THE PUBLISHING ACADEMY EXPERT COVENANT

This covenant lays out our agreement for the Publishing Academy partnership between yourself (known as “Publishing Academy Expert” or “Publishing Academy Faculty Member”) and Lean Marketing SL (known as “Us” or “Publishing Academy”).

By using or accessing Publishing Academy, you are accepting the practices and terms described in this agreement.

Although this document is written in plain English it is a legally binding contract so please take a good look.

OUR PROMISE TO YOU…

We want your involvement with Publishing Academy to be one of the most profitable writing and promotional activities you undertake. We aim to do this by…

1. Presenting you and your knowledge in the most positive light to our members and prospects.
2. Promoting our site as effectively and efficiently as possible to provide you with a large platform of targeted prospects eager to learn from your experience.
3. Using the most effective marketing strategies to ensure people you introduce sign up and stay members so you keep getting paid.
4. Supporting you wherever possible to ensure you make the most of your association with Publishing Academy.
5. Preserving the quality and exclusivity of our content to ensure your association with Publishing Academy is something to be proud of for the long term.
6. Providing you with a recurring income vehicle without the hassle and cost involved in starting from scratch.
7. Ensuring all experts adhere to their end of the bargain so that we all gain from our collective efforts.
8. Directly promoting your author-related events, books and products to our members to ensure your main business thrives.
9. Looking after members by supporting them and providing valuable content to ensure a steadily increasing long-term income to our experts.
10. Offering you unprecedented 20-50% royalties on any books you publish with us under the Publishing Academy brand.
11. Providing you with your own Expert Profile page (with links to your main business) and the opportunity to showcase your expertise.
12. Paying you 50% recurring monthly income from members you introduce to Publishing Academy for the lifetime of their membership.
13. Granting you Free access to all the paid-for “members only” content (video, audio, slides, checklists and articles created by fellow experts.
14. Providing you with your own “Publishing Academy Expert” badge to display on your website and in your promotional literature to show your affiliation and respected status.

WHAT WE EXPECT IN RETURN

The main thing we need from you is your commitment to sharing your expertise with people who are eager to learn from your experience. As a minimum you shall:

1. Provide 2 original and exclusive (for 90 days) pieces of content to the Publishing Academy members area every 30 days.
2. Provide your content in a variety of formats as necessary including: video, audio and text.
3. Keep your expert profile up-to-date and include a photograph of yourself.
4. Link to Publishing Academy from your main site or blog using one of our unique “badges of honour”.
5. Actively promote your work with Publishing Academy by sharing free videos, articles and content with your contacts and (at your discretion) promoting Publishing Academy Guidebooks in order to increase membership.

DISCLAIMER

We will do all in our power to uphold our end of the bargain but this agreement is not a service level agreement and we will not (and can not) be held liable for any damages you feel may have occurred due to accident, error or negligence on our part.

While we will use all reasonable efforts to provide the products and services we offer, our liability in so far as we can exclude it in law, is so excluded except up to the amount of monies paid to us by you for the products and services in question.

No warranties whether explicit or implied are given in relation to Publishing Academy or the services it offers.

We fully disclaim any liability for consequential loss and we disclaim any liability for loss of profit or any other loss except that allowed by law.

THREE STRIKE RULE

We have a strong sense of fair play and believe people who understand and apply the the principles of mutual effort for mutual gain deserve to be rewarded. As such, we reserve the right to remove the priveleges of Publishing Academy Experts who consistently fail to uphold their end of the bargain.

We select our experts very carefully and invite people we believe are hard-working and honourable. However, we’re only human and we sometimes get things wrong. So, to protect all our good Experts from people who are only along for a free ride we use a 3 strikes rule. We will inform you each time a strike has been earned to give you all the chances you need to get back on track.

Things that will earn you a strike…

1. Blatantly plugging your products in your content. There is no need to do this as we’re committed to helping you launch and promote all of your author-related products as part of our committment to you as a Publishing Academy Expert.
2. Failing to provide 2 pieces of original and exclusive content in each 30 day period unless you have previously informed us that; a) you are on holiday and unavailable for a specific period or b) there are special circumstances such as illness that mean you’ll be unable to deliver content.
3. Spamming or otherwise harassing members of Publishing Academy in an effort to sell your products or services. Again, there is no need to do this – if you have something to sell you can provide a link on your profile page and we will promote it for you.
4. Publicly criticising the Publishing Academy site -either on our own forums or on third party sites. We expect you to talk to us first if you’re unhappy about anything. If your criticism is particularly damaging or defamatory we may withdraw your status immediately and may take legal action against you to recover any damages.
5. Failing to promote Publishing Academy to your contacts within a 90 day period. Promotion is little more than signposting people to free content so we don’t expect our experts to do any hard selling.
6. Poaching/Soliciting Publishing Academy members or other Experts in an effort to build your own competitive membership website. If you do this we will instantly withdraw your status and access and may take legal action to recover any damages.
7. Passing off copyrighted material as your own. This includes using images without permission or using content that does not belong to you. In the case of serious breaches we may terminate your Expert status immediately.
8. Writing inflamatory or defamatory remarks about other individuals or organisations. If in doubt – check with us first.
9. Any other act, at our discretion, that we feel jeopardise our competitive position or the rights of our members and fellow experts.

If you rack up 3 strikes within a 12 month period your Publishing Academy Expert status will be revoked. If we have reason to believe that a serious violation of this agreement has occurred, we reserve the right to revoke your Expert status and remove your access without warning.

If your status is revoked we will pay you any income due for the active quarter but you will forfeit your right to future recurring income.

YOUR RIGHT TO CANCEL

You have the right to leave our Faculty at any time by giving us 14 days notice. Any income due to you for the active quarter will be paid in full and (as long as you have no strikes against you) you will continue to receive recurring income from members you have introduced. If you have one or more strikes against you when you cancel then you also forfeit the right to any future recurring income from Publishing Academy.

TERMINATION

We can terminate this agreement by giving 28 days notice (or immediately if we have reason to believe you have breached the terms of this agreement). You can terminate any agreement made with us providing you have complied with all terms of this agreement by giving 14 days notice. We will not terminate this agreement unless there are exceptional circumstances such as war, terrorist action, wholly unexpected interruption of supply to us or other such circumstances.

COPYRIGHT & IPR

All content at PublishingAcademy.com is Copyright Lean Marketing SL unless otherwise stated and may not be copied, distributed, licensed, or reproduced in any way without our express permission.

When a Publishing Academy Expert provides original content to the Publishing Academy website they are granting us exclusive rights to this content for a period of 90 days from the date of first publication – including (without limitation) the right to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate, reformat and sublicense this content. After this 90 day period has expired the exclusive rights revert to non-exclusive lifetime rights as set out below.

When a Publishing Academy expert provides Publishing Academy with content that has previously been published elsewhere (whether in a book, on your own site or a third party website) you are granting us non-exclusive lifetime rights to this content – including (without limitation) the right to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate, reformat and sublicense this content.

No compensation will be paid with respect to the use of your content. We are under no obligation to post or use any content you may provide. We reserve the right to remove any content at any time at our sole discretion. We reserve the right to amend any of your content without notice (though we will always strive to notify you where possible) to correct any errors or ommissions. We reserve the right to change headlines, formatting and images to make content more attractive to members.

Your cancellation of our agreement does not affect our rights for content you have already submitted. In other words – we maintain full rights (as granted to us by this agreement) to copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate, reformat and sublicense this content.

We will always credit you as the author of any original content you supply.

OWNERSHIP OF DATA

Lean Marketing SL owns the data in our database and on our Publishing Academy website. You cannot copy it, publish it or reproduce it to any third party without our express written permission.

INDEMNITY

You agree to indemnify us against any loss or damage caused to our site or us or it’s reputation as a result of any failure by you or on your behalf to comply with these terms & conditions. In other words – if you post defamatory content on our site or otherwise breach a third party’s intellectual property rights you’re on your own.

AMENDMENTS

This agreement may be amended at any time and amendments will take effect within 14 days. We provide easy access to this agreement for you to review and will do all in our power to notify you of changes to this agreement. However, you agree that it is ultimately your responsibility to check here for any changes.

LAW THAT APPLIES

This agreement will be governed in accordance with English law. No effect will be given to any conflict of laws.

SEVERANCE

If any part of this agreement is found to be unenforceable, void, illegal or invalid then it shall be severed from this agreement and all the other provisions shall remain in force.