What should I check before uploading my manuscript to an AI tool?
- Check whether the tool trains its models on your uploaded text.
- Check the data retention period and where the files are stored.
- Check access controls — who at the company can read your manuscript.
- Check that you can export your work in a standard format.
- Check that you can delete your data fully and verify the deletion.
Before uploading an unpublished manuscript, check five things: whether the tool trains its models on your text, how long it retains your files, who can access them, whether you can export your work in a standard format, and whether you can fully delete your data. Unpublished work is your most valuable asset, and the terms of service — not the marketing page — tell you how a tool treats it. If training is on by default or deletion is unclear, treat that as a reason to look elsewhere.
Chapter i·Why it matters
An unpublished manuscript that is used for training, retained indefinitely, or locked inside a tool you cannot export from is a real and often irreversible loss. Authors rarely read the terms before pasting in 90,000 words, and by then the upload has happened. Running the five checks first costs a few minutes and protects the one thing in your career that is genuinely irreplaceable: the work itself, before anyone else has seen it.
Chapter ii·What to include
- A training check: is your text used to train models, and can you opt out?
- A retention check: how long are files kept, and where?
- An access check: who at the vendor can read your content?
- An export check: can you get your work back in a usable format?
- A deletion check: can you remove your data fully and confirm it?
- A read of the actual terms of service, not just the feature page.
Chapter iii·Example
Before trying a new editing tool, an author searches its terms for the words "train," "retain," and "delete." She finds that uploads are used for model training unless she changes a buried setting, and that deletion is not guaranteed. She switches the setting off, tests the tool with a non-sensitive sample chapter, and keeps her full manuscript on a vendor whose terms promise no training and one-click deletion.
Chapter iv·Related questions
In WriteLoom
Everything this article talks about, in one project
WriteLoom does not train on your manuscripts, lets you export your work anytime, and supports full deletion — your unpublished writing stays yours.
Not ready for a workspace yet? Get the free six-part series on winning the writing game: finishing drafts, editing in the right order, querying with real math, and launching on a runway.