photo Source: lil artsy via Pexels
A Promise, Not a Feature
Last week I wrote about how the labels readers use to find books are written for an algorithm, not for them. Underneath that sits a simpler problem, and it’s the one I run into every time I try to make a decision as an author: I can’t see what I’m agreeing to.
When I was researching the publishing road, I spent hours comparing tools, trying to work out which editing software wouldn’t take my work and feed it to an AI model. I asked groups for advice and wondered the whole time: does this person have real experience, or just opinions? Who benefits if I take their suggestion? What are the actual terms, and will they still be the terms next year?
Nobody was hiding anything on purpose. At least, I like to assume they weren't. The information just wasn’t there, or it was buried, or it changed without warning. That’s what I mean by transparency, and it’s the first value we’re building Leaf Sheep House around.
What transparency is (and isn’t)
For us, transparency means three things: no hidden rules, no changes without notice, and no mystery about who benefits.
It doesn’t mean sharing everything with everyone. It means the people affected by a decision can see what affects them, in plain language, before they commit.
I think about George Ohr, the potter who dug his own clay and mixed his own glazes. Because he understood every step of his process, he could play with every step. Transparency is like that. When you can see how something works, you can trust it, question it, and improve it.
The promise, in four parts
We call it a promise because a promise is something you can hold us to. Here’s what we’re building toward.
1. Clear terms. Rules written in plain language, with notice before anything changes. In the agreements we’re writing, authors get 30 days’ notice before a removal, and a 48-hour window to cancel and get a refund before any paid job runs. Nobody should discover a change after it’s happened.
2. Clear prices. No hidden fees and no surprises at checkout. Our service tiers are spelled out in advance: corrections are free, and larger updates have a set price that you can see before you decide.
3. Clear descriptions. What a book is described as should come from the book, not from whatever was optimized to rank. Authors can see how their work is described before it goes live, dispute anything that’s wrong, and add their own context. A human reviews every dispute.
4. Clear policies on AI. You should know exactly how your work is and isn’t used. If an author changes their mind about AI, we act on it right away, and we follow a published schedule for deleting what we’ve stored.
Why this matters
Here on the Leaf Sheep House website, I describe the “too many hats” problem: the hours spent researching which tools are trustworthy, which advice is real, which platform will change its rules next. Opacity is expensive. Every unclear term is a question a creator has to research instead of write. And as the Kindle+ rebrand reminded us, authors have lived for years with rules that can change without a vote.
When the terms are visible, you can spend that time on your book.
What we won’t claim
We’re small, and we’re early. We will make mistakes. When we do, we’ll tell you, and we’ll explain what we’re changing. A promise to be perfect isn’t one anyone can keep. A promise to be honest is.
Hold us to it
If you’re an author, an artist, or a reader, I’d like you to be our harshest reader. If anything we publish, price, or describe isn’t clear to you, tell me. It’s the quickest way for us to get it right.
Next week, I’ll write about what indie authors give up on today’s platforms, and what it would take to give some of it back.
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