Terms of Service

These terms govern your use of Bookself ("the service"). By creating an account or using Bookself, you agree to these terms. If you don't agree, please don't use the service.

Your account

You need an account to use most of Bookself's features. You're responsible for keeping your credentials secure and for activity that happens under your account.

You must be at least 13 years old to use Bookself. If you're under 18, you should have a parent or guardian review these terms.

One account per person. Don't create multiple accounts to circumvent limits or restrictions.

What you can do

Bookself is for personal use. You can rate books, build shelves, create stacks, follow other readers, share your profile, and explore the author map. You can export your data at any time.

What you can't do

Don't use Bookself to harass, abuse, or harm other users. Don't post content that is illegal, defamatory, or that violates anyone's intellectual property rights. Don't attempt to scrape, reverse-engineer, or systematically extract data from Bookself without permission.

Don't use automated means — bots, scripts, or similar tools — to create accounts, generate ratings, or manipulate rankings. The integrity of Bookself's taste graph depends on authentic human input.

Don't impersonate another person, including other Bookself users or Bookself staff.

Your content

Your ratings, reviews, stacks, and profile content belong to you. By posting content on Bookself, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use and display that content as part of operating and improving the service. We don't claim ownership of your content.

You're responsible for the content you post. If you believe content on Bookself infringes your copyright, contact us.

When you delete your account, your personal content is removed from public view. Some data may persist in backups for a limited period. Aggregated or anonymized data derived from your usage may be retained.

Public profiles and sharing

If your profile is set to public, anyone — including people who aren't Bookself users — can view it. Public profiles and stacks may be indexed by search engines. Adjust your privacy settings if you want your content to remain private.

Book and author data

Book covers, titles, author names, and descriptions are sourced from publicly available databases including OpenLibrary and the New York Times. We make reasonable efforts to keep this data accurate but cannot guarantee it.

The author map, similarity scores, and recommendations are generated by Bookself's systems. They reflect computational approximations — not editorial endorsements.

Service availability

We aim to keep Bookself running reliably but cannot guarantee uninterrupted service. We may take the service down for maintenance or to address issues. We'll aim to give notice for planned downtime when practical.

We may modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the service at any time.

Account termination

You can delete your account at any time from Settings → Account. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms or harm other users. In cases of serious violations, we may act without prior notice.

Disclaimer and liability

Bookself is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. We don't guarantee that the service will be error-free or available at all times. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Bookself and its operators are not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from your use of the service.

Governing law

These terms are governed by applicable US federal and state law. Nothing here limits any rights you may have under the mandatory consumer protection laws of your country or region.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the service evolves. We'll update the date at the top when we do. For significant changes, we'll aim to notify users by email or by posting a notice on the site. Continued use of Bookself after the effective date means you accept the updated terms.

Contact

Questions about these terms? hello@thebookself.com