Terms and Conditions

These terms and conditions govern the rights and obligations arising from the purchase of personalized children's books through the Hero of the Book web application.

1. Introductory provisions and contact details

These terms and conditions (hereinafter the "Terms") govern, in accordance with Section 1751(1) of Act No. 89/2012 Coll., the Civil Code (hereinafter the "Civil Code"), the mutual rights and obligations of the contracting parties arising in connection with or on the basis of a purchase contract concluded between the seller and the buyer through the web application operated at heroofthebook.co.uk (hereinafter the "website").

The operator and seller is:

• Name: Lukáš Kantor
• Company ID (IČO): 03177009, VAT ID (DIČ): CZ9109235410
• Registered office: Milíkov 244, 739 81 Milíkov
• Contact e-mail: contact@heroofthebook.co.uk
• Registration: registered in the Trade Register maintained by the competent municipal trade licensing office; a self-employed natural person not registered in the Commercial Register.

(hereinafter the "seller"). The buyer is a consumer or an entrepreneur who concludes a contract with the seller through the website (hereinafter the "buyer").

An order may be placed and a user account may be set up only by a person over 18 years of age with full legal capacity. In the United Kingdom a contract entered into by a person under 18 is, apart from contracts for necessaries, not enforceable against them, so the seller does not conclude one. Where the book is to be a gift for a child, or where a child is to appear in it, the order is placed by the child's legal guardian, or by a person who has the guardian's consent (see Art. 9).

2. Definition of the product

The subject of the purchase is a personalized children's book created to order on the basis of the data entered by the buyer (in particular the child's name, the uploaded photograph and an optional dedication), in the form of:

• a digital book — an electronic file in PDF format made available in the user account; and/or
• a printed book — a physical A4 hardcover copy, produced according to the selected and approved content.

An audiobook may be ordered together with the digital book — an audio recording of the text of the created book, narrated by a synthetic voice and made available in the user account. In the gift workshop, the seller further offers gift add-ons made from the illustrations of the buyer's book (see Art. 14) and gift vouchers (see Art. 13).

The illustrations are created using artificial intelligence tools. Given the nature of the generation process, the resulting appearance of the character may differ from the uploaded photograph; it is an artistic rendering, not a faithful reproduction of the photograph.

3. User account

A book can be started without registration. To save books, edit them and order a print, it is advisable to set up a user account. The buyer is obliged to provide correct and truthful data and to protect the account access credentials. The seller may cancel the account, in particular if the buyer breaches their obligations under these Terms.

4. Creation process and conclusion of the contract

The book is created in the following steps:

• the buyer selects a story, enters the child's name and uploads a portrait photograph of the child; the book may have up to five characters (for example a sibling, a friend, a parent or a grandparent) and for each of them a name may be entered and a portrait photograph uploaded,
• the system creates a story draft free of charge — a title and a brief outline of the plot. The appearance of the characters and the illustrations are not shown before payment; they are generated only once the order has been paid for,
• to generate the complete book (all pages and illustrations), the buyer places an order and pays for it.

The presentation of the products on the website is of an informative nature and does not constitute an offer capable of acceptance. The contract is concluded at the moment the buyer completes the order and pays the price; the seller confirms acceptance of the order to the buyer by e-mail. The buyer acknowledges that generation of the entire book begins after payment.

Before the order is completed the buyer is shown, on one screen, the main characteristics of the product, the total price including all taxes and any delivery charge, the payment and delivery arrangements and the information about the right to cancel — the information required by regulation 13 and Schedule 2 of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (SI 2013/3134). The button that completes the order is labelled so that it is unambiguous that pressing it places the buyer under an obligation to pay, as regulation 14(3) and (4) requires. If the seller failed to meet those requirements, the buyer is not bound by the contract or the order (regulation 14(5)). The seller then confirms the contract on a durable medium by e-mail (regulation 16).

5. Price and payment terms

Prices on the website are stated including all taxes. The price shown is the total price the buyer will pay; where a charge cannot reasonably be calculated in advance, the seller states how it will be calculated rather than leaving it out (section 230 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024). The price of the digital book is stated with the product (currently £5.99). The price of the printed book and any postage is communicated to the buyer as part of the print order, or confirmed by e-mail before its binding acceptance.

The buyer chooses the payment method when completing the order. The seller offers card payment and bank transfer; the offer may differ between the individual language versions of the website and the list shown in the order is always the binding one.

Card payment is processed through the Stripe payment gateway. The seller does not store payment card details.

Payment by bank transfer. If the buyer chooses a bank transfer, the seller issues a payment request stating the account number, the amount, the payment reference and the due date, and sends the same details to the e-mail address given in the order. The payment reference is the only detail by which an incoming payment is matched to the order, so the buyer states it in the payment instruction. The price is paid at the moment the amount is credited to the seller's account; only then is the condition under Art. 4 met. If an amount other than the one in the payment request arrives, the payment is not matched automatically: the seller contacts the buyer by e-mail, the buyer pays any shortfall and the seller returns any overpayment to the account from which the payment came. If the amount is not credited within the period stated in the payment request, the request lapses and the order remains unpaid; the buyer may request a new payment request at any time and pay for the order again.

The seller issues a tax document and sends it to the buyer's e-mail.

6. Delivery

The digital book is delivered by being made available in the user account, or by sending a download link, usually immediately after the generation is completed (typically within minutes). The printed book is usually dispatched within 5 working days of confirmation of the order and payment; the buyer is informed by e-mail when it is handed over to the carrier.

Where the order is paid by bank transfer, the periods under this Article start to run only when the amount is credited to the seller's account (Art. 5), not when the order is completed — until then the seller starts neither the creation nor the production.

If the seller does not deliver within the period agreed, or within 30 days of the contract where no period was agreed, the buyer may specify a further reasonable period and, if that too passes, treat the contract as at an end and require a full refund (section 28 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015). Until the goods come into the buyer's physical possession the risk in them remains with the seller (section 29 of the same Act), so goods damaged or lost in transit are the seller's problem, not the buyer's.

7. Withdrawal from the contract

A consumer buying at a distance generally has the right to cancel within 14 days (regulation 29 of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, SI 2013/3134). That right does not apply to books created to order, to the audiobook that accompanies them, or to gift add-ons from the workshop (Art. 14) — and for two different reasons, which are worth telling apart:

• the printed book, an additional copy and gift add-ons from the workshop are goods made to the consumer's specification or clearly personalised, and a contract for such goods is excluded from the right to cancel altogether — regulation 28(1)(b). The right never arises, so there is nothing for the buyer to give up and nothing to agree to; and
• the PDF book, the online flipbook and the audiobook are digital content, which these Regulations do not treat as goods. Here the right does arise and it is brought to an end by the supply beginning — but only where the consumer expressly requested that it begin before the end of the cancellation period and acknowledged that the right would thereby be lost (regulation 37(1)(a) and (b)). Both are needed; a trader who fails to obtain them cannot charge for the content at all (regulation 37(4)).

By completing the order the buyer expressly requests that the creation and supply of the digital content begin before the end of the cancellation period and acknowledges that the right to cancel will thereby be lost. The seller keeps a record of the exact wording the buyer confirmed and repeats it in the order confirmation, which is the durable medium required by regulation 16. None of this affects rights arising from faulty performance (Art. 8) — those cannot be excluded (sections 31, 47 and 62 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015).

Neither exclusion applies to gift vouchers — the purchase of a voucher may be cancelled within 14 days, see Art. 13. The procedure, together with the model cancellation form from Schedule 3 to those Regulations, is on the page about cancelling an order.

8. Rights arising from defective performance and complaints

For a buyer in the United Kingdom, rights arising from faulty performance are governed by the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which applies to the contract wherever it has a close connection with the United Kingdom, regardless of the choice of Czech law (section 74(1)). Goods must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described (sections 9 to 11), and digital content must meet the same standards (sections 34 to 36); what the seller says about the product on the website and in advertising is part of that standard (section 9(5) and (6)). A term limiting those rights would not bind the buyer (sections 31, 47 and 62). The buyer may report a fault at the contact e-mail address. An artistic rendering of a character that differs from the uploaded photograph is not a fault, nor are minor color deviations in printing that are usual for the given production method, nor anything that follows from material the buyer supplied themselves (section 19(2)).

Within the first 30 days the buyer may reject faulty goods outright and get their money back, without having to allow a repair first (section 22(3)). Within the first six months a fault that appears is presumed to have been there on delivery and it is for the seller to prove otherwise (section 19(14); for digital content section 42(9)). After that the rights do not expire on a fixed date but last for the limitation period — six years in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, five years in Scotland. The statute sets no fixed number of days for dealing with a complaint, only a reasonable time and no significant inconvenience (section 23(2)(a)), with any refund due within 14 days and free of charge (sections 20(15) and 20(17)); over and above that the seller undertakes voluntarily to settle a complaint within 30 days of its being filed. In the case of a justified complaint about a digital book the seller will generally put it right (for example by correcting the text or regenerating the affected page). The whole procedure is in the complaints policy.

9. License and intellectual property

By uploading a photograph, the buyer declares that they are entitled to use it for the purpose of creating the book or a gift add-on. This applies to the photograph of every character — in the case of a child, the buyer declares that they are the child's legal guardian or have the consent of the legal guardian; in the case of an adult, that they have that person's consent — and likewise to the buyer's own photograph uploaded into a gift card and printed on it. The buyer grants the seller a non-exclusive licence to use those photographs to the extent necessary to create the book and the ordered gift add-ons.

For the created book, the buyer obtains a license for personal, non-commercial use (printing for own use, viewing, giving as a gift). The story templates and the illustration style remain the intellectual property of the seller, or of its providers.

The seller does not depict characters from television series, films, games or books. These are works protected by copyright under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or signs protected as trade marks under the Trade Marks Act 1994, and the seller holds no licence to them. Reproducing them in a book that is then sold is one of the acts restricted by copyright (section 16 of that Act), and there is no private-copying exception in the law of the United Kingdom to fall back on — the one briefly introduced as section 28B was quashed by the High Court in 2015. Owning a plush toy, a toy or a picture of a character is not a licence either, and the buyer's consent makes no difference, because it is the seller who reproduces and issues the book. Using such a character in the course of trade would also infringe the proprietor's trade mark (section 10 of the Trade Marks Act 1994).

If the buyer uploads a photograph of such a character or enters it by name, the seller points this out while the book is still being created and offers the buyer an original character instead: it keeps the name, the kind, the colour and the other properties the buyer entered and appears in the book in the same role, but it will not resemble the protected original. The buyer may also replace the character with a different photograph or remove it from the book. If the buyer insists on the protected character being depicted, the seller is entitled to refuse the order and to refund the price already paid in full.

10. Liability and limitations

The buyer may not upload content that is unlawful, infringes the rights of third parties or good morals. The seller is not liable for damage caused by incorrectly or unlawfully uploaded data. Outputs generated by artificial intelligence are creative in nature and their exact form is not guaranteed.

11. Personal data protection

The processing of personal data, including the handling of the uploaded photograph of the child, is described in detail in the Privacy Policy.

12. Out-of-court resolution of consumer disputes

The body designated for the out-of-court resolution of consumer disputes with us is the Czech Trade Inspection Authority (Česká obchodní inspekce), Gorazdova 1969/24, 120 00 Praha 2, Czech Republic, adr.coi.cz. Its competence follows from the seller being established in the Czech Republic; a submission is free of charge and may be made in English.

The United Kingdom has its own approved ADR bodies under the Alternative Dispute Resolution for Consumer Disputes (Competent Authorities and Information) Regulations 2015 (SI 2015/542), but those schemes cover traders established in the United Kingdom, so none of them can take on a dispute with us. Two routes that used to bridge that gap no longer exist: the UK European Consumer Centre closed on 31 December 2020, and the European Commission's ODR platform has been shut down — Regulation (EU) 2024/3228 repealed Regulation (EU) No 524/2013 with effect from 20 July 2025 and the platform stopped accepting complaints on 20 March 2025. Any website still offering an ODR link is out of date.

Alongside or instead of ADR you may:

• write to us first at contact@heroofthebook.co.uk — most matters are settled that way;
• report the matter to the Citizens Advice consumer service (0808 223 1133, citizensadvice.org.uk), which passes reports on to Trading Standards;
• turn to the Competition and Markets Authority, which since 6 April 2025 can decide consumer-protection cases itself and impose a penalty of up to £300,000 or 10 % of worldwide turnover (Part 3 Chapter 4 and section 182(6) of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024).

None of this takes away your right to go to court. Your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 apply to the contract wherever it has a close connection with the United Kingdom, regardless of the choice of Czech law (section 74(1) of that Act), and as a consumer you may bring proceedings in the courts of the part of the United Kingdom in which you are domiciled (section 15B of the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982, inserted by the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019).

13. Gift vouchers

The seller sells gift vouchers entitling the holder to draw products from the website's offering. After payment, the seller sends the voucher by e-mail in the form of a unique code; the code is applied in the order.

• The voucher is issued for a specific product or a number of books (e.g. a digital book, an audiobook, a printed book, a bundle of several books), not for a monetary amount — its value therefore does not decrease if prices rise later. We also offer a voucher for free credit in a chosen amount, which can be applied to any product.
• The voucher is valid for 1 year from its issuance; this period is communicated to the buyer before the order is completed. After it expires, the voucher can no longer be applied.
• The voucher may also be applied in parts (in the case of a bundle of several books); it cannot be exchanged for money nor can cash be paid out from it.
• Applying the voucher gives rise to a separate contract for the delivery of a book, which is governed by these Terms including Art. 7.
• For a voucher for a printed book, postage is not included, unless the buyer expressly paid extra for it when purchasing the voucher (the "pay for shipping as well" option); in that case, the voucher holder pays nothing extra when ordering the print. Otherwise, postage is paid by the voucher holder when ordering the print according to the price list valid at the time of the order.

Cancelling the purchase of a voucher. A voucher is neither goods made to the buyer's specification nor digital content whose supply has begun, so neither of the exclusions in Art. 7 applies to it. A buyer who is a consumer may therefore cancel within 14 days of purchasing the voucher, without giving a reason (regulations 29 and 30(2) of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013); the seller refunds the amount paid within 14 days of the cancellation, by the same means of payment and without a fee (regulation 34). If the voucher has been redeemed in the meantime, the performance already provided (the book) is governed by Art. 7 and only the unused part of the voucher's value is refunded.

14. Gift add-ons from the workshop

Within the "gift workshop", the seller offers gift add-ons (e.g. a greeting card, a coloring page, a canvas print), made to order from the illustrations and characters of the buyer's already created book.

• The add-on is ordered and paid for separately, independently of the book from which the illustrations originate.
• These are goods manufactured according to the buyer's requirements (see Art. 7) — the right to withdraw from the contract within 14 days does not apply to this purchase. By completing the order, the buyer expressly requests that production begin before the expiry of the withdrawal period and acknowledges the cessation of this right.
• Rights arising from defective performance are governed by Art. 8 and the complaints procedure; an artistic rendering that differs from the underlying illustrations is not considered a defect, nor are minor printing deviations usual for the given production method.
• The delivery period and shipping are governed by the same rules as for the printed book (Art. 6).
• Information about the manufacturer and the safety notices for the physical add-ons are set out in Art. 15.

15. Information about the manufacturer and product safety

Physical goods (the printed book, an additional copy of the book, a gift card, a canvas print and other gift add-ons from the workshop) are produced to order according to the buyer's input and the seller places them on the market under its own name and brand. The producer is therefore the seller:

• Name: Lukáš Kantor
• Postal address: Milíkov 244, 739 81 Milíkov
• Electronic address: contact@heroofthebook.co.uk

Which rules apply depends on where the goods are delivered. In Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) general product safety is governed by the General Product Safety Regulations 2005 (SI 2005/1803), whose regulation 2 treats as a producer anyone who presents themselves as one by putting their name or trade mark on the product. In Northern Ireland, Regulation (EU) 2023/988 on general product safety applies instead — it is listed in Annex 2 to the Windsor Framework and has applied there since 13 December 2024. The seller is established in the European Union, so for a delivery to Northern Ireland it is itself the economic operator responsible under Article 16 of that Regulation and no further person needs to be designated. Printing and finishing are carried out for the seller by contractual production partners in the European Union.

In the offer, the product is identified by its name, description, image and the dimensions stated with the offer; the particular item produced is identified by the order number stated in the order confirmation.

Safety notice: the goods offered are not a toy within the meaning of the Toys (Safety) Regulations 2011 (SI 2011/1881) and are not intended for play; they therefore bear no toy safety marking. Hand the product to children under three years of age only under the supervision of an adult. A canvas print is stretched on a wooden frame — hang it out of the reach of small children.

If the seller establishes that a product it has supplied presents a risk, it will inform the affected buyers without undue delay, take corrective action including withdrawal or recall, and notify the competent authority (regulation 9 of the General Product Safety Regulations 2005; for Northern Ireland Articles 35 and 36 of Regulation (EU) 2023/988). Product safety enquiries and reports may be sent to contact@heroofthebook.co.uk.

16. Final provisions

Matters not governed by these Terms are governed by the law of the Czech Republic. That choice does not take away from a buyer in the United Kingdom the protection of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which applies wherever the contract has a close connection with the United Kingdom (section 74(1) of that Act), nor the mandatory protection of the law of the country of the buyer's habitual residence (Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008, retained in the law of the United Kingdom by the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations and Non-Contractual Obligations (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, SI 2019/834). A consumer may bring proceedings in the courts of the part of the United Kingdom in which they are domiciled (section 15B of the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982). The seller is entitled to amend the wording of the Terms; for contracts already concluded, the wording effective at the time of conclusion of the contract applies. If any provision is invalid, this does not affect the validity of the remaining provisions.