Buy the Book is a platform that allows you to sell books directly to buyers around the world. We want to make sure that sellers and buyers have a positive experience on Buy the Book. Here you can read your rights as a seller on Buy the Book, along with what is expected of you while you are using the platform.

This policy is a part of our Terms and Conditions. By opening an account with Buy the Book, you’re agreeing to this policy and our Terms and Conditions.

Buy the Book reserves the right to disable any listing, shop, or account that we believe violates this policy or our Terms and Conditions.

1. What can be sold on Buy the Book

Printed books and related printed materials which have been written and designed by you, the seller, and to which you hold the copyright to sell, are allowed to be sold on Buy the Book.

By selling on Buy the Book, you agree to use your own photographs, images, and video content to which you own the copyrights, and not use copyrighted photos or images owned by other sellers or individuals.

2. What cannot be sold on Buy the Book

Items that violate our intellectual property policies are not allowed to be sold on Buy the Book.

You are responsible for ensuring you have all necessary rights to your content and that you are not infringing or violating any third party’s rights by posting it.

We do not allow items that promote, support, or glorify acts of violence or harm towards self or others, including credible threats of harm.

Items containing mature content will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Buy the Book reserves the right to delist any item it deems as unsuitable or insensitive towards other members of the platform or the public.

Reselling is not allowed on Buy the Book. Reselling refers to listing an item when you were not involved in writing or designing that item.

3. Managing your Buy the Book Store

By selling on Buy the Book, you agree that you will:

1. Provide honest and accurate information in your Profile section.

2. Keep your personal contact details up to date, including email address and phone number.

3. Accurately describe your items for buyers.

4. Provide a high-resolution image of your book cover which will be displayed on Buy the Book.

5. Assign one main category for your book and three subcategories. Buy the Book reserves the right to reallocate categories as deemed appropriate.

6. Respect the intellectual property of other sellers. If you feel someone has violated your intellectual property rights, report it to Buy the Book.

7. Ensure your shop content, including books, photographs, images, and video content abide by Buy the Book policies, in particular that all content is not deemed to be abusive, threatening, defamatory or harassing, in violation of someone else’s privacy or intellectual property rights; or false, deceptive, or misleading.

Once you add an item through your Dashboard, it will receive a Pending Review status.

Buy the Book reserves the right to reject items that conflict with its Seller Policy.

In such circumstances, sellers will be notified and provided with the reason that their item was not approved.

Buy the Book reserves the right to edit content on seller profiles, as deemed appropriate. Sellers will be notified when this happens.

4. Processing Orders

Sellers will receive an email notification when a buyer purchases their item.

As a seller, it is your responsibility to ensure that your contact details, including your email address, are up to date on Buy the Book.

It is your responsibility to add [email protected] to your email contacts to prevent order notifications going to junk or spam folders.

By selling on Buy the Book, you agree to dispatch an item to the buyer within 7 days of purchase, unless there is an exceptional circumstance.

The shipping address of the order will be provided in the confirmation email and on your seller dashboard.

Buy the Book will not be responsible for loss of profit resulting from items shipped to an incorrect address.

If there is a delay in shipping an item, you, the seller, must contact the buyer immediately via email and provide an expected shipping date.

If you are unable to complete an order, you must notify the buyer immediately and fully refund the order. 

The notes section of the order confirmation provides additional remarks on the order. Buyers are asked to read the notes section for each order and act accordingly.

Once the item has shipped, you must mark the order as ‘Complete’ through your dashboard to allow the buyer to receive a notification by email that their order is complete.

5. Shipping

As a seller on Buy the Book, you agree to enter a shipping cost for each item you are selling.

This shipping cost must be fair and reflect the true cost of shipping.

Buy the Book will not be responsible for missing or inaccurate shipping costs entered by sellers.

You, the seller, are responsible for arranging shipping and delivery of each item you sell on Buy the Book.

Once shipped, orders must be marked as ‘Complete’ on your seller dashboard.

6. Stripe Account

Buy the Book uses Stripe to facilitate online payments and transfer of payments to sellers.

Buy the Book is not affiliated with Stripe.

By selling on Buy the Book, you agree to:

1. Create a Stripe account when setting up your account on Buy the Book.

2. Connect your Stripe account to Buy the Book. This can be done on your dashboard.

Connecting your Stripe account to Buy the Book ensures that you will receive payment for each item you sell.

Sellers are responsible for maintaining their own Stripe accounts, including uploading account documentation as requested by Stripe.

Buy the Book accepts no responsibility for funds held or lost by Stripe.

Once a buyer purchases an item from you, the seller, the purchase amount plus shipping costs will be transferred immediately to your Stripe account, less a Stripe transaction fee and Buy the Book commission fee (if applicable).

Payouts from Stripe to the seller’s nominated bank account will be handled by Stripe.

Buy the Book accepts no responsibility for Stripe payouts.

Stripe transaction fees can be viewed here.

7. Subscriptions

Seller subscription plans and commission rates can be found on our Membership page here.

Commission is charged on total sale amount excluding shipping costs. Commission is deducted at point of sale.

Subscriptions must be paid by debit or credit card.

Subscriptions are recurring. Payments will be automatically deducted on renewal date. The renewal date will be the same date of the month that the seller subscribed to Buy the Book.

By selling on Buy the Book, you authorise the deduction of the subscription cost from your credit or debit card on a recurring basis until you cancel your subscription.

As a seller, it is your responsibility to ensure recurring payments are successful. Buy the Book will not be responsible for loss of profit arising out of a failed subscription payment.

As a seller, it is your responsibility to cancel before your subscription renewal date. Buy the Book is not obliged to refund subscription payments after renewal.

By selling on Buy the Book, you agree to keep your contact details up to date on Buy the Book to ensure you receive subscription renewal notifications.

The minimum duration of a subscription will depend on the plan that the seller has subscribed to. Monthly plans have a minimum duration of 30 days. Six monthly plans have a minimum duration of six months.

As a seller, you can cancel your subscription at any time through your dashboard.

You will not be entitled to any refund if you cancel your subscription in the middle of an active subscription period. Your subscription will remain active until the subscription period ends.

Once your subscription is cancelled, your items will no longer be sold on Buy the Book. Your account will remain active for 30 days, allowing you to fulfil orders.

After 30 days following the cancellation of your subscription, all your seller data will be permanently deleted from Buy the Book.

8. Cancellations, Returns and Refunds

As a seller, please be aware that in addition to this policy, each country has its own laws surrounding cancellations, returns, and refunds.

Please familiarise yourself with the laws of Republic of Ireland and those countries that you ship to.

Irish consumer laws can be accessed here.

In the case of non-delivery of items and items not as described, we ask sellers to attempt to resolve any outstanding issues with buyers before contacting Buy the Book.

If Buy the Book contacts you about a case of non-delivery or a not-as-described item, you must respond to the buyer within 3 days.

If Buy the Book determines that an item is not as described or was not delivered, you will be required to refund the order, including shipping costs.

The buyer has the right to return an item within 14 days of delivery of that item. You, the seller, agree to refunding the customer within 7 days of receiving the returned item from the buyer in an acceptable condition.

Refunds will be issued by the seller through their Stripe dashboard. Buy the Book is not responsible for issuing refunds on behalf of the seller.

Non-Delivery

A non-delivery occurs when a buyer places an order but does not receive the item within three weeks.

The following are examples of non-delivery cases:

1. An item was never sent.

2. There is no proof that the item was shipped to the buyer.

3. An item was not sent to the shipping address provided to the seller

Not as Described

An item is not as described if the buyer can demonstrate that it is significantly different from your listing description or your photos of the item.

The following are examples of not as described cases:

1. The item received has a different cover design or title.

2. The item received is damaged.

3. The buyer received the incorrect quantity of items.

4. The condition of the item is misrepresented (e.g. the item is described as new but is used).

9. Disputes with Buyers

By selling on Buy the Book, you must attempt to resolve disagreements or order issues directly with the buyer.

In the unlikely event that you can’t reach a resolution, Buy the Book can intervene to and help both parties reach an agreement.

10. Communication Standards

By selling on Buy the Book, you agree to receive messages from buyers about the items you are selling. These messages will be sent from buyers through the Buy the Book messaging system.

You are asked to respond to messages about your items in a timely manner.

When communicating with buyers, you, the seller, must not engage in offensive or hateful language at any time. You must remain professional and always use respectful language when communicating with buyers.

Professional and respectful language must be used when dealing with Buy the Book employees.

Abusive language will not be tolerated and may lead to your account being disabled without notice.

11. Community Membership

As a seller on Buy the Book, you will be invited to join our community of sellers. You will be expected to treat other sellers with respect.

You agree that will not:

1. Share content that is derogatory, hateful or insensitive.

2. Harass or threaten other sellers.

3. Share other sellers’ details without their consent.

4. Violate other sellers’ intellectual property rights.

Failure to maintain these standards may see your Buy the Book membership revoked immediately.

12. Privacy and Protecting Personal Information

By selling on Buy the Book, you agree to protect the personal information of buyers that you receive or process, and you must comply with all relevant legal requirements. This includes applicable data protection and privacy laws that govern the ways in which you can use Buy the Book user information.

When you sell using our Services, you may receive and determine what to do with certain personal information, such as when communicating with and entering into transactions with buyers. This means you process personal information (for example, buyer name, email address, and delivery address) and, to the extent you do so, under EU law, you are an independent controller of data relating to other users that you may have obtained through the Services.

For more information on the General Data Protection Regulation, see more resources at https://gdpr-info.eu.

As a data controller (that is someone who decides what personal data is collected and the purpose you’ll use the data for) to the extent that you process user personal information outside of the Services, you may be required under applicable data protection and privacy laws to honour requests received from such buyers for data access, portability, correction, deletion, and objections to processing.

Also, if you disclose personal information without the buyer’s proper consent, you are responsible for that unauthorised disclosure. This includes, for example, disclosures you make or unintentional data breaches. For example, you may receive a buyer’s email address or other information as a result of entering into a transaction with that buyer. This information may only be used for Buy the Book-related communications or for Buy the Book-facilitated transactions. You may not use this information for unsolicited commercial messages or unauthorised transactions.

Without the buyer’s consent, you may not add any Buy the Book buyer to your email or physical mailing list, use that buyer’s identity for marketing, or obtain or retain any payment information. Please bear in mind that you’re responsible for knowing the standard of consent required in any given instance.

If Buy the Book and you are found to be joint data controllers of personal information, and if Buy the Book is sued, fined, or otherwise incurs expenses because of something that you did in your capacity as a joint data controller of buyer personal information, you agree to indemnify, defend and hold Buy the Book (and its employees, agents, consultants, subsidiaries, partners, affiliates, and licensors) harmless against any claims, costs, losses, damages, liabilities, judgements and expenses (including reasonable lawyer fees) in connection with your processing of buyer personal information.

For more information, please see our Privacy Policy.

13. Promotion and Advertising

By selling on Buy the Book, you agree to allow Buy the Book to use, repost, share, redistribute any content you upload to Buy the Book in order to promote your items; your store; and/or Buy the Book, in social media posts and online advertising.

14. Complaints

If you have a problem with any matter relating to Buy the Book, please contact us at [email protected].

We aim to resolve any complaints or issues in a timely manner.

15. Policy Changes

This Seller Policy was published on 1 January 2023 by Buy the Book.

Buy the Book reserves the right to change this policy from time to time.

Sellers shall be notified of any changes via email.