Terms and Conditions

Terms and Conditions for readers and writers These terms and conditions apply to all registered members and may be updated at any time. They are simple and straightforward. By checking the agreement box on the registration form you are confirming that you have read, understand and agree with the following:

Membership
Registration provides you with membership of the obooko online community only, no other rights are granted or bestowed. We reserve the right to cancel a membership at any time if the terms and conditions on this page are not complied with.

Email Communication
It is a condition of registration that you agree to obooko sending you transactional email messages containing your login details, requested reminders, responses to support requests and other correspondence directly related to your free membership. For your peace of mind we never send spam of any kind and do not share your email address with any other person or business. Should you not wish us to keep in touch with you please do not register.

Copyright and Licences
As a member, you agree to uphold the moral, legal and intellectual property rights of authors as copyright owners. Any ebook you download from obooko is strictly for your personal use and must not be duplicated (unless an author has given permission to print copies of their work by print enabling the file,) plagiarised, re-distributed, translated, hosted on other websites or sold. Equally, the scope of all Creative Commons licences must be complied with and the author's retained rights respected. You hereby confirm you are aware that unauthorised use of an author's work may result in legal action being taken against you.

Advertising
Products or services advertised or referred to on obooko are neither recommended nor endorsed by us unless stated. We do not have control over websites, products or services offered by advertisers. We do not accept responsibility for any loss, monetary or otherwise, incurred through transactions and contracts you make with such advertisers or their representatives.

Content
With the exception of free books published by obooko, we do not accept responsibility for the content of books hosted on this site. Content is the sole responsibility of the named author. However, we prohibit work that is written with the intention to encourage, promote, condone or incite racial, sexual, cultural or religious intolerance or hatred; physical, mental or sexual abuse; criminal activity or acts of terrorism. This condition does not apply to work that explores or refers to these issues in a fictional context.

Books written for a mature audience will be displayed with an age rating of 17+. Children under 13 years of age must not download material from this site. To allow access to our Books for Teens category we have set a minimum age of 13 for membership, with a recommendation that people aged 13-16 discuss registration with a parent or guardian prior to joining obooko. We advise parents and guardians to assume their responsibility of supervising access to websites. If you are a mature reader but easily offended by profanities and descriptions or expressions of an adult nature, please do not download material from this site.

Malicious damage and abuse
Although all files submitted to obooko are scanned for known viruses, we cannot guarantee their purity. It is therefore your responsibility to check files downloaded to your computer using your own anti-virus software. We do not accept responsibility for any loss, monetary or otherwise, incurred by malicious software contained within a file or contracted from any destination link from that file. Please contact us if you experience any occurrence of this nature. Abuse of the author feedback form: spam, offensive language, or soliciting of information will result in instant termination of membership.

AUTHORS

Submitting books
All e-books must be original works submitted by the author or the author's legal publisher: members must not 'post' the work of others. By submitting work to obooko for publication via our submission form or by email or postal mail, you give us permission to distribute royalty free digital copies free of charge via the obooko.com website. You will not receive royalties, fees or payment of any kind. You permit us also to allow advertising to be shown on pages displaying details about your work (this is how we keep obooko free for both authors and readers.) The content of ebooks submitted must be original, written in English and formatted in text that is legible and scaleable on computers and handheld e-reader devices.

You must use a standard serif or sans-serif font (no scripts please) in black on a white background. We recommend a minimum font size of 12pt. Dimensions should be in portrait format. Free books intended for publication in our main fiction categories must be predominantly textual, containing a preferred minimum of 7,500 words (novelette.) We prefer non-fiction to contain a minimum of 10,000 words. Where images dominate text (must be 70% text) we reserve the right to decline your submission.

Our maximum file size is 3mb: we may be able to accomodate slightly larger sizes but please contact us before you submit your work. Ebooks containing text rendered in image format, watermarks, background images or other restrictive devices will not be accepted. All books must be accessible by screen readers intended for blind and visually impaired users.

Ebooks and stories must be complete: excerpts, samplers and chapter-limited works are excluded unless they appear at the end of a complete work. Books containing links to the author's personal website or blog are permitted. A link to a retail site stocking printed versions of an author's work is also acceptable.

E-books deemed to be written purely as sales instruments, including marketing brochures and catalogues, will be rejected. Financial reports are also excluded from publication. A link to your own commercial website is allowed if it is directly related the content of your book. Links to other (not operated by you) commercial websites are permitted if they are necessary for reference purposes: the content of the destination website must be relevant to the text in which the link appears. Books containing direct or indirect advertising or affiliate links will not be accepted for inclusion. PLR books and those containing display advertisements (unless they are descriptive advertorial features that are related and deemed complementary to content) will also be rejected.

Book covers and internal content must not display overtly sexual images, improper, blasphemous or obscene language. Books written about medical procedures, remedies, or medicines prepared for ingestion (manufactured or herbal), must be authored or supervised by an industry-recognised, qualified professional.

You agree to your e-book files being converted to audio using TTS (text-to-speech) software by or for people with visual or mental impairment who are unable to read or understand text. Resultant files will be strictly for personal use and never shared or used commercially.

By completing a Submission Form you agree to keep your ebook on obooko for a minimum period of 90 days. This will be extended to 180 days if we have to reformat your manuscript and create ebook files. To take down your book before this period you will have to pay production charges. You may request to have your work removed at any time after the applicable minimum period by giving us 72 hours notice via the contact form.

If a manuscript is deemed to be unreadable due to substandard grammar, unintelligible content or bad formatting, it will be politely rejected and, if we have time, appropriate advice given.

As an author, you declare that the work is your own and that publishing permission has been granted by any contributing writers, photographers, models or artists. Further, that relevant credits have been included and royalties have been paid. In addition to the rights of the copyright owner, all print and electronic rights belonging to commercial publishers must be honoured and upheld. By agreeing to allow home printing on the Submission form and/or enabling printing of your PDF file, you give written permission for obooko members to print copies for their personal use.

We reserve the right to alter file-names and non-creative content including the deletion of or changing of web URLs and links within supplied files.

Authors, anthology editors, groups and organisations may list a maximum of 10% of the total number of works listed in any single fiction category.

Creative work for book covers provided by obooko staff designers, contracted designers or agencies is protected by Copyright and will remain the property of the individual Copyright holder. All creative work provided by us for use on the obooko website must be used exclusively for free distribution on the obooko website and may not be published for personal gain unless Copyright has been assigned in writing and an appropriate fee paid.

Authors' rights
We confirm that your work will never be made available for sale and that your rights are always retained in full; none of your rights are transferred to us. We believe you should always have control over distribution of your work, so you may come and go as you please; all we ask is that you make your ebook available to members for a minimum period of 90 days. You may withdraw your work from obooko at any time, subject to the minimum publishing period, by sending an email request via the Writers Issue option on the Contact form. To increase awareness of your work, we may make your book available in our promotional and marketing material. We may also make your book available for download via an application (app) for use on mobile handsets; this may be our own app or that of an approved partner. In these instances your work will always contain your Copyright notice, a link to obooko and the obooko logo to verify your work has been made available for wireless download from a legal source. We will never make your ebook files available on other websites although you should be aware that you may find your book 'posted' on file-sharing sites or hosted by unscrupulous people on illegal download sites. We have no control over these websites so ultimately the responsibility for legally pursuing cases of intellectual property theft rests with you the author as Copyright owner. However, as a registered author distributing your work EXCLUSIVELY via obooko, we will act as your agent to initially notify the offending site owner and hosting provider on your behalf via legal notification, including DMCA takedown notices.

Investigations
We reserve the right to delete a book from our site at any time to investigate a claim of breach of any of these conditions. We do not accept responsibility for any loss, monetary or otherwise, incurred by the author and/or publisher or any other person or organisation during these investigations.

By accepting our Terms & Conditions you agree to abide by them whenever you use our website.

Read and Rate our eBooks
Legal Book Downloads