USER AGREEMENT OF SPIRE PUBLISHING

We have tried to keep our user agreement as jargon free as possible. If you have questions about anything on this page please send a mail to help@spirepublishing.com.

1 ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS

1.1 Spire Publishing is a trademark of and owned and operated by Adlibbed Limited. Adlibbed Limited is registered in Ontario, Canada with the company registration number 1689457. Registered Office: 3007 Kingston Road, Suite 114, Toronto, M1M 1P1, Ontario, Canada

1.2 Spire Publishing provides you with access to on-line resources, including on-line forms, and sufficient for you to publish and sell your book. We have created these terms and conditions to make the service as safe and straightforward as possible.

Your access to and use of Spire Publishing ("the Website") is subject exclusively to these Terms and Conditions. You will not use the Website for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by these Terms and Conditions. By using the Website you are fully accepting the terms, conditions and disclaimers contained in this notice.

Although portions of Spire Publishing may be viewed by simply visiting the site, in order to use the service and any other subsidiary services offered onsite, you need to register as a member of Spire Publishing. If you sign on Spire Publishing as a registered member, these terms and conditions will govern your use of Spire Publishing, including access to message boards, weblogs (blogs) and other community features.

If you do not accept these Terms and Conditions you must immediately stop using the Website. Please take a moment to read these terms and conditions thoroughly.

2 CHANGES TO WEBSITE

Spire Publishing reserves the right to:

2.1 change or remove (temporarily or permanently) the Website or any part of it (including the free author websites) without notice and you confirm that Spire Publishing shall not be liable to you for any such change or removal; and

2.2 change these Terms and Conditions at any time, and your continued use of the Website following any changes shall be deemed to be your acceptance of such change.

3 PERSONAL INFORMATION

3.1 When you register for Spire Publishing, you will be required to provide Spire Publishing with information such as email address. Spire Publishing will not sell or pass to any third party any of your personal information beyond the essential requirement for credit/debit card validation during purchase and the delivery of your book. To give an example, we need to supply our delivery service companies with your address so your books can be delivered to you.

3.2 Spire Publishing reserves the right to terminate your account if Spire Publishing discovers you have provided false or misleading personal information.

3.3 It is your responsibility to ensure the accuracy or your personal information. You must ensure that any information you supply is correct prior to proceeding with purchases or receiving payment.

Spire Publishing does not accept responsibility, nor offer refunds, if your personal information is incorrect.

3.4 You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your information and password. You shall be responsible for all use of your registration, whether or not authorized by you. You agree to immediately notify Spire Publishing of any unauthorized use of your registration or password.

4 COPYRIGHT AND ACCEPTABLE CONTENT

4.1 All copyright, trade marks and all other intellectual property rights in the Website and its content (including without limitation the Website design, text, graphics and all software and source codes connected with the Website) are owned by or licensed to Spire Publishing or otherwise used by Spire Publishing as permitted by law.

4.2 In accessing the Website you agree that you will access the content solely for your personal, non-commercial use. None of the content may be downloaded, copied, reproduced, transmitted, stored, sold or distributed without the prior written consent of the copyright holder. This excludes the downloading, copying and/or printing of pages of the Website for personal, non-commercial home use only.

Note: This only means that you are not allowed to copy this site and use the content for your own business, it does not mean that you cannot sell your book commercially.

4.3 All trademarks and copyrights within Spire Publishing belong to their respective owners.

4.4 As the copyright holder of your book or blog, you are solely responsible for its contents. You will not use the Spire Publishing service or your free author website to publish, nor will you upload onto our servers any material that is:

1. Defamatory, menacing or offensive, abusive, or in breach of copyright, confidence, privacy or any other rights.
2. Infringing any third party's copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret or other proprietary rights or rights of publicity or privacy.
3. In breach of any applicable law or regulation.
4. Obscene, indecent or does damage to minors.
5. Creates any liability for us or causes us to lose in whole or in part the services of our ISPs or other suppliers.
6. Linked directly or indirectly to or includes descriptions of goods or services that are prohibited under this Agreement.
7. Causing our website to be interrupted, damaged, rendered less efficient or such that the effectiveness or functionality of our website is in any way impaired.
8. Using unsolicited bulk email (spam) to advertise your book or author website.

4.5 You will always retain all rights to your books. You hereby grant to Spire Publishing a world-wide, non-exclusive, revocable, royalty-free, sub-licensable (through multiple tiers) licence to use the books you create using the Spire Publishing service for the purposes of promotion, advertising, production and sale of the Spire Publishing product and company in any media, be it currently known or unknown. We will always credit you as the actual owner of the books you have created and never claim that we own the copyright. If you or Spire Publishing terminate your account we will stop using your books for the above purposes as soon as is reasonably practical.

4.6 Spire Publishing is not liable to any third party for any writer's work, regardless of whether Spire Publishing had knowledge or could reasonably be supposed to have of any illegal, unlawful or objectionable content in the work.

4.7 Spire Publishing will not be responsible for retrieving any work or sales of work in the possession of an entity other than Spire Publishing.

4.8 Spire Publishing Limited will retain ownership of all digital files created by us during the design and manufacture of your book, such as, but not restricted to, image, InDesign and pdf files. Should you decide to un-publish your book we will delete these files from our systems as soon as is reasonably practical.

Spire Publishing does not review the work you publish using our service. By using Spire Publishing you agree to abide by this agreement in terms of the type of content you can publish. We explicitly state that you cannot publish material that contravenes any of the points listed in this agreement. You alone are responsible for the content of your messages and the consequences of any such messages. Spire Publishing reserves the right to terminate your registration immediately and without notification if it becomes aware that the content of your messages or published book(s) breaches any part of this agreement. Should any book published by you be reported to Spire Publishing for breach of this agreement we will immediately withdraw public access to that book while we investigate the complaint. We also reserve the right to:

1. Delete any offensive material without compensating you for any payments made to Spire Publishing in the creation of said material.
2. Delete your account and prohibit you from any further usage of the Spire Publishing service.

6 THE PUBLISHING PROCESS

6.1 The publishing process will be conducted in accordance to the explicit instructions set out on spirepublishing.com.

6.2 All images that are displayed on the Spire Publishing web site are an approximation of the final product. Colours shown on your computer screen may vary from the colours of the printed book.

6.3 The use of the Spire Publishing service is dependent on a working connection from your computer to the internet. The provision, upkeep and payment for this connection shall be solely your responsibility.

6.4 At the current time we are only able to offer the Spire Publishing service for English language manuscripts.

6.4 Free author websites are provided without any warrantee and no guarantee is made in regard to their upkeep and availability.

7 THE SALES PROCESS

7.1 Conditions

7.1.1 Nothing in these Terms and Conditions shall affect your Buyer’s statutory rights as a consumer.

7.1.2 These Terms and Conditions shall apply to all contracts for the sale between you and Spire Publishing and shall prevail over any other documentation or communication.

7.1.3 Any variation to these Terms and Conditions (including any special terms and conditions agreed between the parties) shall be inapplicable unless agreed in writing by Spire Publishing.

7.2 Ordering

7.2.1 All orders for Goods (by which is meant products purchased from Spire Publishing including completed books) shall be deemed to be an offer by you to purchase Goods pursuant to these Terms and Conditions and are subject to acceptance by Spire Publishing. Spire Publishing may choose not to accept an order for any reason.

7.3 Price and payment

7.3.1 The Price of your book (the Author’s Price) shall be that stipulated on Spire Publishing’s Website. The Price excludes delivery charges.

7.3.5 Payment of the Price plus delivery charges must be made in full before dispatch of any Goods purchased.

7.3.6 All prices on the Spire Publishing site are quoted in Canadian Dollars and Pound Sterling.

7.4 Spire Publishing’s rights

7.4.1 Spire Publishing reserve the right to adjust the price and specification of any item on the Website at its discretion.

7.4.2 Spire Publishing reserve the right to withdraw any goods from the Website at any time.

7.4.3 Spire Publishing shall not be liable to anyone for withdrawing any Goods from the Website or for refusing to process an order.

7.5 Age of consent

7.5.1 Where Goods may only be purchased by persons of a certain age you will be asked when placing an order to declare that you are of the appropriate legal age to purchase the Goods.

7.5.2 If Spire Publishing discovers that you are not legally entitled to order certain Goods, we shall be entitled to cancel the order immediately, without notice.

7.6 Warranty

7.6.1 Spire Publishing warrants that the Goods will at the time of dispatch correspond to the description given by Spire Publishing. Except where you are dealing as a Consumer, all other warranties, conditions, or terms relating to fitness for purpose, merchant-ability or condition of the Goods, whether implied by Statute, common law or otherwise are excluded, and you are satisfied as to the suitability of the Goods for your purpose.

7.7 Creation and delivery

7.71 Manuscripts supplied by you will normally be created within 10 working days of receipt of order. You will be informed by email when your book is ready to be printed.

7.7.2 Goods supplied within Canada, the US and the UK will normally be delivered within 10-15 working days of receipt of payment.

7.7.3 Goods supplied outside the above countries will normally take longer to be delivered and you will be informed by Spire Publishing of the duration upon despatch.

7.7.4 Where a specific delivery date has been agreed, and where this delivery date cannot be met, you will be notified and given the opportunity to agree a new delivery date or cancel the order.

7.7.5 Spire Publishing shall use its reasonable endeavours to meet any date agreed for delivery. In any event time of delivery shall not be of the essence and Spire Publishing shall not be liable for any losses, costs, damages or expenses incurred by you or any third party arising directly or indirectly out of any failure to meet any estimated delivery date.

7.7.6 Delivery of any Goods purchased shall be made to the address specified in the order and you shall make all arrangements necessary to take delivery of the Goods whenever they are tendered for delivery.

7.7.7 Title and risk in the Goods shall pass to you upon delivery of the Goods.

7.8 Cancellation and returns

7.8.1 Due to the personalized nature of the Goods that Spire Publishing provides, which are created to an individual members particular specifications, there is no right of refund or cancellation after the Goods have been purchased by you.

7.8.2 Cancellation is not possible once your order is being processed. If you receive a book that is damaged in any way, we will, of course, be happy to provide a replacement copy.

7.9 Limitation of liability

7.9.1 Except as may be implied by law where you are dealing as a Consumer, in the event of any breach of these Terms and Conditions by Spire Publishing the remedies of your concerns shall be limited to damages which shall in no circumstances exceed the Price of the Goods and Spire Publishing shall under no circumstances be liable for any indirect, incidental or consequential loss or damage whatever.

7.10 Waiver

7.10.1 No waiver by Spire Publishing (whether express or implied) in enforcing any of its rights under this contract shall prejudice its rights to do so in the future.

7.11 Forcemajeure

7.11.1 Spire Publishing shall not be liable for any delay or failure to perform any of its obligations if the delay or failure results from events or circumstances outside its reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, strikes, lock outs, accidents, war, fire, breakdown of plant or machinery or shortage or unavailability of raw materials from a natural source of supply, and Spire Publishing shall be entitled to a reasonable extension of its obligations.

8 THE PAYMENT PROCESS

8.1 If you are buying books from us to sell yourself, for example from your own website or at a conference, then you get to keep all of the profit.

Otherwise, from the net sale amount, this is the retail price less the 30% trade discount, we deduct the Author's Price to arrive at the gross margin - and you receive 60% of this gross margin.

Sales and royalty statements are issued twice a year in January and July. All figures are compiled electronically from book trade sales (on-line and wholesale). Any payment due is paid shortly thereafter. Any profit due must exceed £50.00/$100.00 for payment to be made, monies accrue until this amount is reached.

We prefer to use the paypal service to pay our authors. If you do not wish to use paypal we can pay you by cheque (Cdn dollars) or electronic bank transfer, although there will be a fee for this service.

Not all payment methods might be available to authors residing outside the UK, the USA, Canada or the European Union. We will do our best to tailor our service to your requirements, but if you do not wish to get paid via paypal you might be liable to charges from both us and/or your bank.

8.2 Spire Publishing will handle all transactions that take place on the Website. We will store any money that you earn as a result of selling through Spire Publishing. We will pay you any profit earned once the amount reaches $100CAN or £50.00 GBP.

9 TERMINATION

9.1 Spire Publishing reserves the right, at our sole discretion, to immediately, without notice to suspend or terminate i) these terms and conditions; ii) your registration with and ability to access the Spire Publishing and/or any other service provided to you by Spire Publishing upon any breach by you of these terms and conditions.

10 LINKS TO THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

10.1 The Website may include links to third party websites that are controlled and maintained by others. Any link to other Websites is not an endorsement of such Websites and you acknowledge and agree that we are not responsible for the content or availability of any such sites.

10.2 You may order services or merchandise through Spire Publishing from other parties not affiliated with Spire Publishing. Although we endeavour to screen third party suppliers, Spire Publishing makes no warranties or representations whatsoever with regards to any goods or services provided by these parties. You will not consider Spire Publishing nor will Spire Publishing be construed as a party to such transactions, whether or not Spire Publishing may have received some form of revenue or other remuneration in connection with the transaction or be liable for any costs or damages arising out of, either directly or indirectly, you or any other person involved or related to the transaction.

11 DISCLAIMERS AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

11.1 THE WEBSITE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS WITHOUT ANY REPRESENTATION OR ENDORSEMENT MADE AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, COMPATIBILITY, SECURITY AND ACCURACY.

11.2 TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, Spire Publishing WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL LOSS OR DAMAGE WHATEVER (INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION LOSS OF BUSINESS, OPPORTUNITY, DATA, PROFITS) ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OF THE WEBSITE.

11.3 Spire Publishing MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THE WEBSITE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE, THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED OR THAT THE WEBSITE OR THE SERVER THAT MAKES IT AVAILABLE ARE FREE OF VIRUSES OR ANYTHING ELSE WHICH MAY BE HARMFUL OR DESTRUCTIVE.

11.4 NOTHING IN THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS SHALL BE CONSTRUED SO AS TO EXCLUDE OR LIMIT THE LIABILITY OF Spire Publishing FOR DEATH OR PERSONAL INJURY AS A RESULT OF THE NEGLIGENCE OF Spire Publishing OR THAT OF ITS EMPLOYEES OR AGENTS.

12 INDEMNITY

You agree to indemnify and hold Spire Publishing and its employees and agents harmless from and against all liabilities, legal fees, damages, losses, costs and other expenses in relation to any claims or actions brought against Spire Publishing arising out of any breach by you of these Terms and Conditions or other liabilities arising out of your use of this Website or the content of your book or publication.

13 ENTIRE AGREEMENT

This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between you and Spire Publishing concerning its subject matter.

14 RESALE OF SERVICE

14.1 You agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit for any commercial purposes, any portion of the service, use of the service, or access to the service unless having been licensed to do so by Spire Publishing.

15 SEVERANCE

If any of these Terms and Conditions should be determined to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable for any reason by any court of competent jurisdiction then such Term or Condition shall be severed and the remaining Terms and Conditions shall survive and remain in full force and effect and continue to be binding and enforceable.

16 COMPLAINTS

For complaints about the Spire Publishing service please contact us at help@spirepublishing.com. We shall endeavour to respond in a prompt fashion.

17 GOVERNING LAW

These Terms and Conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the law of Ontario and you hereby submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Canadian courts.