Terms of Use

1. Using Book Herald

Book Herald helps readers discover books, research their content, organize personal and family libraries, write notes and reviews, and share recommendations. Some features require an account or a paid membership. The features available to you may change as we develop the service.

You may use Book Herald for personal, household, educational, or internal organizational purposes, subject to these Terms. This permission does not allow you to resell access, republish our catalog, or use our content to build a competing product without our written permission.

2. Accounts and younger readers

Readers of any age may explore books with a parent or guardian. To create your own Book Herald account, you must be at least 13 and meet any higher minimum age required where you live. If you are below the age of majority where you live, you must have a parent’s or guardian’s permission and supervision, and that adult must agree to these Terms. Children under 13 may use Book Herald with a parent or guardian through that adult’s account, but may not create their own account or submit personal information themselves.

Parents may organize books for family members within their own account. A family reader or library within an account is not a separate child account. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle information supplied by parents and concerns about children’s information.

Provide accurate account information, keep your sign-in credentials secure, and contact us promptly if you believe someone has accessed your account without permission. You are responsible for activity you authorize through your account. If you use Book Herald on behalf of an organization, you must have authority to agree to these Terms for it.

3. Choosing books and supervising children

We research books to help you make informed choices, but households have different standards and readers have different sensitivities. Descriptions, reading levels, content notes, reviews, and recommendations are guidance. We do not guarantee that this information is complete or accurate, or that a book is suitable for a particular reader.

Each parent or guardian is responsible for supervising a child’s use of Book Herald, deciding which books are appropriate, and doing any additional research they consider necessary. To the extent permitted by law, we are not responsible for a reader’s choice of books or a parent’s supervision. Nothing in these Terms removes responsibilities or rights that applicable law does not allow us to exclude.

4. Membership, trials, and payments

Free trial

New accounts receive a seven-day free trial beginning when the account’s email address is confirmed. No payment method is required to start the trial. If you subscribe during an eligible trial, your first payment is scheduled for the end of the trial, as shown at checkout. If you do not subscribe, access to members-only features ends when the trial expires.

Subscriptions and renewal

Paid membership is billed monthly or annually, according to the plan you choose. Prices are shown in US dollars in our FAQ and at checkout. Stripe processes payments on its hosted pages. Keep your payment and billing information current so that payments can be completed.

Subscriptions automatically renew unless canceled. By subscribing, you authorize recurring charges for your chosen plan until you cancel your subscription. Any applicable taxes will be shown at checkout or on your billing statement. If we change your subscription price, we will notify you before the change takes effect at the start of a future billing period.

Failed payments

If a payment fails or remains unpaid, we may restrict membership features, suspend your account, or terminate it. Updating a payment method does not by itself confirm that a payment has succeeded. Contact us if you need help resolving a billing problem.

5. Cancellation and refunds

Cancel your subscription by choosing “Manage billing” in your account settings. Cancellation normally takes effect at the end of the current paid term, and you keep membership access until then, subject to these Terms. To avoid a renewal charge, cancel before your next billing date. If you subscribed during a free trial, cancel before the scheduled first payment to avoid that charge. If you have trouble canceling, contact hello@bookherald.com.

You may request a refund by emailing hello@bookherald.com. We consider refund requests individually and may grant a full or partial refund at our discretion. Cancellation does not automatically result in a refund or credit for unused time. This policy does not limit any refund rights required by law. A refund may end the membership access covered by the refunded payment.

When your trial or paid access ends, access to the full catalog and your saved libraries is restricted until you subscribe or renew. Canceling a subscription does not itself delete your account or saved library data. To request account deletion, follow the instructions in our Privacy Policy.

6. Respectful and lawful use

When using Book Herald, you must not:

• Break the law, infringe someone else’s rights, impersonate another person, or access another person’s account without permission.
• Post or send unlawful, defamatory, threatening, harassing, hateful, sexually explicit, or deliberately misleading material, or disclose someone else’s private information without permission.
• Send spam or use invitations and recommendations for unsolicited advertising or harassment. Send these messages only to people you have a reasonable basis to contact.
• Introduce malicious code, disrupt the service, bypass access controls, or attempt to obtain passwords or other confidential information.
• Scrape or systematically extract the catalog or other users’ information, automate account creation or messaging, or resell access without our written permission. Ordinary browser use and indexing permitted by our search-engine instructions are allowed.

You may express honest opinions about Book Herald, including criticism. These Terms do not restrict lawful consumer reviews or require you to transfer ownership of them to us.

7. Your content and its visibility

You retain ownership of the content you provide, including your notes, reviews, and original material you add to your libraries. You must have the rights needed to submit that content and allow us to use it as described here.

You grant us a nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, reproduce, format, transmit, and display your content as needed to operate and provide Book Herald. We may allow our service providers to do this work on our behalf. This license is limited by your choices and the privacy commitments below; it does not give us ownership of your content or permission to publish private notes.

• Your personal libraries and journal notes are private to your account and are not displayed to other readers.
• Reviews you submit for publication may be moderated and displayed on the relevant book page without your name. Moderators can associate reviews with your account. Avoid including personal information in a review you want to publish.
• Invitations and book recommendations are delivered to the people you choose and include your email address and any message you add. Recipients may keep their own copies.

We may decline to publish or remove content that violates these Terms. The license ends when your content is deleted from our systems, except for copies retained as described in our Privacy Policy. Deleting content cannot remove copies already delivered to others or saved independently by them.

If you send us suggestions or feedback about Book Herald, you also give us a nonexclusive right to use that feedback to improve or develop our services without compensation. You retain ownership of your feedback, and personal information in it remains subject to our Privacy Policy.

8. Our content and third-party rights

Book Herald and its licensors retain their rights in the service, software, branding, original editorial material, and catalog compilation. Your content remains yours, as described above.

You may access and use the material available to your account, and print reasonable excerpts, for the uses permitted by these Terms. Do not redistribute, sell, or republish our catalog or remove copyright notices without permission. These Terms do not limit uses permitted by law or rights granted by an applicable open-source or third-party license.

If you believe material on Book Herald infringes your copyright or other rights, email hello@bookherald.com with your contact details, a description of your work and rights, and the location of the material you want us to review.

9. Links and outside services

Book Herald links to booksellers, libraries, and other outside resources. Some purchase links are affiliate links, and we may earn a commission when you buy through them. Purchases from a bookseller are transactions with that seller, subject to its terms and refund policy. We do not control outside sites, their content, prices, availability, or privacy practices. Review their terms before using them.

10. Privacy and account deletion

Our Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use and disclose it, and how to request access, correction, or deletion. It is incorporated into these Terms. For account deletion, follow its retention and deletion instructions. Account deletion and subscription cancellation are different requests.

11. Suspension and termination

We may restrict access, suspend or terminate an account, or remove content for nonpayment, a violation of these Terms, abuse of the service, or legal or security reasons. Where practical and appropriate, we will tell you the reason and how to contact us. We may act without advance notice when needed to protect the service or others or to comply with law.

Do not create another account to evade a suspension or termination. Ending access does not automatically delete all records; retention and deletion are described in our Privacy Policy. Any outstanding payment obligations and provisions that by their nature need to continue, including dispute resolution and applicable liability limits, survive termination.

12. Service changes and availability

We may add, change, or discontinue features and may interrupt access for maintenance, technical problems, or other reasons. We do not guarantee uninterrupted access or that every feature will remain available. If we discontinue a paid service, we will provide any notice and refunds required by law.

We use safeguards and backups, but cannot guarantee that stored information will never be lost or damaged. Keep your own copies of information that is important to you.

13. Disclaimers and limits of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Book Herald is provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or noninfringement. We do not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of catalog information, reviews, recommendations, or outside resources.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Book Herald and its members, managers, officers, employees, and agents are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or loss of profits, revenue, or data arising from your use of the service. Our total liability for claims arising from the service is limited to the amount you paid us during the six months before the event giving rise to the claim.

These exclusions and limits apply only where lawful. They do not exclude liability or limit consumer rights that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

14. Governing law and resolving disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of West Virginia, subject to any mandatory protections that apply where you live.

Contact us first

Before starting arbitration, you and Book Herald agree to try to resolve a dispute informally for 30 days after one party gives the other written notice describing it. Send your notice to hello@bookherald.com. This requirement does not apply to the exceptions below or prevent a claim in an appropriate small claims court.

Individual arbitration

Except as provided below, unresolved disputes arising from these Terms or Book Herald will be resolved by binding individual arbitration under the Consumer Arbitration Rules of the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”). This means an arbitrator, rather than a judge or jury, decides the dispute. The AAA’s consumer arbitration rules and fee information govern fees and procedures. There will be one arbitrator, and proceedings will be in English.

Hearings may be conducted by documents, phone, online, or in person under the AAA rules. Any in-person hearing will be in West Virginia unless the parties agree otherwise or the AAA rules or applicable law require another location. The hearing location must satisfy the AAA’s consumer due-process requirements, including reasonable convenience to the parties.

To the extent permitted by law, arbitration will address each party’s individual claim; neither party may require a class or representative arbitration or combine proceedings without the other party’s agreement.

Exceptions and court proceedings

Either party may bring its own qualifying claim in an appropriate small claims court. Claims concerning intellectual property rights, theft, piracy, invasion of privacy, unauthorized use, or requests for injunctive relief are also excluded from the informal negotiation and arbitration requirements.

For disputes permitted in court under this section, and proceedings to enforce or review an arbitration award, proceedings must be brought in the state or federal courts in West Virginia, except where small claims rules or applicable law permit you to proceed elsewhere. You and Book Herald consent to those courts’ jurisdiction. If an arbitration provision cannot lawfully apply to a dispute, that dispute may be heard in a court with jurisdiction. Nothing in this section limits rights or remedies that applicable law does not allow us to limit.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as Book Herald changes and will update the date above. We will notify you of material changes through the service or by email before they take effect. We will obtain your consent where required by law. Otherwise, continued use after an update takes effect means you accept the revised Terms. If you do not agree, stop using the service and cancel any subscription before its next renewal. Changes do not remove rights that have already arisen under applicable law.

16. General terms and contact

These Terms and the policies they incorporate form the agreement between you and Book Herald about the service. If a provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue to apply. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. We may transfer this agreement as part of a merger, acquisition, or transfer of the service, subject to applicable law.

For questions about these Terms, your membership, or the service, contact Book Herald, LLC at hello@bookherald.com.