Terms

Bookbee Publishing fine print
(aka TERMS OF SERVICE)

Sadly we had to have some - Updated June, 2011

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING CAREFULLY. THESE TERMS OF SERVICE, AS AMENDED FROM TIME TO TIME (“Terms”), ARE A BINDING AGREEMENT (“Agreement”) BETWEEN YOU (“End Users”, “Authors”, “Author Agents”, and “Publishers” as defined below) AND Authordirect.net (“AD”). They are also translated into layman’s terms.

By using the service available at Authordirect.net and affiliated domains (the “Site”), You agree to the terms governing the applications, features and functionality available on or through the Site (The “Service”). If you do not agree with these terms, do not use the service.

The following describes how users of the Site who review or purchase downloadable digital books (“End Users”) can download material and how they may rate or use that work by the person or entity who posted the work (the “Author” or “Publisher”). For the sake of simplicity, this Terms of Service may use the term Author and Publisher interchangably. The following also describes the rights and responsibilities of the Author and AD. Any user of this Site who downloads, reads or previews any work on the Site is referred to as an “End User.”

1. LAYMAN’S TERMS: You are giving AD the right to publish and distribute your book(s) to publish, but you may also sell or publish them elsewhere too.

LAWYER’S TERMS:

The Grant and the Territory
The Author hereby grants and assigns to AD the nonexclusive right to digitally publish, distribute, market and sell (“Publish”) the work identified on the upload form (the “Work”). Since the terms of agreement with AD, herein, is non-exclusive, the Author or Publisher is free to Publish, license, market and sell their work elsewhere.
• are the only author of the Work;
• are the sole owner of the rights herein granted;
• have not assigned, pledged, or encumbered such rights or have not entered into any agreement which would conflict with the rights granted to AD herein; and you agree not to do any of the aforementioned without first unpublishing your work at AD

3a. You are also expressly stating that your book(s) do/is NOT:
• violate any right of privacy which is libelous or violate any personal right or other right of any kind of any person or entity (this includes publishing a person’s private email address without their permission;
• would violate any of Your contracts or would disclose any information given to You on the understanding that it would not be published or disclosed;
• plagiarize or pirate any other work or infringe upon any copyright, trademark or other proprietary right;
• Are injurious to End-Users or others including but not limited to recipes, formulae or instructions
• violate state and federal laws.
• advocate hateful, discriminatory or racist views or actions toward others
• advocate or condones violence against another person, whether or not the other party is a willing participant
• advocate illegal activities
• contain images or illustrations depicting individuals perpetrating graphic violence upon another individual or individuals
• contain hyperlinks to affiliate marketing pages, especially if the ebook is published for the sole intent of publishing hyperlinked content that directs readers to affiliate marketing pages
• advocate or promote “systems” about how to make money on the Internet by publishing ebooks
• contain SEO keyword spam, either in your manuscript or your metadata tags
• contain advertisements for services, or contain partial books for the purpose of promoting the purchase of the same book elsewhere or on AD
• if you publish erotica content, neither the book cover nor the book interior may contain graphic images of nudity (either photographic or illustrated) or persons involved in sex acts, and does not include children or underage minors engaged in sexual sexual acts or situations, witnessing such situations, considering sexual acts, or thinking about sexual acts.
• include word-for-word scrapes – or is not a compilation - from Wikipedia or other public domain, government or commercial services;
• and will not appear elsewhere on the Internet authored by people other than yourself;
• sourced from “Private Label” rights, articles, ebooks or information sources which license the same content to other people;
The total revenue of an Author’s total sales of all published Works will be calculated at the end of every calendar month, and 70% of that will be paid to the Author within two working days.
Statements and Payments of Author Royalties

Rights of Use
AD and its users work together to keep the Site working properly. Please report problems and policy violations to AD. The warranties and representations contained in this Agreement extend to End Users and other licensees and successors and assigns of AD. End Users agree while using the Site, Services or Work you agree to not:
• violate any laws, third party rights, or any policies which we have posted on the Site from time to time;
• use the Site, Service or Work if you are not able to form legally binding contracts, are under the age of 18, or are temporarily or indefinitely suspended from our Site;
• circumvent or manipulate our fee structure or the billing process;
• use robots, spiders, shills or other methods in an attempt to unfairly game the site’s ranking systems for downloads, reviews and sales, or hire others to do the same
• engage in advertising, marketing, spam, chain letters, or pyramid schemes involving or using the Work from the Site;
• distribute viruses, malware or any other technologies that may harm AD, or the interests or property of AD users; or
• copy, modify, or distribute content from the Site, or AD’ copyrights and trademarks; or

2. LAYMAN’S TERMS: We will preserve your book(s) format as much as possible. If you want to take your books off our site, you can do so quickly.

LAWYER’S TERMS:

Publication

AD will generally Publish submissions from previously published authors that do not violate, or which do not appear to violate the Agreement. Authors who are not previously published may also be invited the Publish on AD, subject to quality assessment by AD.

2a. Publication of Work As Is. Generally, AD will Publish Author’s Work as it is delivered to us, and not edit or modify the Work. Certain modifications may occur caused by file or design conversions. AD will make every reasonable effort to preserve the original Work’s formatting. 2b. How to “Unpublish” Works from AD. AD may Publish the Work until Author of the Work decides to unpublish it. If the Author is unable to access the site, the author may notify AD in writing to remove the Work. After that notice, AD will remove the work from AD.com within two business days.

3. LAYMAN’S TERMS: If your book(s) breaks any laws, contract or agreements – copyright or defamation, for example – we will delete them from our site until the matter is resolved.

LAWYER’S TERMS:

Infringement

Removal of Infringing or Defamatory Work of Author. AD may take immediate action upon notice from someone claiming that a Work published on AD is Defamatory or Infringes upon a publishing or other contract or another author’s work. AD may remove the Work until the matter is resolved or dispute settles and reserves the right to remove any and all information about the Author, the Author’s Work or the publisher from the Site.

For example, by submitting your work to AD, you the Author are expressly stating that you:

• have full right, power, and authority to enter into this Agreement and to grant the rights granted hereins

• is not the same as a book you have previously published at AD.

• is not a public domain work;

• contain or comprise machine-generated language translations (all translated books must be human-translated and edited, not translated by language translation software such as Google Translate);

4. LAYMAN’S TERMS: If your book(s) require any permissions, you must get them. Authors must be the copyright-holder of the book(s), and should say so with a copyright notice within it/them.

LAWYER’S TERMS:

It is Author’s responsibility to secure permissions to the Work prior to the time the Author submits such work if any material from the work belongs to, or has been licensed to, someone else. The copyright in the Work shall belong to the Author or the party that Author cites as the copyright holder. Author shall be solely responsible for filing its copyrights and any other intellectual property with the appropriate governmental body. It is the Author’s responsibility to place a copyright notice on the copyright page or some other prominent place in the Work.

5. LAYMAN’S TERMS: We will pay you 70% of all sales revenue from your books. If you refer other authors to us, you will get 5% of all their book sales revenue, without affecting their 70%, as long as you both have books on the site.

LAWYER’S TERMS:

Royalties.

So long as the proper copyright protection subsists in the Work, no infringement notices have been filed, and revenues directly attributable to the Work are being collected by AD, the Author and/or publishing party shall be entitled to the following payments:

If an Author was referred to AD by another Author (the “Referring Author) with Works actively for sale on the AD site at the end of a calendar month, the Referring Author will be paid 5% of the Author’s total revenue from toal sales. This will be additional to any income from the Referring Author’s own Works.

6. LAYMAN’S TERMS: AD will not give away an Author’s book(s) for free without asking permission.

LAWYER’S TERMS:

Promotional Rights.

AD shall not distribute free samples of the Work in any form of media, including printed media, in order to promote (a) the author or author’s Work without the Author’s permission. If that permission is granted, the samples will be licensed for free, non-commercial use, duplication and sharing, and will comply with the sample percentage authorized by the Author.

7. LAYMAN’S TERMS: AD has to right to drive traffic to the site, and an Author’s book(s) using SEO, promotional banners, links or advertisements.

LAWYER’S TERMS:

Crawlable or Other Searchable Rights. AD shall have the right to drive traffic to the Author’s Work on the AD Site through (a) general Search Engine Optimization services (b) crawlable, promotional hypertext links or (c) arrangements with third parties which make searchable certain sample portions of the Work.

8. LAYMAN’S TERMS: The Author controls the pricing of their book(s).

LAWYER’S TERMS:

Author-controlled Terms.

The Site allows Author to control pricing and sampling rights.

9. LAYMAN’S TERMS: Authors are paid by PayPal at the end of each month, unless the amount is less than $US10, in which case it rolls over.

LAWYER’S TERMS:

AD pays author royalties on a monthly basis, within five working days of the end of each calendar month. At this time Authors and publishers can only be paid via PayPal. For PayPal, the required accrued royalty is $10.00. If accrued author royalties are less than the threshold, AD will delay payment until such quarterly period as the total royalties due exceeds the threshold. If AD overpays royalties, such as in cases when fraudulent or unauthorized purchases are charged back to AD after royalty payments are made, then AD will deduct the funds owed from the author’s accrued royalties. If the amount owed exceeds the author’s accrued royalties, the author agrees to remit a payment back to AD within 20 days of notification to adjust the overpayment.

10. LAYMAN’S TERMS: The Author must pay all relevant taxes on income from AD.

LAWYER’S TERMS:

Tax.

Authors and Publishers are wholly responsible for paying all relevant personal or company tax applicable to them on income earned from AD.

11. LAYMAN’S TERMS: Consumers buying books on the AD site understand that they must buy at the price set, can’t resell or license them to others, and that the book(s) copyrights remains with the Author(s).

LAWYER’S TERMS:

Purchased works: As End User, you acknowledge that all Work furnished by AD is licensed for the use of the End Users of the Site and may not be sublicensed or resold. If you purchase a work, you hold a non-exclusive, non-transferable, and non-distributable right of use. In other words, you are free to enjoy it for your own use, but you are not authorized to share, sell, or distribute the work to others.

11a. Fees and Services. By using the Site the End User ebook customer is agreeing to pay the fees as presented by AD and set by the Author at the time of purchase. The Author sets the price for their individual Works. End User will have an opportunity to review and accept the fees for the purchase End User is requesting prior to payment. All purchases are final and non-refundable. The Site may change pricing policies and fees for services we provide at any time from time to time and changes shall be effective immediately. Unless otherwise stated, all fees are quoted in U.S. Dollars. You are responsible for paying all fees and applicable taxes associated with your use of the Site. You also acknowledge and agree that the AD Site and Service are proprietary to AD and that the Work is proprietary to the Author; that none are proprietary to End User.

12. LAYMAN’S TERMS: Consumers using the AD site may not abuse it, hack it or infect it with malware of any kind.

LAWYER’S TERMS:

Abusing the Site

End Users, Authors or Publishers may not engage in abusive or profane behavior toward AD, its employees, its authors or fellow users.

13. LAYMAN’S TERMS: Authors and/or Publishers may terminate this agreement at any time. So may AD.

LAWYER’S TERMS:

Termination. Either party may terminate this agreement this Agreement at any time without notice. Registered AD members may cancel their membership at any time, and published AD authors may remove their author page and book listings at any time.

14. LAYMAN’S TERMS: Authors and/or Publishers or End Users should not sue the Site for events or expenses incurred that are beyond its control.

LAWYER’S TERMS:

Indemnification

You (Author or End User) will indemnify and hold AD and its licensees, successors and assigns, and its and their distributors, customers, officers, directors, members, employees and agents, harmless against any expense (including, but not limited to, reasonable attorneys’ fees and disbursements) or judgment, settlement or other liability arising out of any claim or legal proceeding asserting claims contrary to any warranty or representation made by You in this Agreement. AD does not warrant the (a) defects caused by failure to provide a suitable installation environment for the Product, (b) damage caused by disasters such as acts of God, wars, riots, strikes, terrorism, governmental restrictions, fire, flood, wind, and lightening, (c) damage caused by unauthorized attachments, modifications or mis-configurations to the AD Environment, or (e) any other abuse or misuse by Author or the End-Users. Any breach of the End-User License Agreement by or on behalf of an End-User, including, without limitation, unauthorized modification or distribution of the Product or any portion thereof, will void any and all warranties.

15. LAYMAN’S TERMS: AD will actively discourage pirating, but doesn’t install DRM, so Authors and Publishers must understand that it can’t guarantee that book(s) won’t be copied, shared or otherwise abused. DRM does not prevent this anyway.

LAWYER’S TERMS:

Disclaimer of Publisher’s Warranties.

AD is a strong proponent of author’s rights, and the right of authors and copyright owners to receive compensation for their digitally published Works. Therefore, AD strongly discourages piracy/infringement of Author Work and encourages customers to purchase licensed copies. However, AD does not publish works containing digital rights management schemes that limit the customer’s ability to consume Author’s Work as they see fit. Therefore, AD cannot completely prevent piracy/infringement of Author’s Work (the reality of the matter is that even DRMed content can be reproduced and pirated, just as easily as a printed book can be scanned and digitized). When Author lists the Work on AD you are trusting the consumer to honour your legal copyright and abide by the licensing terms you set. There is a growing body of evidence indicating that DRMed Works do not sell as well as non-DRMed Work because customers resent limitations and don’t appreciate being mistrusted. Non-DRMed Works often outsell DRMed Works by leveraging the viral nature of uninhibited sampling and sharing which can dramatically increase your total audience and sales opportunities. There is also evidence that by pricing your Works for less than printed equivalents, you can further decrease piracy and increase sales volume. You understand that AD is distributing the Works according to this so described Trust system.

16. LAYMAN’S TERMS: This is the whole agreement, as updated at the date at the start of this text. We will not knowingly violate either Author/Publishers’ or End Users’ privacy.

LAWYER’S TERMS:

Privacy

AD has strict policies to protect the privacy of AD Authors, publishers and customers.

Agreement breadth

This Agreement is the entire agreement between the parties concerning the subject matter hereof.

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