Terms and Conditions for Free Publishing
General Terms and Conditions:
1. The author wishes Empire Publishing to publish the Title and grants Empire Publishing the nonexclusive right to edit, format, digitize, advertise, distribute and sell, and deliver the Title in any way Empire Publishing deems appropriate, and grants Empire Publishing the right to distribute the Title worldwide, and collect all monies for eBooks sold by Empire Publishing; Empire Publishing agrees to pay royalties on a quarterly basis to the author, beginning with the last day of the first full month of publication.
2. It is the author’s responsibility to submit their manuscript to us in MS Word document unless such manuscript is already held by Empire Publishing for a book that is in printed format. Failure to do so can result in additional charges.
3. Additional conversion charges may apply based on the nature of the manuscript. Some examples of special formatting include: text boxes, bullets, tabbed formatting, manual hyphenation, scanned images, floating pictures, special characters, columns, mathematical equations, tables, etc. Book files/manuscripts in PDF format are automatically special formatting and require an additional conversion charge.
4. Empire Publishing will assess the manuscript for consistent formatting within a reasonable time-frame and will notify the author of any potential problems associated with the content or formatting. The author will be given the choice of having the file returned to them to make the adjustments or
Empire Publishing will provide a quote to modify the manuscript for pre-publication.
5. Empire Publishing retains the right to (i) scan, convert or otherwise render the print version of a title intended by Author to constitute an eBook, including without limitation any text, information, data, software, photographs, graphs, videos, typefaces, graphics, music, sounds, and other material contained therein, into an eBook, in a format suitable for the sale, distribution, marketing, display, licensing and promotion of such eBook by Empire Publishing, (ii) reproduce and distribute the eBooks in the form of portable storage media (including without limitation compact discs, DVDs, memory cards and thumb drives) and offered for sale or license to Empire Publishing’s customers, distributors and licensees, (iii) store the eBooks on servers hosted by or on behalf of Empire Publishing, (iv) index and catalogue the eBooks; and (v) use the eBooks as provided herein.
6. Empire Publishing retains the right to make the eBooks available for sale, marketing, display, distribution, licensing and promotion in any commercially available digitized format or on any electronic device platform (including without limitation ePub, Quark, PDF, EBX, ASCII, HTML, XML, OEB, .LIT, .PDB, Symbian, Palm Reader, Gemstar, Sony Reader, Microsoft Reader, Mobi Pocket, Adobe digital edition, Rocket (RB), Franklin eBookMan (FUB), HieBook eBook (KML), OEBFF (IMP), Tiny eBook (TEBR), iSilo, Plucker, Electronic Braille, RTF and Kindle), whether now existing or hereafter created or developed, which offers industry standard and which is distributed and readable via any electronic media and technology of data entry, storage, retrieval, transmission, display, and output of any and all kinds whether now existing or hereafter created or developed, including without limitation computers and hand-held devices.
7. Empire Publishing retains the right to make the eBooks available for sale, marketing, display, distribution, licensing and promotion on a worldwide basis.
8. Empire Publishing retains the right to determine the appearance of all on-line presentation including but not limited to, on-line marketing, listing and eBook appearance.
9. Empire Publishing reserves the right to distribute and display via download all front matter of an eBook and up to twenty percent (20%) of an eBook’s content (non-exclusive of an eBook’s front matter) free as a sampler.
10. It is Empire Publishing’s right to discontinue various promotional items/programs. Additionally, Empire Publishing reserves the right to make substitutions of various promotional items/programs with or without prior notification of the substitution to the author as long as the item/program is of equal or greater value.
11. Empire Publishing is not and will not be liable to the author or any other person/entity for lost profits or revenues due to, relating to or in connection with the submission of Title.
12. Empire Publishing reserves the right, prior to general commercial distribution, to distribute or cause to be distributed free of charge to some employees of Empire Publishing copies of each eBook in any format for purposes of testing the electronic distribution of such eBooks in such format.
13. Empire Publishing is not and will not be liable to the author for any misplacement or loss of the Title for any reason. It is the author’s responsibility to retain complete records and copies of all materials/files relating to the Title pre and post publication.
14. Empire Publishing reserves the right to amend any portion of these Terms and Conditions at any time with 30 day electronic notice to the author. These amendments include, but are not limited to, timing, royalty payment structure, programs, special offers or policies and procedures. All amendments will be considered accepted if Empire Publishing does not receive a written request to terminate the agreement in writing within 30 days of the notification. All amendments are binding and supersede all previous Terms and Conditions. In the event the author disagrees with any change, the exclusive remedy is to provide termination of all Terms and Conditions and publication of their Title in writing to Empire Publishing, within the 30 day period.
15. Empire Publishing will provide information about the Title to third-party sellers to enable them to sell the Title, but will not be responsible for the turnaround times, submission policies, listing policies, errors, or sales policies of any third party seller.
16. Empire Publishing retains the right to establish the discounted price to all purchasers, including, but not limited to distributors, bookstores, schools, libraries, and quantity purchasers.
17. Empire Publishing will not be held responsible for errors in the book, including, but not limited to, spelling errors, grammar, punctuation, style of Title, corrupted files, computer formatting errors, and missing fonts.
18. Empire Publishing reserves the right to reject any Title for any reason at any time.
19. Empire Publishing reserves the right to market the Title, using methods it deems appropriate to market and distribute the book worldwide.
20. Empire Publishing will issue a Form-1099 as required by the Internal Revenue Service based on IRS requirements/mandates for any and all payments made to the author.
21. Upon the author’s completion of Empire Publishing’s “Proof Approval” Empire Publishing will submit the Title to assorted distribution channels including e-retailers, websites, etc, but will not be liable for delays, errors, non-compliance of such distributors, suppliers, e-retailers, etc
22. Upon the author’s completion of Empire Publishing “Proof Approval” the author is authorizing that the Title is acceptable. Any changes or corrections thereafter will be subjected to Empire Publishing’s post-production submission guidelines and pricing.
23. Royalty statements will be delivered on a quarterly basis to the author via email only.
24. The royalty earnings period will be listed on the statement.
25. Royalty payments are paid to the author via check or Paypal. Empire Publishing will pay royalties when and only after the total amount due in royalties exceeds $20.00 US, unless the author is terminating publication.
26. A check replacement fee will be charged to replace any previously issued royalty payment checks.
27. Empire Publishing will is not responsible for, but will endeavor to care for and return, submitted photos and artwork; and will not return any submitted CDs, floppy zip disks or thumb/flash drives.
28. Agreement can be terminated at any time due to irreconcilable differences when agreed upon by both Author and Empire Publishing. Author cannot terminate agreement with 12 months of the release date of Title so Empire may recuperate production costs. Empire Publishing reserves the right to terminate the agreement at any time with a written explanation. If the agreement is terminated the Title will be removed from retail distribution and production will cease at that time. In the case of termination, Empire Publishing will delete all files pertaining to Title.
Author Responsibilities
1. The author maintains that he or she is the sole author of Title, and owner of the copyright and all of the contents of the Title and has full power to enter into this Agreement; that he or she has not engaged in plagiarism with respect to the Title; and that the author, if submitting Title that is to include any content that does not originate from the author or to which the author does not own the copyright to, has obtained the copyright owner’s written permission to use any such material and will provide Empire Publishing with a copy of all written permissions for use at the time of submission to Empire Publishing, and that all such uses will be so noted in the Title; and will send a copy of the Copyright Form to Empire Publishing after the form has been stamped and returned to the author by the Library of Congress.
2. The author guarantees Empire Publishing that the Title is accurate, is not in violation of anyone’s privacy, is not injurious, obscene, libelous, slanderous, or otherwise a violation or infringement of any federal, state, or local law, statute, or code, and further agrees to hold Empire Publishing, its employees, directors, shareholders, representatives, heirs and assigns, harmless for any damages resulting from any litigation resulting from publication of the Title.
3. The author further guarantees Empire Publishing that the Title, if fiction, does not include the name and/or likeness of any actual person, living or dead; and that all characters in the fictional Title who may have been derived from actual persons have altered names and altered physical attributes, so as to negate any similarity or likeness between the actual person, location, or event, and the fictional character or location, with the exception of historical facts, figures, places, events, etc. as set forth by the USA Copyright laws and regulations.
4. The author agrees that Empire Publishing shall not in any way acquire ownership of the Title and that the author is free to pursue any and all publishing ventures that do not involve the use of Empire Publishing’s name or logo, likeness, digital formatting, barcode, copyright page, or ISBN.
5. The author grants Empire Publishing the right to provide services, including, but not limited to, the worldwide distribution of the eBook, advertising, sales, and printing of the Title.
6. The author agrees that Empire Publishing is not responsible for editing, misspelling, rewriting, page-numbering, indexing, reviewing, or any other errors in the Title.
7. The author understands that Empire Publishing will take the author’s digital book file and do its best to fix any obvious problems resulting from the file being transferred to Empire Publishing systems before sending the author a first proof; and that any changes that are made to the eBook thereafter, regardless of their origin, will be made at the author’s request and may incur an additional fee.
8. The author reserves the right to discontinue the selling of the Title by Empire Publishing by providing written notice to Empire Publishing, and acknowledges that Empire Publishing is not responsible for copies of the Title that has already been sold, and/or distributed to the market.
9. The author will provide a social security number as required by the Internal Revenue Service so that Empire Publishing can issue a Form-1099.
10. The author understands that a signature on this agreement ratifies all the terms and conditions of this Agreement.
11. It is the author’s responsibility to contact Empire Publishing in the event they do not receive their statement via email in a timely manner.
12. It is the author’s responsibility to notify Empire Publishing in a timely manner of any change of physical street or e-mail address
13. Author will provide Empire Publishing with a digital copy of their manuscript based on our formatting requirements (no hard copy manuscripts can be accepted for eBook publishing)
Details on Pricing and Royalty Structure for Various Methods of Publication
1. Prices for all fiction eBooks are set at 70-80% of the suggested list pricing guide for our paperback book publishing.
a. Range of pricing will be provided to the author on the eBook Proof Approval Form with an eProof via email.
b. Books not currently published by Infinity Publishing will have eBook prices based on the number of pages in the manuscript file.
2. Prices for all non-fiction eBooks are based on our suggested list pricing guide.
a. Range of pricing will be provided to the author on the eBook Proof Approval Form with an eProof via email.
b. Books not currently published by Infinity Publishing will have eBook prices based on the number of pages in the manuscript file.
3. Authors will be paid 100%, 60% or 40% (depending on publishing package) of the sales price for all eBooks sold. Royalty is determined after retail store percentage has been deducted.
4. Royalty payments will be made to author based on the nature of the sale (retail, wholesale or others).
5. Empire Publishing will retain final discretion over the cover price of the Title.
6. Empire Publishing will assign one of its ISBNs (if one has not been assigned) to the book and submit relevant information about the Title to the “eBooks in Print” database.
7. Empire Publishing will enter the eBook into their digital book publishing system so that the book may be distributed.
8. Empire Publishing will design a professional book cover for the Title (if required). It will include the front cover and will use either royalty-free artwork of its own acquisition or use acceptable artwork from the author.
9. Empire Publishing will create web pages for the Title so that it may be sold on its e-commerce website, www.empire-publishing.com (when feature available).
Lending Rules & eBook Browsing
1. For any eBook store operated by Empire Publishing Distributors / Resellers (each an “eBook Store”), each eBook Store shall be permitted to store on the Empire Publishing or their servers eBook titles which were purchased by customers from such eBook Store. Any eBook Store shall be permitted (free of any payment to Author or any third party) to allow its customers from time to time to upload and download eBooks that were purchased by such customers from such eBook Store even if the eBook is no longer for sale.
2. Empire Publishing shall have the right to institute a program whereby customers of any eBook Store can loan eBooks to others.
3. Author acknowledges and agrees that for applicable bookstores, one hundred percent (100%) of every eBook for sale can be viewed via Wi-Fi within the confines of a physical distributor’s store and within the reach of such store’s Wi-Fi eBook content will be available for viewing via streaming technology.
General Provisions
This Agreement shall be governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of California, USA. All monetary transactions will be in US dollars only.
This written Agreement contains all and is the only Agreement, and supersedes any other agreement, oral, written, or otherwise construed as a prior agreement between the author and Empire Publishing. This Agreement cannot be appended, changed, modified, word or words added or deleted except by the mutual written agreement of the author and Empire Publishing; and further, is binding upon the heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns of the author and Empire Publishing.