Terms of Service

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 HAVEN BOOKWORKS.

By using the service available at www.goldengatebookworks.com 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 review 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 interchangeably. The term “Author’s Agent” refers to the Author’s duly authorized representative, who is fully authorized and empowered to act on behalf of the Author in all matters described in this Agreement, and who may be authorized to collect and receive directly the monies otherwise payable to Author (or “Publisher”).
The following also describes the rights and responsibilities of the Author and Haven Bookworks. Any user of this Site who downloads, reads or previews any Work on the Site is referred to as an “End User.”

1. The Grant and the Territory. The Author hereby grants and assigns to Haven Bookworks the nonexclusive worldwide right to digitally publish, distribute, market and sell (“Publish”), and to license others to do so, the work identified on the front page of your submission (the “Work”). Since the terms of agreement with Haven Bookworks, herein, is non-exclusive, the Author or Publisher is free to Publish, license, market and sell their work elsewhere so long as the Author or Publisher is not violating someone else’s agreement or violating any laws.
 

2. Publication. Haven Bookworks will generally Publish any such submissions which do not violate, or which do not appear to violate the Agreement.

2a. Publication of Work As Is. Generally, Haven Bookworks will Publish Author’s Work as it is delivered to us, and not edit or modify the Work submitted for resale only. Certain modifications may occur caused by file or design conversions. Haven Bookworks does not guarantee accurate preservation of the original Work’s formatting.
 

2b. Publication at Option of Haven Bookworks. Haven Bookworks may decide not to Publish Author’s work or may decide to discontinue its publication of Author’s work for any reason and for no reason, and no reason need be provided. Except in the cases of gross violations of this Terms of Service, Haven Bookworks will make every attempt to provide reasonable notice to Author via email, up to and including providing instructions on how to remedy potential issues that might prevent Haven Bookworks from listing a title.

2c. How to "Unpublish" Works from Haven Bookworks. Haven Bookworks may Publish the Work until Author of the Work decides to unpublish the work. The author may notify Haven Bookworks in writing to remove the Work. After that notice, Haven Bookworks will remove the work from HavenBookworks.com within five business days. If the author's or publisher's book has been distributed via other sites, the removal from the retail partners' digital shelves may take several weeks. Haven Bookworks will do its best to assist authors and publishers to have their works removed, and to ensure authors/publishers who terminate their Haven Bookworks accounts receive full payment for sales that may occur after account termination.

2d. Distribution through Haven Bookworks. Haven Bookworks will distribute any Work we act as publisher for among a variety of partner sites. We may also distribute copies to media outlets to help increase exposure to any title at our discretion.

2e. Removal of poorly formatted works. Any title submitted for sale on HavenBookworks.com may be declined or removed at any time based on poor formatting, spelling, grammar, etc. If such is the case the Author will be informed and have the option to resolve the issues through an editing service of their choosing. If they choose to resubmit the Work, it will be reevaluated before being reposted for sale.

3. Infringement.

3a. Removal of Infringing or Defamatory Work of Author. Haven Bookworks takes claims of infringement seriously and may take immediate action upon notice from someone claiming to be an Infringed party and pursuant to our DMCA policy [see policy at end of this document]. Generally, upon receipt of a written notice from a party infringed or defamed by Author’s material (or someone purporting to be his agent, publisher, attorney in fact or assign), Haven Bookworks will remove the Author’s Work and reserves the right to remove any and all information about the Author, the Author’s Work, or the publisher from the Site.
 

3b. Infringement by Others Upon Author’s Work. If an Author or copyright holder learns that a third party is violating Author’s copyright or pirating or illegally distributing a Haven Bookworks published work, the Author shall inform Haven Bookworks; however, it is the Author’s responsibility to seek relief from the offending parties. If that work is published on Haven Bookworks, Haven Bookworks will remove it per section 3a above.
 

3c. Rights Clearances and Other Legal Matters. It is Author’s responsibility to secure permissions to the Work prior to the time Author submits such work if any material from the work belongs to, or has been licensed to, someone else.

4. Copyright. 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. Haven Bookworks may copyright the Work at the Author's request, however the Author will receive a lower royalty rate. The reduced rate must be approved before Haven Bookworks will file to copyright the Work.
 

5. Formats of Digital Conversions. Author shall submit their Work as a Microsoft Word .doc/.docx file or an Open Office .odt file. Haven Bookworks shall convert the book into multiple ebook formats, and publish the work for use in sampling, distributing and selling the work. The author/publisher is not authorized to independently sell or distribute Haven Bookworks generated file conversions outside of the Haven Bookworks site or Haven Bookworks distribution network without first receiving written permission from Haven Bookworks (in other words, you cannot use Haven Bookworks as a free file conversion service so you can sell the files elsewhere). You acknowledge that if you violate this requirement, you may forfeit any accrued earnings at Haven Bookworks, and your account may be deleted without notification.

6. 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 Haven Bookworks, the Author and/or publishing party shall be entitled to the following payments:

6a. Royalty Rates. The proceeds to the author or publisher will vary based on the sales outlet, and the method of the sale. For retail sales that originate at HavenBookworks.com, Haven Bookworks pays authors/publishers 75% of the net proceeds from all sales (see 6b below for clear definition of "net"). Authors or publishers will receive 75% of net proceeds of sales made on other sites used by Haven Bookworks for distribution of Work, however, the exact total will vary from seller to seller. Net proceeds from sites distributing Haven Bookworks content will be calculated after each distribution site has deducted any fees involved in sales of the Work.
 

6b. Electronic Editions. Haven Bookworks agrees to pay the Author or Publisher (whomever uploaded the content) up to seventy-five percent (75%) of net proceeds received by Haven Bookworks through the sale or licensing of your work (“List Price”). “Net proceeds” shall mean sales price paid and received less payment processing fees, affiliate fees, retailer discounts, costs due to erroneous or fraudulent transactions, credit card charge-backs and associated fees. Therefore, 75% of “net proceeds” does not equal 75% of the book’s sales price. Payment processing fees, for example, may account for a sizable percentage of the List Price for lower cost books because they include a nominal minimum per-transaction fee ranging charged to Haven Bookworks by our payment processing service Stripe. For example, if the per-transaction fee charged by our payment processor is $.35, and a book is only priced at $1.00, then that $.35 accounts for 35 percent of the retail price. Actual proceeds to the author may be greater than estimated if a customer purchases multiple books at the same time, thereby spreading some of the per-transaction fee across more than one book.

6c. Free Copies. As administrator of your work, Author may request that Haven Bookworks distribute complimentary copies of the work, or personally email free files to people, even when you are generally charging a fee. However, Haven Bookworks files cannot be mass-distributed via download at blogs, websites or other retailers outside the Haven Bookworks network.

6d. Promotional Rights. Haven Bookworks shall have the right to distribute samples of the Work in any form of media, including printed media, in order to promote (a) the author or author’s Work and/or (b) the Haven Bookworks service. These samples will be licensed for free, non-commercial use, duplication and sharing, and will comply with the sample percentage authorized by the Author.
 

6e. Crawlable or Other Searchable Rights. Haven Bookworks shall have the right to drive traffic to the Author’s Work on the Haven Bookworks 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. In the event that revenue is realized by Haven Bookworks from this arrangement, it shall be treated as an electronic edition under Section 6a.

6f. Other Subsidiary Rights. Other than stated above, Haven Bookworks, in its current version, shall only Publish electronic versions of the Work, and keeps no other subsidiary rights to the Work including hardcover or paperback editions, audio editions, multimedia editions, theatrical editions, first and second serial rights or media rights other than the electronic version distributed on our Site. Therefore, if another publisher will allow you to keep electronic rights to the Work, you may continue to Publish the Work electronically while publishing a printed version of the Work with a print publisher. These rules are subject to change from time to time, upon electronic or other notice to the End-users and any other users.

7. Author-Controlled Terms. The Site allows Author to control pricing, distribution channels, sampling rights and output formats. Haven Bookworks may extend author control in the future. All books published under the Haven Bookworks label are automatically opted in to all new distribution channels, though in all instances, prior to activating a new distribution channel, Haven Bookworks will provide authors and publishers at least 48 hours advance notice to allow time opt out.

8. Statements and Payments of Author Royalties:
(Although Haven Bookworks will refer in this agreement to “Royalties” for the sake of simplicity, payments to authors in the eyes of the IRS are really “other income.”) Haven Bookworks pays author (or Author's Agent) earnings on a monthly basis, approximately 15 days after the close of each calendar month. Authors, agents and, publishers can select their payment method of paper check (US authors/publishers only), Moneybookers (aka Skrill), or Dwolla. Paper checks require accrued earnings of $75.00 or more. For Moneybookers or Dwolla, the required accrued earnings are $10.00. If accrued author's, agent's, or publisher's aggregate earnings are less than the threshold, Haven Bookworks will delay payment until such monthly period as the total earnings due exceed the threshold. If Haven Bookworks overpays earnings, such as in cases when fraudulent or unauthorized purchases are charged back to Haven Bookworks after earnings payments are made, then Haven Bookworks will deduct the funds owed from the author’s, agent’s, or publisher’s aggregate accrued earnings. If the amount owed exceeds the author’s, agent’s, or publisher’s aggregate accrued earnings, the author (or agent) agrees to remit a payment back to Haven Bookworks within 20 days of notification to adjust the overpayment. Sales reporting for sales transacted via Haven Bookworks retail distribution partners (B&N, Sony, Amazon, Shortcovers, etc) are reported when the retailer reports back to Haven Bookworks, usually once per quarter.

9. Author’s Warranties. The warranties and representations contained in this Agreement extend to Author and its licensees, successors, and assigns. By uploading content to Haven Bookworks, you agree that any violation of the warranties below may result in immediate deletion of your account and the forfeiture of accrued earnings.
 

9a. By submitting Your Work to Haven Bookworks for publication, You, the Author or the Author you represent (if you are an Agent or Publisher) author’s Publisher or Agent or Distributor, warrant and represent that the work is complete and the author:

• is the only author of the Work, or that we have been put in contact with any additional authors;
• is the sole owner of the rights herein granted;
• has not assigned, pledged, or encumbered such rights or have not entered into any agreement which would conflict with the rights granted to Haven Bookworks herein; and agrees not to do any of the aforementioned without first unpublishing the work at Haven Bookworks
• has full right, power, and authority to enter into this Agreement and to grant the rights granted herein.

9b. You further warrant that the Work contains no materials which:
• 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
• advocate the use of Private Label Rights (PLR) content to make money on the Internet, or the modification of such content for the creation of Internet content
• 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 Haven Bookworks
• if you publish erotic 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 acts or situations, witnessing such situations, considering sexual acts, or thinking about sexual acts. Fine art books of a non-erotic nature that contain nudity may be accepted on a case by case basis at the sole discretion of Haven Bookworks and/or its retail partners
• is not the same book you previously published at Haven Bookworks, then republished as a new book for the sole purpose of having it appear as a new book again. You must upload all new versions of previously published Haven Bookworks upload system for review.

9c. You further warrant the book meets the following standards for originality:
• this is not a public domain work;
• the book does not include word-for-word scrapes - or is not a compilation - from Wikipedia or other public domain, government or commercial services;
• your books do not and will not appear elsewhere on the Internet authored by people other than yourself or by pen names (pseudonyms) different from your pen name at Haven Bookworks;
• none of your book content, either in part or in its entirety, is sourced from "Private Label" rights articles, article "spinners," or ebooks or information sources which license the same content to other people;
• does not 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).

9d. You further warrant the book represents a complete work:
• this is not a work-in-progress;
• the uploaded file is not a partial sample or sample chapter, or is not a collection of sample chapters, or not simply a catalog advertising other books
• the uploaded book represents a complete story with a beginning, middle and end; not a short serial.

10. End Users. “End-Users” who pay whichever fee is set by the Author to purchase a Work are allowed to use each copy of the Work in any reasonable non-commercial manner in compliance with copyright law and pursuant to this Agreement.
 

10a. Rights of Use.
 

1. Purchased works: As End User, you acknowledge that all Work furnished by Haven Bookworks 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.
 

2. Free works including sample works: Free works and sample works published at Haven Bookworks are the copyrighted material of the author or publisher, and therefore are not authorized for redistribution without prior written consent from Haven Bookworks. Third parties are not authorized to download, host and otherwise redistribute Haven Bookworks books without prior written agreement from Haven Bookworks. Directory services and affiliate marketers may reproduce the metadata information found on each book's book page (cover image, book description, price, etc.) provided hyperlinks that direct visitors to the Haven Bookworks book page, and provided users are not charged for access to these listings, and are not required to register their personal information to gain access to these listings.
 

10b. Fees and Services. By using the Site the End User ebook customer is agreeing to pay the fees as presented by Haven Bookworks 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 the 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.
 

10c. Abusing Haven Bookworks. Haven Bookworks and its users work together to keep the Site working properly. Please report problems and policy violations to Haven Bookworks. The warranties and representations contained in this Agreement extend to End Users and other licensees and successors and assigns of Haven Bookworks. 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;
• upload any material which violates this Terms of Service;
• 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, spid