Terms of Service

"Terms of Service" are always difficult to understand and yet we agree to them all the time. Since I'm giving out privileged access to my unpublished novel, though, I suppose I really have to have them here. To reconcile these two facts, our terms of service on this site take the movement to "plain language to an extreme. I hope that you'll approve and show your consent by participating.

Let's start out with something really basic, and very much in "plain language"...

First, do no harm. Treat others as you would have them treat you.

Now for some details....

I'm in the process of writing a novel, a novel that will be copyrighted by me, and which I intend to publish commercially. I reserve the right to do that, and to actually sell the novel for money. I am not now giving it away or surrendering it or my rights to it. I expect you to honor that, because you are at heart a good person, and that's why I let you on to the system, and possibly gave you an account on it. That make sense?

If I did give you an account, it will allow you a bit of additional access to the system, the ability to write comments on the various things that are posted here, for instance. I may even have given you additional access in keeping with the role I expect you to play in getting the novel written and published. As a reviewer you may be able to read the unpublished chapters, as an editor you might be able to copy-edit, as a blogger you might be able to post articles to the blog.

Because you're one of the good guys, I expect that you won't misuse any of that access, and I expect to give you credit and thanks for anything that you might contribute. I'm not hiring you to do any of the above—If I were, we'd have a separate contract, wouldn't we?—and you therefore don't expect to be paid. With me so far?

By posting stuff here, be it comments, blog postings, research material or edits to my work, you're agreeing to let me use it in writing the novel. Why else post it? Also, you are asserting that anything you post here is either your own work, or that you have given credit to the original author. You are also not knowingly violating anyone else's rights or proprietary interests.

Each of us may, from time to time post quotations and excerpts—giving credit where credit is due—of material that is in the public domain or which is the copyrighted work of others. When the work is copyrighted, we are both expected to go no further than "fair use" would allow, posting only excerpts for the purposes of review and research. If you learn that you have gone too far, you agree to let me know in a timely manner, and if I learn that either of us has stepped over the line, I will take timely corrective action.

As an aside to third parties who are not part of all this amicable understanding between author and site user, if you believe that either of us has exceeded the bounds of fair use with regard to your work, please let me know immediately, via our contact page, so that I may take the above mentioned timely action. I'm trying to be an author and to get paid for some of what i write and it is in my own best interest that author's rights be honored. Thank you.

If all of the above makes sense to you, and you agree to it, then please join us here, and participate in the site. If not, then please let me know what if anything seems unreasonable and do not participate until you are convinced that it has been rectified. By participating here, you are implicitly agreeing to the above.