Website Terms of Service

Introduction

These are the terms and conditions of service for https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/ (Website). The Website is operated by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (we, us and our). We are registered in England and Wales under company number 01984336 and have our registered office at 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP. We are a member of the Publishers Association. Our VAT registration number is GB 215039103.

Your purchase of any of the following services offered on the Website (Services) is subject to these terms and conditions:

Writers and Artists Editing Service (Editing Service);
Writers and Artists Events Service (Events Service); and
Writers and Artists Online Listings Directory Service (Listings Service).

By placing an order for any Service you agree to be bound by them. You should print a copy of these terms and conditions for future reference. Use of the Website itself is subject to our General Terms. Any physical products that you buy on the Website will be subject to the Bloomsbury Terms of Sale.. Use of your personal information submitted to or via the Website is governed by our Privacy and Cookies Policy.

We reserve the right to change these terms and conditions from time to time by changing them on the Website, although no such change will affect any order you have already placed with us. These terms and conditions were last updated on 2nd March 2021.

Registering with us

To order any Service, you must first register to set up an account with us by completing the account registration form available on the Website. You only need to register once.

To order the Editing Service or the Events Service, you must be at least 18 years of age (or any older age legally required under local law to bind yourself legally to these terms and conditions). By doing so, you confirm to us that you meet this requirement.

There may be additional eligibility criteria that may apply to a particular Service, where indicated on the Website. It is your responsibility to ensure you satisfy all of the minimum eligibility criteria set out above before choosing to register with us. By doing so, you confirm to us that you do meet all of the minimum eligibility criteria.

Username and password

Upon registration for an account with us, you will be asked to provide your email address and create a username and password. You must keep your username and password confidential at all times and use it only to access and use your account and not for any other purpose. You are the only authorised user of your account and, accordingly, you must not disclose your username and/or password to anyone else. You should contact us immediately upon discovering any unauthorised use of your account or error in the operation of your username and/or password (see Contacting us below). Any breach of these terms and conditions and/or any use of your account by anyone to whom you disclose your username and/or password will be treated as if the breach or use had been carried out by you, and will not relieve you of your obligations to us.

Passwords are our property and we reserve the right to alter or replace them, or require you to do so, at any time in our sole discretion.

You must cease to use and delete the password for your account upon termination of your account for whatever reason.

Our Services

The Services are described on the Website. We warrant that the Services will substantially conform to the relevant description on the Website and will be provided with reasonable care and skill. You acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for all use you make of any Service.

You acknowledge that by receiving the Services in no way implies that any content written by you and/or submitted to us will be selected for or accepted by us or any third party for publication. We do not and will not intervene in manuscript selection. The editorial decisions of any editor are discretionary and based on the quality and suitability of a manuscript and as such are entirely independent.

You acknowledge and agree that we do not review the substance of any content submitted to us, guarantee the results of the Services, or represent, warrant or guarantee that the Services will result in publication of any work.

The content is provided for reference purposes only and is not intended, nor should it be used, as a substitute for professional advice or judgement or to provide legal advice with respect to particular circumstances.

Listings Service

The Listings Service involves a subscription. The subscription gives you access to the Listings Service for a period of 12 months. You may choose to subscribe to any of the following Listing Service options: (a) Writers and Artists Yearbook Listings; (b) Children’s Writers and Artists Yearbook Listings; or (c) Writers and Artists Yearbook Listings and Children’s Writers and Artists Yearbook Listings (together).

You are permitted to search, view, retrieve, and display portions of, print out single copies of portions of the Listings Service.

You may not remove or alter the copyright notices or other means of identification or disclaimers as they appear in the Listings Service or systematically print paper or electronic copies of multiple extracts of the Listings Service for any purpose.

You may not permit anyone to access or use the Listings Service.

You may not use all or any part of the Listings Service for any commercial use.

Events Service

An Event means one of the following: How to Edit Your Book, How to Get Published, How to Hook an Agent, Evening Masterclasses, Festivals. A Course consists of a writing course which takes place over several weeks.

We may request that you leave any Event if, in our reasonable opinion, your conduct is unacceptable. In such circumstances, you will not be entitled to any refund of charges.

We may need to change the venue, the timing and/or content of any Event. In such circumstances, we will try to give you reasonable notice of such changes.

You are not allowed to take any photographs or record any Events without our permission. Any permitted photographs, clips, recordings or screenshots (audio or otherwise) may not be used for commercial purposes. You may not reproduce, distribute or publish any materials provided to you in connection with the Events without our written consent.

We are not responsible for any travel and/or accommodation costs and/or expenses incurred by you in relation to any Event.

Ordering

Once you have registered and set up an account with us, Services may be ordered by clicking on the Service you wish to purchase or subscribe to and then following the prompts that will appear on-screen. You may check and correct any input errors in your order up until the point at which you submit your order to us by clicking the "Pay Now" button on the checkout page.

After placing an order, you will receive an email from us acknowledging that we have received your order. Please note that this does not mean that your order has been accepted. Your order constitutes an offer to us to purchase a Service. All orders are subject to acceptance by us. We are not obliged to accept your order and may, at our discretion, decline to accept any order for any reason. You do, however, acknowledge that by clicking on the "Pay Now" button, you enter into an obligation to pay for the Service(s). Where we accept your order, we will confirm such acceptance to you by sending you an email confirmation of your order (Order Confirmation). The contract between you and us in relation to the Service(s) ordered (Contract) will only be formed when we send you the Order Confirmation.

Charges and payment

The charges for Services are as quoted on the Website from time to time. Charges for the Services include VAT.

Charges are liable to change at any time, but changes will not affect orders in respect of which we have already sent you an Order Confirmation.

When ordering physical goods for delivery outside of the UK you may be subject to import duties and taxes levied when the goods reach the specified country of delivery. Customs policies vary from country to country and we have no control over such additional duties or taxes and cannot predict their amount. We recommend you check the import charges applicable to the country of delivery with the customs office or post office before ordering products, as you are responsible for all customs formalities, and will need to pay any additional charges, including import duties, taxes, levies and other charges.

The Website contains a range of Services and it is always possible that, despite our best efforts, some of the Services listed on the Website may be incorrectly priced. We will normally verify charges as part of our order-checking procedures so that, where a Service's correct charge is less than our stated charge, we will charge you the lower amount. If a Service’s correct charge is higher than the charge stated on the Website, we will normally, at our discretion, either contact you for instructions or reject your order and notify you of such rejection.

Payment for all orders must be made by credit or debit card on the checkout page or by phone or bank transfer. We accept payment by Visa, Mastercard and American Express.

You should be aware that online payment transactions are subject to validation checks by your card issuer and we are not responsible if your card issuer declines to authorise payment for any reason. Please note, it is possible that your card issuer may charge you an online handling fee or processing fee. We are not responsible for this.

From time to time we may run promotions where we issue discount codes. These can be used in part-payment of the charges for the Service(s) ordered online, subject to the terms and conditions under which they were issued (as indicated in our relevant promotion from which you got the code). Discount codes are subject to a usage limit, and can be used only during the period of validity stated and only in respect of the relevant Service(s) stated. Discount codes cannot be redeemed for cash.

You are responsible for all charges to your account. If you have questions regarding charges to your account, you should contact us (see Contacting us below).

You agree that you will not, nor allow anyone else to, use your account or any Service:

to access or attempt to access any Service which you have not purchased or subscribed to;
to interfere with or disrupt the provision of any Service or use any Service in a way that interferes with anyone else’s use of any Service;
to further any criminal or fraudulent activity or to impersonate another person;
to breach the rights of any person (including, but not limited to rights of privacy and intellectual property rights); or
otherwise in breach of any acceptable use guidelines that we may issue from time to time.

Service commitment

As it is our policy to continually improve our Service offerings, we reserve the right to make changes to any Service, charges and/or to these terms and conditions from time to time, provided that we will not, unless you agree, make any changes that would significantly alter the type or level of service you receive (except if we need to do so for security, legal or regulatory reasons). We will always give you as much notice as we reasonably can of such significant changes on the understanding that you have the option of accepting them or cancelling your Service subscription without penalty, in which case, you should notify us that you wish to cancel your subscription (see Subscription cancellation). If you do not cancel your subscription before the date on which the changes come into effect (which we will notify to you), this will mean that you have accepted them.

Consumer cancellation rights and refunds

The following cancellation rights apply in respect of the Services:

Events Service - Events

Single Day Events and Festivals take place on a specific date, therefore we will not be able to refund you if you decide not to attend or if you cancel your booking. You do not benefit from a Cooling-Off Period under the Consumer Contracts Regulations in respect of bookings for Single Day Events or Festivals.

Events Service – Writing Course

You may cancel a Contract for a Writing Course at any time after the date we send you the Order Confirmation. If you cancel before the Writing Course has been fully carried out then the charge you pay us (and which we will deduct from any refund otherwise due to you) will be proportionate to the Writing Course that has been carried out by the time you cancel, and will not exceed our reasonable costs of providing the Writing Course up until that point.

If you would like to obtain a full refund in respect of the Writing Course, you must give us one month’s notice in writing of your intention to cancel the Contract before the date of the first event in the series.

Editing Services and Listings Service

You have the right to cancel the Editing Services and Listings Service from the date on which we send you the Order Confirmation until 14 days after the date of the Order Confirmation (Cooling-Off Period).

Cancellation Form

Please contact us at writersandartists@bloomsbury.com setting out your name, address and order reference to cancel your order. Alternatively you may also email or post a cancellation letter in the form set out below:

(Complete and return this form if you wish to cancel the Contract)

To [SELLER’S NAME, ADDRESS]:

I/We [*] hereby give notice that I/We [*] cancel my/our [*] contract of sale of the following: [*]

Ordered on [*]/received on [*],

Name of consumer(s):

Address of consumer(s):

Signature of consumer(s):

Date:

[*] Delete as appropriate

If you have already accessed your subscription account in respect of the Listings Service (and in doing so, you consent to us supplying you with the content during the Cooling-Off Period) or if we have already started to provide the Editing Services to you during the Cooling-Off Period (which, by placing your order, you request us to do), then while you will still have the right to cancel, you may have to pay for the value of the Listings Service or the Editing Service that is provided up until the point that you cancel.

If you have already paid for the Listings Service or Editing Service we will endeavour to process the cancellation within fourteen days of receipt of your cancellation notice. You shall be refunded through the original purchase method and will be credited back to the amount of the purchase. If you do not receive credit for your cancellation within four weeks, please let us know.

If you received any promotional or other discount when you paid, any refund will only reflect the amount you actually paid.

Details of the consumer rights described above, and an explanation of how to exercise them, are provided in the Order Confirmation. Nothing in this section affects your legal rights.

Subscription cancellation

Subject to your Consumer cancellation rights, you cannot cancel your subscription before the end of the then-current subscription period, unless:

the Service to which you are subscribed ceases to be available or becomes degraded so as to materially and adversely affect that Service and it is not restored within 7 days; or
we make changes, in the circumstances described under Service commitment, to which you do not agree.

In any of these cases, you should notify us (see Contacting us below) that you wish to cancel your subscription in which case we will give you a pro-rated refund of the advance charges already paid by you, based on the unexpired portion of the then-current subscription period.

Service suspension and termination

We may, from time to time, with or without prior notice, temporarily suspend the operation of any Service and/or the Website (in whole or in part) for repair or maintenance work or in order to update or upgrade any contents, features or functionality.

We may, with or without prior notice, terminate any Contract or suspend and/or terminate any Service and/or your use of your account in the event that:

you have breached any of these terms and conditions;
you fail to pay any correctly billed charges when due; or
you become insolvent or make composition with your creditors or petition for your own bankruptcy or have a bankruptcy petition presented against you, or are subject to any event or proceedings which are equivalent or substantially similar under any applicable jurisdiction.

If you have breached these terms and conditions, we may take such action as we deem appropriate. Such a breach by you may result in our taking, with or without notice, all or any of the following actions:

issue of a warning to you;
immediate, temporary or permanent removal of any content submitted by you;
immediate, temporary or permanent withdrawal of your right to use any Service;
legal proceedings against you for reimbursement of all recoverable loss and damage resulting from the breach; and/or
disclosure of all relevant information to law enforcement authorities as we reasonably feel is necessary.

The responses described above are not limited, and we may take any other action we deem appropriate.

Upon termination of any Contract or Service or your account, for any reason:

all rights granted to you under these terms and conditions will immediately cease;
you must promptly discontinue all use of the relevant Service; and
you must pay us all outstanding amounts that you owe us.

You may terminate your account at any time on 14 days' notice but you must notify us in writing if you wish to do so (see Contacting us).

Our liability

Nothing in these terms and conditions shall limit or exclude our liability to you:

for death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
for fraudulent misrepresentation;
for breach of any term implied by the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and which, by law, may not be limited or excluded; or
for any other liability that, by law, may not be limited or excluded.

Subject to this, if you are a consumer and not a business customer, in no event shall we be liable to you for any business losses, and if you are a business customer, in no event shall we be liable to you for any indirect or consequential losses, or for any loss of profit, revenue, contracts, data, goodwill or other similar losses, and any liability we do have for losses you suffer arising from any Contract shall not, in respect of any 12-month period (calculated from the date of that Contract), exceed the charges payable by you for the relevant Service(s) in that 12-month period and is strictly limited to losses that were reasonably foreseeable. Losses are foreseeable where they could be contemplated by you and us at the time your order is accepted by us.

We will not be liable or responsible for any failure to perform, or delay in performance of, any of our obligations under any Contract that is caused by events outside our reasonable control.

General

You may not transfer or assign any or all of your rights or obligations under any Contract.

All notices given by you to us must be given in writing to the address set out at the end of these terms and conditions. We may give notice to you at either the email or postal address you provide to us when placing an order.

If we fail to enforce any of our rights, that does not result in a waiver of that right.

If any provision of these terms and conditions is found to be unenforceable, all other provisions shall remain unaffected.

These terms and conditions may not be varied except with our express written consent.

These terms and conditions and any document expressly referred to in them represent the entire agreement between you and us in relation to the subject matter of any Contract. We are required by law to advise you that Contracts may be concluded in the English language only and that no public filing requirements apply.

These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law. Subject to the next paragraph, you agree that any dispute between you and us regarding them or the Website will only be dealt with by the English courts, provided that, if you are a consumer and not a business customer and live in a part of the United Kingdom other than England, the applicable law of that part of the United Kingdom will govern and any dispute will only be dealt with by the courts there. Nothing shall prevent us from bringing proceedings to protect our intellectual property rights before any competent court.

Contacting us

Please submit any questions you have about these terms and conditions or an order you have placed or ordering in general, or any complaint or concern in relation to any Service ordered by email to writersandartists@bloomsbury.com, by telephone on +44(0)20 7631 5985 between the hours of 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, or write to us at:

50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, United Kingdom