Article

Publishers and education companies: get paid for your records

By TrustPast

Updated November 7, 2026

This page is for a publisher, an education company, a course builder or a test developer with 30 or more people and a long list of finished titles. The catalogue is the obvious asset. Owners rarely think about the file behind each title: the proposal, the editorial letter, the three rounds of review, the style sheet, the proofs with the queries in the margin.

Those files record judgment. Why a chapter was cut. How a reviewer’s objection was answered. Why a test item was thrown out after the field test. A buyer pays to license records like these to train AI models, and what it pays for is how the work was done, not the finished book. The plain version, written for trade businesses and true of an editorial office, is on what data buyers actually want from a trade business.

Here is what a publishing or education company keeps, what micro1 says counts, what never goes in, and how the price is set.

The records a publisher or education company keeps

These are our examples, not a buyer’s list. They are the files a press or a curriculum team builds as it works, title after title.

The proposal and the acquisition note. A pitch arrives. An editor writes up why the list should take it, what it will compete with and what it needs. The board says yes, no, or yes with changes. A decade of acquisition notes is a record of what the house bet on and why.

The editorial letter. The long letter after the first full draft, the one that says the middle sags and the second argument is stronger than the first. Then the author’s reply, and the next draft. That exchange is the craft of editing written down.

The style sheet and the copyedit queries. Every title has one: the spellings chosen, the hyphenation, the house rules bent for this book. The queries in the margin show the copyeditor’s reasoning, and the author’s answers show which ones held.

The review rounds. For academic and educational work, the reports from subject reviewers, the response memo, and the revised manuscript. For a course, the alignment review that checks each lesson against its learning objective.

The production schedule. Manuscript in, copyedit, typesetting, first proofs, second proofs, index, files to the printer or the platform. Each slipped date has an email behind it.

The item bank and the assessment trail. For a test developer: the item as first written, the bias and sensitivity review, the edits, the field-test result, and the decision to keep, revise or retire it. That last decision is where the expertise sits.

The course build. The curriculum map, the scope and sequence, the storyboard, the accessibility checklist, the pilot feedback from teachers, and the revision list that came out of it.

The errata log. Every mistake found after publication, how it was found, and how the next printing or the next release fixed it.

Our project history page covers how files like these show a plan meeting reality. For a press, much of it lives in email: the author threads, the freelancer threads, the back and forth with the printer. The email archives page shows which parts of an inbox carry the reasoning and which are noise.

Here is how one title might run, as an invented example. A proposal came in during 2016 for a statistics textbook. The acquisition note flagged a crowded market and argued for a worked-examples angle. Two reviewers disagreed on chapter order; the editor sided with one and wrote the author a four-page letter saying why. The copyedit raised 600 queries. A teacher pilot in 2018 found two exercises that didn’t work, and the second edition replaced them. That is one title, with every decision dated and explained. A house that has published 300 titles has 300 of those.

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What counts, in micro1’s own words

micro1 states its eligibility plainly on its data partnerships page: “We’re looking for established companies with 30+ full-time employees, mature business operations, and substantial historical operational data.” It adds: “This can include internal communications, SOPs, project histories, CRM records, support tickets, and other business documentation.”

On what it wants inside a company, it says: “We are looking for data that reflects how work is actually performed within an organization.” It lists “standard operating procedures (SOPs), process documentation, internal knowledge bases, workflows, templates, operational frameworks, and other business process artifacts”.

micro1 doesn’t list publishing or education among its industry examples. Two of the examples it does list describe an editorial office closely. Under legal and contracts: “Policies, contract workflows, review processes, governance documentation, and compliance procedures”. Under customer support: “Support documentation, ticket workflows, QA processes, customer operations, and knowledge management”. The referral page lists “All industries” among its requirements.

As our own reading: a style sheet is a template. A peer review round is a review process. The production schedule is a workflow. An item bank with its review history is a QA process with every decision logged. And the editorial letter is exactly what micro1 calls “real operational expertise” and “decision-making processes”, written out at length by the person who made the call. micro1 decides what it licenses; the fit is for it to judge after it has seen the inventory.

Two practical lines from the same page. “Data should be primarily in English.” A house that publishes in translation will want to raise its other-language files on the call. And on where it looks: “current demand is strongest for companies based in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada.”

What is never included

Personal data stays out: authors’ home addresses, royalty statements, bank details, contributor contracts with their fees, staff files. Our page on what is never included shows where those hide. A publisher or education company has three more lines to draw, as our own advice.

Work someone else owns. Most authors keep the copyright in their manuscript and grant the house a licence to publish it. Work-for-hire content may belong to the house; a custom course built for a client usually belongs to the client. The contract decides. The trail of how the house edited the work is a separate question from the work itself, and counsel should answer both. Our page on client-owned work and NDAs shows how to sort the files.

Confidential reviews. A blind peer review is a promise to the reviewer. Even with names removed, a report might identify its writer by what it says. List these on the call and let counsel and micro1 settle whether and how they go in.

Student records. This is the hard line for an education company that works with schools. The U.S. Department of Education’s FERPA page says the regulations apply to “an educational agency or institution to which funds have been made available under any program administered by the Secretary”, where the institution “provides educational services or instruction, or both, to students”. It defines education records as those “Directly related to a student” and “Maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a party acting for the agency or institution.” A platform that hosts gradebooks, a tutoring service under contract to a district, or a testing company that holds score files may be that party acting for a school. Keep every file of that kind out of the inventory until counsel has looked. Ask counsel; we can’t say how the rule applies to your contracts.

Minors’ data, in general, stays out as a matter of our own advice, whatever the law says about a given file.

How de-identification works

micro1 says the company doesn’t do the scrubbing. Its answer to whether a company must anonymize its data first: “No, micro1 has processes for de-identifying and transforming sensitive information.”

Among the things micro1 says the two sides confirm before any participation: “De-identified before sharing”, meaning “Personal and identifying information is removed or transformed before your data is shared with third parties”. And “Defined retention periods”: “Raw data is deleted according to an agreed schedule”.

On protection, its page says: “Personally identifiable information (PII) is removed when relevant, access is restricted to a limited number of authorized team members, and customer data is processed through isolated pipelines that prevent it from being commingled with other engagements.” It also says “companies have the opportunity to review representative samples before use, and deletion requests are honored according to the terms of the engagement.”

In an editorial file, as our own illustration, the author’s name, the reviewers’ names, the literary agency’s email signature and the school named in a pilot report are the identifying parts. The argument about chapter order, the query about a disputed figure, the reason an item was retired and the revision plan are the work. The process takes off the first and keeps the second. micro1 also says some datasets “may undergo synthetic rewrites that preserve workflow structure while reducing direct ties to original records”, which matters for a house whose titles are well known. More on each step is on how de-identification works.

What decides the price

micro1 publishes three tiers. $100K-500K is “Qualified Enterprise Data Partnerships” (indicative, not an offer). $500K-3M covers “Large-scale operational datasets or ongoing participation across multiple teams and business functions” (indicative, not an offer). $3M+ is “Highly unique, proprietary operational data” (indicative, not an offer). The line above them: “Compensation is based on the quality, uniqueness, and value of the data provided”.

The factors are in micro1’s answers: “dataset size and volume, workflow complexity, data quality, domain expertise represented, and the uniqueness of the operational knowledge contained within the dataset.” On minimums it says “There’s no fixed minimum number of files, documents, or terabytes”, and that it evaluates “the historical depth, breadth, quality, and relevance of the available data.” Its estimate page says the final payout “is determined based on data sources, volume, quality, access terms, and due diligence.”

For a publisher or education company, as our own reading:

Depth. Twenty years of editorial files is a different thing from five. micro1’s estimate asks the years, and notes they are “Typically the number of years you’ve been in business”.
The whole trail. A title whose proposal, review reports, editorial letters, copyedit and errata can all be found is worth more than a folder of final PDFs. The finished file shows the outcome; only the trail shows the reasoning.
Expertise. A senior editor’s letters, a psychometrician’s item reviews, a subject expert’s review reports. micro1 names “domain expertise represented” as a factor.
Breadth. Editorial, production, rights, sales and support are separate teams, and the middle tier names “multiple teams and business functions”.

What lowers it: email deleted on a short retention policy, files kept only as finals, a move to a new production system that left the old projects behind. Our page on how many years of records count shows where the oldest files usually sit.

On payment, micro1 says that once the company transfers its data, “micro1 has 30 days to review and approve it”, and that “payment will be made within 30 days of invoicing.” On 9 October 2026 it announced a commitment to spend $1 billion over 12 months acquiring and licensing enterprise operational data. Each factor is explained on what decides the price of your records.

Which programme fits

This page covers micro1’s programme. Its line is 30 or more people, now or at peak, or a company of any size outside the US. Count everyone on staff. A press that ran 60 people before the last restructuring and runs 22 now kept the records of a 60-person house. The estimate asks your headcount and names the programme that fits it.

If the press or the course company has closed, its archive can still count. micro1’s referral page lists a Defunct Company Data Partnership, described in one line: “We are acquiring data from companies that are no longer operating.” Its requirements are “30+ employees”, “10+ Countries”, “English” and “All industries”, and the company compensation it lists is $100K-$3M+ (indicative, not an offer) “for approved data packages”. Who can sign for a closed company, and where its files went, is on the page for closed companies.

A hardware engineering company runs the same loop of draft, review and revision, with design reviews and test reports where a press has review rounds and proofs. A SaaS and subscription company keeps release notes and a knowledge base that read much like an errata log and a style sheet. And a consulting or advisory firm lives in email and review memos the way an editorial office does, with a client in place of an author.

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Questions and answers

Does micro1 want the books or the courses themselves?

micro1’s pages ask for data that “reflects how work is actually performed within an organization”, such as SOPs, workflows, templates and review processes. The finished title or course is usually the author’s or the client’s work; the trail of how it was made is the company’s, and the contract decides which is which.

We hold student records for schools. Can those go in?

Treat them as out until counsel says otherwise. The Department of Education’s FERPA page defines education records as records directly related to a student and maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a party acting for it. Ask counsel before any such file goes near an inventory.

Do peer reviewers’ names go to micro1?

micro1 says personal and identifying information is removed or transformed before the data is shared with third parties, and that it has its own processes for de-identification. Our advice: list confidential reviews on the call, because a reviewer’s anonymity may be a promise the company made.

We are a small press in the UK. Do we qualify?

micro1 says the programme accepts referrals globally and that current demand is strongest for companies based in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. Its enterprise line is 30 or more employees, or any size outside the US; micro1 decides at application.

How much could a publisher be paid?

micro1 lists payments typically ranging from $100K to over $3M (indicative, not an offer). It prices each company on its data, so no figure on its page predicts an offer.

Do we keep the right to use our own archive?

Yes. micro1’s answer to who owns the data is one line: “Companies retain ownership of their underlying data.”