Editorial Standards

1. Purpose and Scope

These Editorial Standards govern how VMH selects, prepares, edits, illustrates, describes, publishes, markets, corrects, and maintains books and related editorial material across print editions, eBooks, product pages, contributor pages, VMH Lumière, newsletters, and other VMH publishing surfaces. They apply to original works, public-domain source texts, licensed material, annotated editions, introductions, forewords, bibliographies, cover art, metadata, and software-assisted publishing workflows.

These standards supplement the Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and Copyright Notice. A contract, license, author agreement, rights-holder instruction, or applicable law controls where it imposes a stricter requirement.

2. Editorial Mission

VMH publishes independent books and distinctive editions intended to reward close reading. Our editorial goal is to present each work honestly, identify the edition readers are receiving, distinguish source text from VMH-added material, credit contributors accurately, and correct material errors when they are confirmed.

Editorial presentation may be elegant, contemporary, or interpretive, but design and marketing must not create a false statement about authorship, edition identity, historical fact, rights status, or the content of the work.

3. Core Principles

Accuracy. Names, dates, titles, quotations, edition labels, contributor credits, product formats, ISBNs where used, and material historical claims should be checked before publication.

Transparency. Readers should be able to distinguish the underlying work from a VMH foreword, annotation, bibliography, illustration, cover, product description, or software feature.

Accountability. Material errors should be corrected across all affected formats rather than silently left in one edition or surface.

Editorial independence. Sales channels, payment providers, retailers, promotional goals, and technical vendors do not determine the factual content of VMH editorial material.

4. Edition Identity and Labeling

Each publication should identify the work, author, VMH edition or series designation, format, and meaningful editorial additions with enough clarity to prevent one edition from being mistaken for another. Where VMH publishes more than one edition of the same underlying work, titles, subtitles, covers, metadata, and product pages must preserve those distinctions.

For example, The Sun Also Rises (Annotated) is a distinct editorial product from The Sun Also Rises: A 20th Century Classic. Their cover art, edition labels, and added editorial material should not be interchanged.

5. Annotated Editions

An annotated edition must make added editorial matter distinguishable from the source text. Annotations should clarify context, references, terminology, historical background, or editorial decisions without pretending to be words written by the original author. Where an annotation states a disputed historical or interpretive conclusion, the wording should reflect the level of certainty supported by the evidence.

6. Forewords, Introductions, and Afterwords

Original forewords, introductions, prefaces, afterwords, and editor notes should identify their author or editorial source where appropriate. Quotations should be reproduced accurately; paraphrases should not be formatted as direct quotations. Editorial framing should not alter the underlying text without disclosure.

7. Bibliographies and Source Notes

Bibliographies, annotated bibliographies, and source notes should identify sources accurately enough for a reader to understand the basis of substantive claims. VMH may use scholarly books, archives, primary sources, reputable reference works, official records, and other reliable sources appropriate to the subject. Fabricated citations or sources are not acceptable.

8. Public-Domain Source Texts

Some VMH editions may use an underlying text that is public domain in a relevant territory. Public-domain status of the source text does not automatically place VMH-created forewords, annotations, bibliographies, cover art, illustrations, typography, editorial selection, formatting, metadata, or compilation elements in the public domain.

Copyright status varies by jurisdiction. VMH should avoid presenting a territorial public-domain conclusion as a universal statement when rights may differ elsewhere.

9. Original Literary Works

Original fiction, poetry, essays, and other literary works published by VMH should be presented in accordance with the author or rights holder’s approved text and applicable publishing arrangements. Editorial changes that materially affect meaning should be reviewed with the appropriate author, editor, or rights holder when required by the applicable arrangement.

10. Sensitive Historical and Literary Material

Classic literature may contain depictions or language involving war, violence, race, class, sexuality, religion, disability, colonialism, or other subjects that contemporary readers may find difficult. VMH may provide context where editorially useful, but we do not silently rewrite a source text merely to make it conform to present-day preferences while continuing to represent it as the original work.

11. Quotations, Facts, and Attribution

Direct quotations should be reproduced faithfully and attributed where attribution is required by law, license, or editorial practice. Factual claims—especially dates, biographies, historical events, publication history, and rights statements—should be checked against reliable sources when reasonably practical. A promotional claim should not be presented as an established scholarly judgment without support.

12. Contributor Credits

Editors, authors, poets, illustrators, cover artists, foreword writers, researchers, and other contributors should receive credits consistent with the rights and roles recorded for the publication. Primary and secondary credits should not be rearranged in a way that materially misrepresents authorship or contribution.

13. Cover Art and Illustrations

Cover art, illustrations, photographs, and design elements should be lawful to publish and accurately credited where required. Original VMH artwork should not be represented as archival documentary imagery. Generated or heavily altered images may be used for design or illustration, but they should not be described as authentic photographs of historical events, people, manuscripts, or objects when they are not.

14. Product Descriptions and Metadata

Product pages and metadata should describe the edition the customer will actually receive. Format, edition, title, subtitle, series, contributor credits, price, retailer links, reader availability, download availability, and cover image should be internally consistent. Search optimization must not depend on falsely labeling an edition or contributor.

15. VMH Lumière

VMH Lumière is a publishing surface as well as a software interface. The title opened in the reader must match the customer’s selected and entitled product. Navigation, reading order, typography controls, progress restoration, and error handling should be tested so that technical failures do not silently substitute a different book or edition.

Reading progress and preferences should remain subordinate to textual integrity: a convenience feature must not alter the book content itself.

16. eBooks and Digital Files

EPUB and other digital editions should be tested for file integrity, reading order, table of contents, internal navigation, images, character encoding, paragraph structure, and representative device/browser behavior. A technically valid archive is not sufficient if the reading order is damaged or the edition identity is wrong.

When a corrected digital file replaces an earlier release, VMH should preserve enough version or update information to distinguish the corrected file for support and quality-control purposes.

17. Print Editions

Print files should be reviewed separately for trim, margins, gutters, image resolution, font embedding, page breaks, running heads, folios, front matter, back matter, cover dimensions, and other manufacturing concerns. A production defect should be described honestly and should not be confused with a textual or editorial correction.

18. Accessibility and Readability

VMH aims to improve accessibility and readability across digital publishing surfaces using recognized practices such as semantic structure, keyboard-operable controls, visible focus, useful alternative text, readable contrast, and scalable text. The W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines may be used as an external benchmark. VMH does not claim a formal conformance level unless the relevant surface has actually been evaluated against that level.

19. Technology-Assisted and AI-Assisted Workflows

VMH may use software, scripts, automation, machine learning, generative tools, and other technology to assist research organization, draft preparation, proofreading, metadata, conversion, coding, accessibility review, image development, and production tasks. Human editorial responsibility remains with VMH for material we publish.

Technology-assisted work must not be used to fabricate a quotation, citation, historical source, rights statement, author attribution, or documentary image. Material factual claims generated or transformed by automated systems should be checked before publication when reasonably practical.

20. Corrections and Clarifications

VMH corrects confirmed material errors. Corrections may involve a website page, product metadata, digital file, print master, cover, contributor credit, reader configuration, or multiple surfaces. Minor typography and layout repairs that do not change meaning may be corrected without a formal notice; material corrections may receive an update note where it helps readers understand what changed.

21. Quality Assurance and Release Review

Before a significant release, VMH should perform review proportionate to the product: verify edition identity and rights basis; inspect the source and added editorial matter; confirm credits and covers; validate digital files or print masters; test product links and representative reading paths; and confirm that the description and metadata match the deliverable.

22. Commerce and Editorial Independence

VMH sells books directly and may link to third-party retailers. Commercial relationships may influence where a product is sold, but they should not justify an inaccurate rights statement, a fabricated endorsement, an undisclosed textual alteration, or suppression of a confirmed correction. A retailer’s availability, ranking, price presentation, or review process does not establish VMH editorial judgment.

23. Reader Feedback and Error Reports

Readers may report suspected errors, broken links, mislabeled editions, accessibility problems, incorrect contributor credits, or reader defects. Useful reports identify the title, edition or format, page or reader location when possible, device/browser where relevant, and the specific issue observed. Good-faith reports are reviewed on their merits.

24. Rights and Licensing Review

Before VMH publishes material controlled by another rights holder, the intended use should be supported by public-domain status, license, assignment, permission, contract, or another lawful basis. Required notices and credits should be preserved. These standards do not expand any license granted by an author, publisher, artist, or other rights holder.

25. Third-Party Platforms and Services

VMH may rely on GitHub Pages, Google services, PayPal, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, software libraries, email providers, and other third parties. References to those services identify infrastructure or distribution relationships and do not imply that the third party approves VMH editorial content unless expressly stated.

26. Records and Version Control

Where practical, VMH should retain release dates, update dates, product identifiers, edition labels, and source or rights records sufficient to trace a published edition and investigate a later correction. Version control should distinguish a change to the underlying text from a formatting, metadata, cover, software, or storefront update.

27. Contact

Questions about these standards, a correction, contributor credit, rights concern, or publishing-quality issue may be sent to:

28. Standards Review

VMH may revise these standards as the catalog, publishing formats, law, technology, accessibility practices, and editorial workflows evolve. The Last Updated date identifies the current published version. The continuing objective is straightforward: readers should be able to trust what edition they are reading, what VMH added to it, who contributed to it, and how VMH responds when something needs correction.