Affiliate Programme Terms

These terms govern the cooperation between the website operator and a partner who recommends Hero of the Book personalized children's books and earns a commission for doing so.

1. Introductory provisions

The affiliate programme is operated by:

• Name: Lukáš Kantor, a self-employed person doing business under the Czech Trade Licensing Act
• Company ID: 03177009, VAT ID: CZ9109235410
• Registered address: Milíkov 244, 739 81 Milíkov
• Contact e-mail: contact@heroofthebook.co.uk

(hereinafter the „operator"). A person whose application to the programme has been approved by the operator is hereinafter referred to as the „partner".

By accepting these terms and having the application approved, a brokerage agreement is concluded between the operator and the partner pursuant to Section 2445 et seq. of the Civil Code (Act No. 89/2012 Coll.). The partner carries out activities aimed at enabling the operator to conclude a purchase contract with a customer and is entitled to a commission for each brokered and paid order.

These terms concern exclusively the relationship between the operator and the partner. The relationship between the operator and a customer introduced by the partner is governed by the terms and conditions — the partner is not a party to the purchase contract and does not act as the operator's representative.

2. Who can become a partner

A partner may be a natural or legal person who:

• is over 18 years of age and has full legal capacity,
• operates a business under an authorisation required for this activity by the state of their establishment and holds an identification number under which they do business there (a Company ID in the Czech Republic, or its local equivalent elsewhere) — commissions are paid against an invoice, so without a business authorisation they cannot be properly paid out,
• if established outside the Czech Republic, also states their identification number for value added tax. A partner established in the United Kingdom is outside the European Union, so they need no VAT identification number for the EU and the operator files no EC Sales List for them. Two things are enough:

• An identification number under which the partner does business in the United Kingdom — a sole trader has a Unique Taxpayer Reference from HM Revenue & Customs, a company its registration number from Companies House. That number goes on the invoice in place of the Czech Company ID. A partner who is registered for UK VAT states their VAT registration number as well.
• An invoice without value added tax. Brokerage is a service supplied to a business customer established in the Czech Republic, so the place of supply is in the Czech Republic (section 7A(2)(a) of the Value Added Tax Act 1994; Section 9(1) of Act No. 235/2004 Coll., on value added tax) and the supply is outside the scope of UK VAT. The operator accounts for the Czech tax itself.

A partner who is not registered for UK VAT does not have to register because of the commission either: registration is required only on exceeding a taxable turnover of £90,000 in any 12 months (Schedule 1 to the Value Added Tax Act 1994), and a supply whose place of supply is outside the United Kingdom does not count towards that turnover. The commission is, however, the partner's taxable income — the partner declares it to HM Revenue & Customs and, where receipts from self-employment exceed £1,000 in a tax year, registers for Self Assessment (Part 6A of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005).

• has provided true and complete identification details in the application,
• has their own channel for recommendations (website, blog, social media, newsletter, offline community).

Not a business? You can still recommend us — in the credit programme, where the reward is not a commission in money but credit towards your own future purchase. The application is shared; you choose the branch in the form. Taking part in both branches at the same time is not possible and only one reward is ever due for one referral.

3. Start and duration of the cooperation

The cooperation begins when the operator approves the application. The programme is approval-based: the operator is not obliged to accept an application and may reject it without giving a reason. There is no legal entitlement to take part in the programme.

Once approved, the partner receives their referral code and link by e-mail. The code is personal and non-transferable.

The cooperation is agreed for an indefinite period. Termination is covered in Art. 11.

4. Referral link, code and attribution

Referrals are recorded as follows:

• When a visitor clicks the partner's referral link, the partner's code is stored in a cookie in the visitor's browser.
• The cookie is valid for 30 days from the last click (the attribution window).
• An order is assigned to the partner whose code is in the cookie at the moment of ordering. The last click rule applies — if the visitor arrives via another partner's link in the meantime, the commission belongs to that other partner.
• If the visitor deletes their cookies, uses a different device or browser, or has cookies blocked by their browser settings, the referral may not be recorded. No entitlement to a commission arises from an unrecorded order and the operator is not liable for technical limitations on the visitor's side.
• The partner may use their own code for their own purchases; self-purchases are not prohibited.

5. Discount for the referred customer

A customer who arrives via a partner's referral link receives a 10% discount off the price of the book and the audiobook add-on. The discount does not apply to shipping.

Discounts cannot be combined: if the customer applies a separate discount coupon, the coupon replaces the automatic referral discount. This has no effect on the recording of the referral or on the partner's entitlement to a commission.

The discount and commission rates are stated as at the moment this document is displayed and the operator may change them in the future in accordance with Art. 12.

6. Commission

Unless agreed otherwise in writing with the partner, the commission is 10% of the commission base.

The commission base is the price of the book actually paid excluding value added tax, i.e. after deducting any discounts and coupons. The base does not include:

• shipping of the printed book,
• the audiobook add-on,
• value added tax at the rate applicable in the relevant country.

The commission is recorded in the currency of the order. If payment in a different currency is agreed, it is converted at the Czech National Bank exchange rate applicable on the date the brokered order is paid.

7. Origin, approval and expiry of the commission entitlement

The entitlement to a commission arises upon payment of the brokered order, and the commission is thereby approved for payout at the same time. Approval does not wait for the order to be fulfilled or for the period for requesting a refund or filing a complaint to expire.

The entitlement to a commission expires if:

• the order was cancelled or the amount paid was refunded to the customer (including partially — in which case the entitlement expires to the corresponding extent),
• the order was placed fraudulently, by misuse of payment instruments, or in breach of Art. 9 of these terms,
• the order was placed only for show, in order to obtain a commission.

If the customer disputes the payment with their bank or with the card issuer (a so-called chargeback), the entitlement is treated as having expired for the duration of those proceedings. If the proceedings end in the operator's favour and the entitlement has not expired in the meantime for another reason, it is restored.

If the commission has already been paid out in such a case, the partner is obliged to return it; the operator is entitled to unilaterally set it off against the partner's further commissions. The partner can see the amount to be set off in their account, and it is deducted from their next payouts.

8. Commission payout, invoicing and taxes

• The operator pays commissions against an invoice issued by the partner. The supporting documentation (an overview of approved commissions after deduction of amounts set off under Art. 7) is available in the partner's account in the affiliate programme section.
• The partner sends the invoice to the operator's contact e-mail. Invoices are payable within 14 days of delivery, unless agreed otherwise.
• Commissions are paid by bank transfer to the account stated on the invoice. The operator verifies any change of account number — this protects both parties against fraud.
• The operator is not obliged to pay out a commission until the partner supplies the details required to properly issue and record the accounting document.
• The VAT regime follows from the place of supply. Brokerage is a service supplied to a business customer, so the place of supply is where the operator is established — the Czech Republic (Article 44 of Directive 2006/112/EC; Section 9(1) of Act No. 235/2004 Coll., on value added tax). A partner established in another Member State therefore invoices without tax and the operator declares the tax under the reverse charge mechanism; a partner established outside the European Union, which since 1 January 2021 includes the United Kingdom, invoices without EU VAT and the operator self-assesses the Czech tax — for a partner in the United Kingdom this means the invoice carries no UK VAT either, because under section 7A(2)(a) of the Value Added Tax Act 1994 the supply is treated as made where the recipient belongs; a Czech partner registered for VAT charges Czech tax. The partner is responsible for the accuracy of their tax identification number.
• The commission is the partner's income from their business activity. The partner is solely responsible for taxing it, for any levies and for any tax registration. The partner carries out the promotion in the state of their own tax residence, so for a partner established abroad the commission is not income from sources in the territory of the Czech Republic (Section 22 of Act No. 586/1992 Coll., on income taxes) and the operator therefore neither withholds nor secures any tax from it. For a partner who is a tax resident of the United Kingdom the same follows from Article 7 of the double taxation treaty between the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom (Decree No. 89/1992 Coll.): commission is a business profit and is taxable only in the state of residence, so the operator pays it out in full. It is then for the partner to declare it there — including, where it exceeds the trading allowance of £1,000 (Part 6A of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005), through self assessment. If the law nevertheless requires otherwise, the operator withholds tax at the statutory rate and issues the partner with a confirmation of the tax withheld; it applies the rate under a double taxation treaty if the partner provides a certificate of tax residence before payment.

9. Promotion rules

The partner may promote the operator's products on their own website, blog, social media, in a newsletter and offline, provided they observe the following rules.

The partner is obliged to:

• present the product truthfully and in line with the information stated on the operator's website; not to promise features, prices, deadlines or guarantees that the operator does not provide,
• label advertising messages as advertising or paid partnership wherever the law requires it, including on social media,
• comply with the rules on sending commercial communications (the recipient's consent and the option to unsubscribe at any time),
• act in good faith and inform the operator without undue delay upon discovering an error in the recording of referrals or in the technical functioning of the link.

What the law of the United Kingdom requires. Since 6 April 2025 unfair commercial practices have been governed by Part 4 Chapter 1 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, which replaced the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (repealed by section 251(1) of that Act). Three of its rules bear directly on promotion:

• Advertising must be recognisable as advertising. Editorial content promoting a product where the reader cannot tell that the trader paid for it is banned in all circumstances — paragraph 12 of Schedule 20. No proof that anyone was actually misled is needed. The label ("Ad", "Advertisement", "Paid partnership") belongs at the start of the content, not hidden among hashtags; that is also what section 2 of the CAP Code requires and what the Advertising Standards Authority enforces.
• No fake or concealed-incentive reviews. Writing, commissioning or publishing a review that does not reflect genuine experience is banned in all circumstances, as is concealing that a review was incentivised — paragraph 13 of Schedule 20, which also imposes a duty to take reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent and remove such reviews.
• Nothing untrue and nothing half-said. A misleading action (section 226) covers false information and also the overall presentation, even where every individual statement is true (section 226(3)); a misleading omission (section 227) covers leaving out material information, including failing to make the commercial intent clear. The total price must be stated (section 230).

Enforcement is not only a matter for the courts: since 6 April 2025 the Competition and Markets Authority can find an infringement itself and impose a penalty of up to £300,000 or 10 % of worldwide turnover (Part 3 Chapter 4 and section 182(6)). The consumer also keeps a private claim — the right to redress in Part 4A of the 2008 Regulations (regulations 27A to 27L) remains in force.

For electronic marketing the rules are in the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003: e-mail and text messages require the recipient's prior consent (regulation 22), the only exception being the sender's own existing customers and similar products (regulation 22(3)); the sender must be identifiable and every message must offer a way to unsubscribe. Compliance is supervised by the Information Commissioner's Office, which may impose a monetary penalty of up to £500,000.

Promotion aimed at children carries a further prohibition: directly exhorting children to buy, or to persuade an adult to buy for them, is banned in all circumstances (paragraph 30 of Schedule 20).

The partner is prohibited in particular from:

• forced or hidden cookie placement (so-called cookie stuffing), automatic redirects, loading the link in a hidden frame, iframe or pixel, click bots and any other artificial generation of clicks,
• sending unsolicited commercial communications (spam), including bulk messages, comment spam and off-topic forum posts,
• bidding in search engines and PPC systems on the operator's brand name or its obvious variants and misspellings (in particular "Hero of the Book" with and without diacritics, "heroofthebook.co.uk" and similar expressions in the language of the given version), whether as a keyword or in the ad copy,
• impersonating the operator, its employees or official representatives, using domain names or profiles confusable with the operator, or entering into any obligations in its name,
• publishing false reviews or ratings and presenting their own content as independent customer experiences,
• placing the link on sites with unlawful content, adult content, hateful, violent or discriminatory content, or on sites that infringe the rights of third parties,
• placing the code on discount aggregators, coupon and cashback portals without the operator's prior written consent,
• modifying, reselling or publishing the referral code in a way that makes it impossible to attribute a referral to a specific customer.

10. Trade mark and marketing materials

The operator grants the partner a non-exclusive, non-transferable licence, revocable at any time, to use its name, logo and the promotional materials provided (banners, book samples) solely to promote the operator's products for the duration of the cooperation.

The partner must not modify these materials in a way that changes their meaning or damages the operator's good name, nor use them after the cooperation ends. The illustrations and texts of sample books are copyrighted works; any use other than promotional use is not permitted.

11. Breach of terms and termination of the cooperation

If the partner breaches these terms, the operator may, depending on the severity of the breach:

• suspend the partner's account and temporarily stop recording referrals,
• cancel any as yet unpaid commissions that arose in connection with the breach,
• terminate the cooperation with immediate effect and deactivate the referral code.

Either party may terminate the cooperation at any time and without giving a reason, by notice sent to the other party's contact e-mail, effective upon delivery of the notice.

Termination of the cooperation does not extinguish the entitlement to commissions already accrued and duly approved from orders paid before termination; the partner shall invoice these within 30 days of termination. This does not apply to termination for breach of these terms to the extent set out in the first paragraph.

The partner may request cancellation of their participation in the programme at any time via the contact e-mail.

12. Changes to these terms

The operator may unilaterally change these terms, the commission rate and the discount for referred customers. The partner will be notified of any change by e-mail at least 14 days in advance.

If the partner disagrees with a change, they may terminate the cooperation under Art. 11 before the change takes effect. If they continue promoting after the effective date, the change is deemed accepted. A change does not affect commissions from orders paid before it took effect — those are settled under the previous wording.

13. Personal data protection

If the partner is a natural person, the operator processes their identification, billing and payment details (name, e-mail, registration number, VAT ID, billing address, bank account number, details of commissions and invoices) as a controller.

The legal basis is performance of a contract under Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR and compliance with legal obligations under point (c) — in particular accounting and tax obligations. Consent is not required for these purposes and cannot be withdrawn separately without terminating the cooperation; data on tax documents is retained for the period laid down by law.

Further details, including the partner's rights, are set out in the privacy policy.

14. Liability

The operator is not liable for the partner's lost profit, for website downtime, or for referrals not recorded due to the visitor's browser settings. The operator does not guarantee any minimum number of orders or any minimum commission amount.

The partner is responsible for the content they publish and for the compliance of their promotion with the law. If the operator suffers harm as a result of the partner's breach of these terms, or if a third-party claim is brought against the operator, the partner is obliged to compensate it.

15. Final provisions

The relationship between the operator and the partner is governed by the law of the Czech Republic, in particular Act No. 89/2012 Coll., the Civil Code. If the partner is an entrepreneur, the courts of the Czech Republic have jurisdiction over any disputes. If the partner is not an entrepreneur and is a consumer with their habitual residence in another country, the choice of Czech law does not deprive them of the protection afforded by the mandatory provisions of the law of their own country (Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008, which the United Kingdom retained in its domestic law by the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations and Non-Contractual Obligations (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, SI 2019/834); such a partner in the United Kingdom also keeps the protection of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (section 74(1)) and may sue in the courts of the part of the United Kingdom where they are domiciled (section 15B of the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982).

The partner is not an employee, commercial agent or business associate of the operator; this is an independent business activity carried out on the partner's own account and responsibility. The partner has no continuing authority to negotiate or conclude business on the operator's behalf and is allotted no territory or group of customers — the provisions on commercial agency therefore do not apply to this relationship. In the United Kingdom, Council Directive 86/653/EEC was implemented by the Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations 1993 (SI 1993/3053), which remain in force after the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union. They do not apply to this relationship, for two independent reasons. First, regulation 2(1) defines a commercial agent as a self-employed intermediary with continuing authority to negotiate the sale or purchase of goods on the principal's behalf; a partner who places a link and refers visitors negotiates nothing and has no such authority. Second, the Regulations cover the brokerage of goods only, so promoting a service is outside their scope in any event. The partner therefore has no entitlement to compensation or an indemnity on termination under regulation 17, and regulation 19, which prevents derogation to the agent's detriment, does not come into play.

If any provision of these terms is invalid or ineffective, this does not affect the validity of the remaining provisions.

The current wording of these terms is always available on this page. Please send any questions about the programme to contact@heroofthebook.co.uk.