your transcripts are not your book

A transcript records what you said. Your book is what a stranger reads alone, at their own pace, with nothing else going on. The difference between the two is where the book gets made.

Speech works live. It carries rhythm, pauses, the room, and the sentence that lands because of the one before it. On the page none of that comes along. Repetitions, asides, and false starts that nobody noticed when you spoke are the first thing a reader sees.

Transcripts carry mistakes too. A name said fast, a number, or a term spelled the way it sounded passes through a transcript looking correct.

Where the book starts

Everything starts from what you send: your own recordings or a transcript. If you send recordings, we check the transcript against the audio, so the words on the page are the words you said.

The Author’s Brief covers what the book is for, who it is for, and what should be true when it is finished. We choose the passages that answer it from the transcript, arrange them into chapters, and edit them into prose.

What the edit does

The edit removes what the page cannot carry: repetition, asides, and the detour that only made sense while you were speaking. The meaning stays where you put it, and the sentences that already work stay in your words.

Your name goes on the book, not on the transcript.