Terms of Service | Quilltips

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using Quilltips (“the Service”), operated by Quilltips LLC (“we,” “us,” or “our”), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

2. Description of Service

Quilltips provides interactive book pages and author profiles that authors can share with readers. On those pages, authors can add bonus content (e.g., letters to readers, videos, art), list links (website, socials), receive fan mail, add signup forms (newsletter; ARC and beta reader forms with Quilltips Plus), and optionally accept reader support (tips) via Stripe. QR codes are available for sharing.

Authors may optionally enable Quilltips Shop to sell e-books, signed copies, and print books from book pages. Authors may also subscribe to Quilltips Plus, which unlocks additional features (such as expanded book pages, ARC and beta reader tools, and a lower platform fee) as described in the Service.

Quilltips also offers the Quilltips Book Formatter, which turns an uploaded manuscript into a typeset print interior, an ebook and a corrected manuscript (see Section 7).

Author profiles are free. Book pages and certain features are available on a free tier with limits (for example, one active book page), or through a Quilltips Plus subscription that unlocks additional features as described in the Service and on Pricing.

3. Account Registration

To access certain features, you must create an account with a valid email address and password. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials and for all activities that occur under your account.

By creating an account, you confirm that you have read and agree to these Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy. We send emails about your account, payments and orders. We may also send occasional product updates and news about Quilltips; you can opt out of those at any time with the unsubscribe link in any such email.

Partner portal

If you use the partner portal, you are responsible for ensuring you are authorized to manage any linked author accounts and associated data on their behalf, and for using those tools only as permitted by your relationship with those authors and applicable law.

4. User Content

You retain ownership of all content you upload to Quilltips, including but not limited to text, images, videos, digital book files, and other media (“User Content”). By uploading User Content, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to display, distribute, and promote your content in connection with the Service (including delivering purchased digital downloads to buyers).

You represent that you own or have the necessary rights to all User Content you submit, and that your content does not infringe any third party's intellectual property or other rights. If you list products in Quilltips Shop, you further represent that you have the right to sell those digital files and/or to offer and ship the physical copies you list.

Newsletters. If you send newsletters through Quilltips, you are the sender and Quilltips delivers them on your behalf. You may only email people who asked to hear from you: readers who subscribed on Quilltips, or readers you import who gave you permission. Don't import purchased, rented, borrowed or scraped lists, or people who unsubscribed. Newsletters must not contain spam, phishing, requests for passwords or payment details, or content that is illegal or breaks these Terms. Each newsletter includes your Quilltips page, an unsubscribe link and our mailing address, and readers who unsubscribe, bounce or report spam stop receiving it automatically. To protect deliverability for every author, we may review a newsletter before it is sent, limit how often or how widely you send, and pause or suspend sending when bounce or spam rates are high or these rules are broken.

Reader information you collect. When readers tip you, buy from your Shop, send you fan mail, or sign up through your forms, you decide how to use their information, and you are responsible for using it lawfully, including the privacy and anti-spam laws where your readers live. Where Quilltips stores or uses that information on your behalf (for example, keeping your signup lists and sending your newsletters), we will: use it only to provide the Service to you; keep it confidential and protected with appropriate security measures; use only service providers bound by similar obligations (listed in our Privacy Policy); help you respond to readers' requests to access or delete their information; tell you without undue delay if we become aware of a security breach affecting it; and delete it when you delete your account, except records we must keep (for example, order records for tax). We also use some reader information for our own purposes described in our Privacy Policy, such as processing payments and preventing fraud, and we are responsible for that use. For readers in the EU or UK, this paragraph forms the data processing terms between you and Quilltips.

5. Payments, Subscriptions, and Refunds

Quilltips Plus

Quilltips Plus is an optional recurring subscription billed through Stripe. You may cancel at any time from your account settings. Unless otherwise stated, canceling stops future renewals; you keep Plus benefits through the end of the then-current paid period. You can request a refund of your first payment within 14 days of subscribing by emailing hello@quilltips.co. This applies once per account, except where the law requires otherwise. Renewal payments are not refundable.

Tips

Optional reader support (“tips”) sent to authors are processed by Stripe and are subject to Stripe's standard processing fees. Quilltips charges a platform fee on tips; rates may differ by plan (for example, Quilltips Plus versus the free plan) and are disclosed in the Service (including on Pricing). Tips are non-refundable unless required by applicable law.

Shop sales

Purchases of Shop products are described in Section 6 (Quilltips Shop). Quilltips charges a platform fee on paid Shop sales at the same plan-based rates as tips; Stripe processing fees also apply. Fee rates are shown when you enable Shop or as otherwise disclosed in the Service (including on Pricing). On e-book sales, the platform fee is charged on the price excluding any VAT or sales tax.

Author payouts

Tips and Shop earnings are paid to your Stripe account's bank account once a month, on or around the 1st, when your available balance is at least $20 (or £20 / €20). Smaller balances carry over to the next month; if your balance stays below that amount, we pay it anyway within about 60 days for accounts outside the United States and within about 11 months for US accounts. For sales Quilltips processes on your behalf (e-books and print-on-demand), Quilltips may take back your share of a sale that is refunded or disputed by the buyer, and pays it again if a dispute is resolved in your favor.

Book formatting

Book formatting purchases are described in Section 7 (Quilltips Book Formatter).

6. Quilltips Shop

Marketplace role

Quilltips Shop lets authors sell certain products to readers from book pages. Quilltips provides the platform and payment infrastructure (including Stripe Connect). E-books and print-on-demand books are sold by Quilltips on the author's behalf: Quilltips is the seller for payment and tax purposes, collects and pays any VAT or sales tax due, and pays the author their share. For signed copies, author-shipped print books, and in-person sales, the author is the seller and is responsible for any taxes on those sales. In each case Quilltips collects payment, deducts applicable tax, print, postage, platform, and processing costs, and remits the remainder to the author. Quilltips is not the manufacturer or publisher of Shop products. For author-fulfilled orders, Quilltips does not ship the book and does not guarantee delivery times or product quality.

Product types

E-books: Digital files sold or offered by the author. After purchase or free download signup, Quilltips typically emails the buyer a time-limited download link. Authors must have the rights to distribute the file.
Signed copies and print books: Available to any author with Shop enabled. For signed copies and author-shipped print books, readers pay estimated US postage at checkout; the author is solely responsible for sourcing or printing the book, packaging, and mailing, and that postage is passed through to the author as a reimbursement. For print-on-demand books, Quilltips prints and ships via a print partner on the author's behalf; readers pay the print partner's quoted postage for their address, which is not added to the author's payout. Quilltips collects payment and United States shipping details at checkout. For in-person event sales, Quilltips collects payment without a shipping address and the author fulfills by handing the book to the buyer.

Shipping (physical products)

For online signed-copy and author-shipped print-book orders, readers pay estimated US postage at checkout (Standard or Expedited). For print-on-demand books, readers pay the print partner's quoted postage for the destination they enter before payment. Shipping is currently limited to United States addresses. Delivery times vary and are not guaranteed by Quilltips. For author-fulfilled orders, that postage is passed through to the selling author as a reimbursement — it is not a prepaid shipping label — and authors are responsible for packing and mailing the order in a commercially reasonable time and for marking the order shipped in the dashboard (including tracking information when available). For print-on-demand books, Quilltips fulfills via a print partner as the author's agent; postage collected at checkout is the quoted shipping cost and is not added to the author's payout. Authors may also sell physical books in person through an event checkout link or QR code; those sales do not collect a shipping address or shipping fee, and the author fulfills by handing the book to the buyer at the event.

Pricing

Authors set retail prices for their Shop products. Paid products must be at least $0.99 (or 99p / 99c); e-books can also be offered free. E-book prices include any VAT or sales tax that applies where the reader lives. For print-on-demand books, US sales tax is added at checkout where it applies.

Buyer acknowledgments

By purchasing a Shop product, you agree that: (a) signed copies and author-shipped print books are fulfilled by the selling author; print-on-demand books are printed and shipped by Quilltips via a print partner; (b) for shipped physical orders, shipping is limited to the United States as stated at checkout, and postage disclosed at checkout is charged in addition to the book price; (c) in-person / event checkout sales do not collect a shipping address and are fulfilled by handoff at the event; (d) delivery times for shipped physical orders are not guaranteed by Quilltips; and (e) these Terms and our Privacy Policy apply to your purchase.

Refunds and disputes

E-books: You can request a refund within 14 days of purchase by emailing hello@quilltips.co. We refund in full if the file won't open or isn't as described, and otherwise as required by law. When an e-book is refunded, the author's share of that sale is taken back.
Physical products: Refund or return requests should first be directed to the selling author. Quilltips may assist or intervene in payment disputes (including Stripe disputes or chargebacks) at its discretion. Chargebacks or repeated fulfillment issues may result in account review, Shop suspension, or other remedies.
Authors are responsible for accurate inventory and for fulfilling paid author-fulfilled physical orders. Quilltips is responsible for fulfilling print-on-demand orders after payment.

Author enablement

Before enabling Shop, authors must accept Shop-related acknowledgments in the dashboard (including fees and fulfillment responsibilities). Enabling Shop constitutes agreement to this Section 6 and the rest of these Terms.

7. Quilltips Book Formatter

The Quilltips Book Formatter (“the Formatter”) lets you upload a manuscript (for example, a Word file or a shared Google Doc) and receive a typeset print interior (PDF), an ebook (EPUB) and a corrected copy of your manuscript (.docx). You do not need an account to use it.

Your manuscript and your rights

By uploading a manuscript, you represent that you own it or have the right to share it with us for formatting, and that it does not infringe anyone else's rights. You keep all ownership of your manuscript and of the formatted files. You grant Quilltips a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to store your manuscript privately and to process it, including with automated and artificial intelligence tools, in order to produce and deliver your formatted book, to let you review and change it, and to operate and improve the Formatter. This license does not include publishing your manuscript or using it to train AI models.

Privacy of your manuscript

We do not publish or sell your manuscript, and we do not share it with anyone except the service providers that store and process it on our behalf to provide the Formatter (such as hosting, storage, AI and print-check providers). Your manuscript is never used to train AI models, by us or by the AI providers that process it (see Section 5 of our Privacy Policy). Your book's page is reached through a private link; keep it private, since anyone with the link can view your preview. You may delete your manuscript and formatted files by deleting your Quilltips account (if your book is saved to one) or by asking us at hello@quilltips.co. Our Privacy Policy also applies.

Automated results and your review

Formatting, proofreading suggestions and checks are produced automatically and may contain mistakes. Proofreading suggestions are only applied if you accept them. You are responsible for reviewing your preview and your files before you publish, print or distribute them. Print checks we run (for example, a printer's file validation) do not guarantee that a printer, retailer or distribution platform will accept your files or that printed copies will meet your expectations.

Price, payment and refunds

Previews are free. Downloading your files requires a one-time payment per book at the price shown before checkout (Quilltips Plus members may receive a member price). Payment is processed by Stripe. Your payment covers that book, including later changes and new downloads of it. You can request a refund within 14 days of purchase by emailing hello@quilltips.co. This applies once per account, except where the law requires otherwise. If we are unable to deliver your files, we will refund you in full.

Fair use

We may limit how many previews are generated or delay new previews (for example, during periods of high demand), and may decline manuscripts that violate Section 8.

8. Prohibited Conduct

You agree not to:

Use the Service for any unlawful purpose or in violation of any applicable law
Upload content that is defamatory, obscene, hateful, or infringes intellectual property rights
Attempt to interfere with or disrupt the Service or its infrastructure
Impersonate any person or entity, or misrepresent your affiliation with any person or entity
Use automated means to access the Service without our prior written consent
Use fan mail, signup forms or other messaging features to send unsolicited commercial solicitations, bulk or templated messages, or phishing and scam content, or to contact authors for any purpose other than genuine reader correspondence
List Shop products without the rights to sell them; misrepresent inventory; fail to fulfill paid physical orders in a commercially reasonable time; or use Shop to sell unlawful goods

9. Intellectual Property

The Service, including its design, branding, code, and documentation, is owned by Quilltips LLC and is protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. You may not copy, modify, or distribute any part of the Service without our prior written consent.

10. Termination

We may suspend or terminate your account at any time for violation of these terms or for any other reason at our discretion. Upon termination, your right to use the Service will cease immediately. We will make reasonable efforts to allow you to export your content before deletion.

11. Disclaimer of Warranties

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available” without warranties of any kind, either express or implied. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure. Without limiting the foregoing, Quilltips does not warrant the quality, fitness, authenticity, or timely delivery of products sold or shipped by authors through Quilltips Shop.

12. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Quilltips LLC shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the Service. Our total liability shall not exceed the amount you paid to us in the twelve (12) months preceding the claim. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Quilltips is not liable for author shipping delays, lost or damaged packages, or the quality or condition of author-fulfilled physical goods.

13. Changes to Terms

We may update these terms from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by posting the new terms on this page and updating the “Last updated” date. Continued use of the Service after changes constitutes acceptance of the new terms.

14. Contact

If you have questions about these terms, please contact us at hello@quilltips.co.