These terms apply whenever you use Draft Margin: when you make and run an author site (as an Author), and when you join an author’s site with your email address (as a Member). Reading a site without joining needs no agreement at all. By creating an account or joining a site, you agree to the latest version of these terms and to our abuse policy.
We may update these terms. When we make a significant change, we refresh the date at the top of this page and let Authors know by email before it takes effect. If we do not enforce a part of these terms at some point, that does not mean we have given it up.
Your account
- You must be a person, and old enough to agree to these terms where you live. Accounts made by bots or other automated means are not allowed.
- You are responsible for keeping your password safe. We recommend two-factor authentication, which you can turn on in your account settings. We are not liable for losses that come from someone else using your password.
- You are responsible for everything on your site and everything done under your account.
- You may not use Draft Margin for anything the abuse policy rules out.
It is free
There is no paid plan, no trial and no card at signup, because there is nothing to charge. We show no ads on your site and we do not sell your data, or anyone’s. The page on why it is free explains who pays for it.
Every site’s footer says “Built with Draft Margin” and carries links to our privacy policy and to report the site. They stay on every page; they are the one thing we put on your site.
Your writing stays yours
- Everything you put on your site, from your chapters to your covers, remains yours. We claim no ownership of it.
- You give us a limited licence to store, copy, display and send it, only as far as running your site needs: showing it to your readers, sending it to your Members, and putting it in your export.
- You must have the right to publish what you put on your site. If it is someone else’s writing or images, you need their permission or a legal exception that covers it.
- We do not check what you publish before it goes live, but we may remove anything that breaks the abuse policy.
- The platform itself, its code, themes and design, belongs to us or our licensors. Using it gives you no rights to it beyond these terms.
If you join a site as a Member
Joining an author’s site gives you its Members chapters and downloads, through a sign-in link sent to your email address. The site is the author’s: what they publish, and what they do with their Members list, is up to them and covered by these terms on their side. The privacy policy says what a site keeps about its Members, and how to have yourself removed.
Safety limits
Every site has the same limits on how much it can hold and how often some things can be done. They are generous for an author and useless to a spammer. If you reach one, you are told so; write to [email protected] and it will be raised. The help page on limits lists them all.
Suspension
- We may suspend a site that breaks the abuse policy. While it is suspended, every address on it shows a holding page. Its author can still sign in, sees the reason at the top of every page, and can still export everything.
- If you think a suspension is a mistake, write to [email protected]. We will look at it again and tell you what we decide.
- If a site is being used for something that has caused or will cause serious harm, we may delete it at once, without notice, and report it to the authorities.
- We may refuse an account to anyone who has had one deleted for breaking these terms. Abuse or threats against the people who run Draft Margin end an account at once.
Leaving
- Export my site, on your profile page, emails you a zip of everything on your site. You can make one once a day, for as long as your site exists. See exporting or deleting your site.
- You can delete your account at any time, in your account settings. It deletes your site with it, at once: its content, images, downloads and Members, and everything recorded about their reading. Any copy left in our backups is gone within 30 days. Nothing can be recovered afterwards, so export first.
Quiet accounts
We delete an account for being quiet only when nobody has signed in to it for a year and nothing on its site is published. Thirty days before, we email the account’s address; signing in before the date keeps it. A site with a published book, post or page is never deleted for being quiet. Suspended sites are left alone until the suspension is settled.
If Draft Margin closes
If we ever shut the platform down, every Author gets six months’ notice by email, and Export my site keeps working until the end.
Changes to the service
We may change or remove parts of Draft Margin, for example when a feature becomes impossible to keep running, or when we think it can be better. We will tell Authors in good time about any change that takes away something they rely on.
No guarantees
Draft Margin is provided as it is and as it is available. We build it with care and fix the bugs that matter first, especially anything touching security or privacy, but we cannot promise it will never fail, never lose anything, or suit every need. Keep an export of your own.
Liability
As far as the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses, or for lost profits, goodwill or data, that come from using Draft Margin or being unable to use it, from someone getting into your account or your data, or from what anyone else says or does on it. Nothing in these terms limits liability for intent or gross negligence, for death or personal injury, or anything else that the law does not allow to be limited, and nothing here takes away your rights as a consumer.
The law that applies
These terms are governed by the laws of the operator’s country. If you are a consumer, you keep the protection of the law where you live, and you can bring a claim in your own courts.
Who runs it
Draft Margin is run by The operator, Postal address to be set, the operator’s country. Write to [email protected] about anything on this page.