Terms of Service

Last updated: 1 August 2026

Welcome to VellumHaven (“VellumHaven”, “we”, “us”). By accessing or using vellumhaven.com and related VellumHaven websites, apps, and services (the “Service”), you agree to these Terms of Service (“Terms”). If you do not agree, do not use the Service. These Terms also apply under our footer label “Terms & Conditions.”

1. Accounts

You must provide accurate registration information and keep your credentials secure. You are responsible for activity under your account. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms or applicable law.

2. Roles

Readers may browse, follow, and read works made available to them, and may purchase Coins or other paid features when enabled. Authors may publish stories, chapters, covers, and related metadata. Authors remain responsible for the content they upload and for securing any rights needed to publish it.

3. Age restrictions & age verification

You must be at least 13 years old to create an account, or 16 years old where required by applicable law (including certain EU/UK jurisdictions under GDPR and related rules).

Access to M 15 or R 18+ content requires you to confirm that you are 18 years of age or older before enabling mature content filters or viewing age-gated material. Providing a false birthdate or false age confirmation is a breach of these Terms and may result in suspension or termination.

R 18+ material, where permitted, may be limited to the web platform and subject to age verification as described on the Service.

4. Virtual currency & Coin terms

Readers may purchase “Coins” (or similarly named virtual currency) to unlock chapters, audio, or other digital features on the Service.

No cash value & non-refundable. Coins are a limited, non-transferable, revocable licence to access digital content on the platform. Coins have no real-world monetary value, cannot be redeemed for cash, and are non-refundable once purchased, except where mandatory consumer law requires otherwise.

Expiration. Coins do not expire solely due to account inactivity. Unused Coins remain associated with your account until spent, forfeited under these Terms, or the Service is discontinued.

Price & balance adjustments. We reserve the right to adjust Coin pricing, bundle rates, unlock costs, and related economics at any time without prior notice. Changes do not entitle you to a refund of previously purchased Coins.

Account termination. If your account is suspended or terminated for violating these Terms (including harassment, piracy, fraud, or prohibited content), any unused Coin balance is forfeited and will not be refunded or transferred.

Wallet top-ups and Coin purchases are processed by third-party payment providers (such as Stripe). Fees, chargebacks, and provider-specific rules may also apply. Mobile apps, if offered, may not support in-app purchases.

5. Content ownership, royalties & audio rights

Author warranties. By uploading or publishing any content on the Service (including text, covers, ads, avatars, banners, audio, metadata, and links), you represent and warrant that:

• you own the content, or have all necessary licences, rights, consents, and permissions to publish it on VellumHaven and to grant the licence below;
• the content does not infringe any third party’s copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights;
• the content complies with these Terms, our content and image policies, and applicable law;
• stories and chapters you publish are written predominantly in English (occasional foreign words, names, or short phrases are fine); and
• you have the legal capacity to agree to these Terms.

Author retains IP. Authors retain 100% ownership of their original text and story copyrights, subject to the licence granted below and any third-party rights in material they include.

Non-exclusive platform licence. By publishing or uploading content, authors grant VellumHaven a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-bearing (as described below) licence to host, display, format, distribute, promote, and monetize their text and any generated audio streams on our website, apps, and related services, including caching, backups, format conversion, and discovery features.

AI audio generation rights. By publishing a story or opting into audio features, the author grants VellumHaven permission to use text-to-speech and related AI models to generate derivative audio files for streaming and offline-capable playback on the Service. This does not transfer copyright in the underlying text to VellumHaven.

Royalty split & payout rules. When monetization is enabled, authors may earn a share of net revenue attributable to Coin spends and other eligible monetization on their works, at rates and under definitions published in author payout settings or help documentation on the Service. Unless otherwise stated there:

• Payouts are subject to a minimum cash-out threshold of USD $50 (or equivalent).
• Eligible balances are paid on a net-30 schedule after the period in which they accrued, via the payment method we support.
• Authors are solely responsible for their own local taxes, reporting, and any required business registrations.

We may withhold or adjust payouts for fraud, chargebacks, ToS violations, or legal process.

6. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless VellumHaven and its operators, officers, employees, contractors, and agents from and against any claims, demands, actions, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or related to:

• content you upload, publish, or link to on the Service;
• your breach of these Terms or of your author warranties;
• your infringement or alleged infringement of any third-party right; or
• your use of the Service in violation of applicable law.

We may, at our expense, assume exclusive defence of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification; you agree to cooperate with that defence.

7. Content rules & prohibited content

English language. Books, stories, and chapters on VellumHaven must be written predominantly in English. Occasional non-English words, names, titles, or short phrases are allowed. Works whose primary language is not English may not be published and may be removed.

Authors must set an accurate content rating (G, PG 13, M 15, or R 18+) and applicable content warnings. Fiction with mature themes, violence, and consensual romance (including R 18+ when age-gated) is allowed when properly tagged.

VellumHaven also does not allow stories featuring self-harm/suicide, abuse/severe trauma, or addiction/substance abuse as primary themes, as described in our author content-warning tools.

Strictly prohibited content (zero tolerance). The following are forbidden and may result in immediate permanent ban, removal of content, forfeiture of Coins and unpaid earnings, and—where required—reporting to authorities:

• CSAM / child sexual exploitation in any form (instant permanent ban and report to NCMEC or equivalent authorities as required).
• Non-consensual sexual violence, bestiality, or extreme illegal acts depicted as sexual content.
• Real-world hate speech, harassment, doxxing, or incitement to violence.
• Fan fiction and other works based on third-party intellectual property that the author does not own or have the legal right to publish.

8. Moderation rights

VellumHaven may, at any time and without prior notice, remove, un-publish, disable, re-rate, quarantine, or restrict access to any content (including stories, chapters, images, ads, avatars, comments, and links) that we believe violates these Terms, our content or image policies, applicable law, payment-partner or app-store rules, or that otherwise poses risk to users or the Service.

We may also suspend or terminate accounts, freeze wallets, and forfeit unpaid balances where permitted by these Terms. Moderators may alter a work’s content rating (for example, moving a book from G or PG 13 to R 18+) without author approval when needed for safety or compliance. Automated systems (including AI image scanning) may reject or flag content; human review may follow. Our failure to enforce a provision in one instance does not waive our right to enforce it later.

9. Images & publicly visible media

All images must be PG-13. Book covers, advertisements, avatars, banners, inline/chapter images, and any other publicly visible images or image links on the Service must be suitable for a PG-13 audience. This standard applies even when the associated story text is rated M 15 or R 18+.

We use automated AI scanning on uploaded images and on image links embedded in content (for example markdown or HTML image URLs). Images or links that fail moderation are rejected and are not published. We may remove images already on the Service that violate this policy and may suspend or terminate accounts for repeated or severe violations.

Allowed (examples):

• Kissing
• Hugging
• Mild romance
• Cleavage (within reason)
• Characters in swimsuits
• Fantasy armour
• Swords
• Non-graphic blood
• Monsters
• Scary creatures

Not allowed — adult / sexual content:

• Adult content
• Explicit nudity
• Exposed genitals
• Visible nipples
• Sexual acts
• Explicit sexual poses
• Sex toys
• Pornographic illustrations
• AI-generated pornography
• Explicit BDSM imagery

Not allowed — violence:

• Gore
• Dismemberment
• Excessive blood
• Torture
• Graphic violence beyond mild / non-graphic depiction

Not allowed — hate:

• Hate symbols
• Extremist imagery
• Real-world hate propaganda

Not allowed — illegal content (zero tolerance):

• Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in any form, including AI-generated or illustrated depictions involving minors
• Any other illegal imagery under applicable law

CSAM and other illegal imagery is strictly prohibited. We scan uploads with automated tools, may preserve evidence as required by law, and will report confirmed or strongly suspected CSAM to NCMEC or equivalent authorities. Accounts involved may be permanently banned without notice.

10. Automated cross-promotional (shoutout) network

Automated placement consent. By publishing on the Service, authors agree that their book cover, title, rating, and blurb may be displayed across VellumHaven as part of automated recommendation, discovery, and shoutout / promotional card systems.

No guarantee of traffic. Shoutout placements and impressions are managed algorithmically. VellumHaven makes no guarantee of specific traffic, impressions, follows, or view counts.

11. External links & third-party disclaimer

Authors may be allowed to add external links (for example Discord servers or personal websites) after meeting eligibility thresholds such as publishing a minimum number of chapters (e.g., five).

Third-party disclaimers. External links that redirect users off-platform are not owned, operated, or moderated by VellumHaven. We do not control third-party content, policies, or safety practices.

No liability for off-site transactions. VellumHaven is not responsible for any content, moderation, payments, donations, or other monetary transactions taking place on an author’s external website, Discord server, or other third-party service.

12. Acceptable use

You agree not to abuse the Service, including by scraping at scale, attempting unauthorized access, harassing users, posting malware, pirating content, circumventing paywalls or age gates, or interfering with platform integrity.

13. Copyright, DMCA & repeat infringers

VellumHaven respects intellectual property rights and provides a copyright complaint and takedown process under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and similar frameworks.

How to file a complaint. Copyright owners (or their authorized agents) may submit a DMCA notice through our DMCA / Copyright Policy page or by emailing our Designated Copyright Agent. A valid notice must identify the copyrighted work, the allegedly infringing material and its URL on VellumHaven, the complainant’s contact information, good-faith and accuracy statements (including under penalty of perjury where required), and a physical or electronic signature, as described on that page.

Takedown. Upon receiving a valid notice, we will promptly remove or disable access to the identified material and notify the user who posted it where practicable.

Counter-notification. Users whose content was removed may submit a counter-notice as described in the DMCA / Copyright Policy. We may restore the material unless the complainant files a court action within the statutory period (except where restoration is barred under these Terms, such as for banned fan fiction / unauthorized third-party IP).

Repeat infringer policy. Users who repeatedly infringe copyrights (including after valid DMCA notices) will have their accounts permanently banned. Associated wallets will be frozen; unused Coins and unpaid earnings may be forfeited as described in these Terms.

14. Fan fiction

Fan fiction is not allowed on VellumHaven. Works based on others’ intellectual property without owning or having the legal right to publish that content may be removed without counter-notice restoration on VellumHaven, and may result in account action.

15. Disclaimer

The Service is provided “as is” without warranties of any kind to the fullest extent permitted by law. We do not guarantee uninterrupted availability, error-free operation, or that content will meet your expectations.

16. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, VellumHaven and its operators are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for loss of data, profits, Coins, goodwill, or earnings arising from your use of the Service, third-party links, or payment-provider actions.

17. Changes

We may update these Terms from time to time. Continued use after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms. Material changes may be highlighted on the Service.

18. Contact

Questions about these Terms: use our Contact Us page or email the site operator for vellumhaven.com. Copyright notices: DMCA. See also our Privacy Policy.