Credit Programme Terms

These terms govern the credit programme — recommending Hero of the Book personalised children's books for those who are not in business. The reward here is not a commission in money, but credit towards your own future purchase.

1. Who announces the programme

The programme is announced by:

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

(hereinafter the "operator"). A person whose application to the programme has been approved by the operator is hereinafter the "participant".

The programme is a public promise under Section 2884 et seq. of the Czech Civil Code (Act No. 89/2012 Coll.): the operator undertakes to provide credit to everyone who meets the conditions set out below. This is not a brokerage contract nor any other contract for consideration — the participant undertakes nothing towards the operator, performs nothing on the operator's account and acquires no entitlement to monetary payment.

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

2. Who may take part

A participant may be a natural person who:

• is over 18 years of age and has full legal capacity,
• has provided true and complete information in the application.

A business licence or registration number is not required and the operator does not check them — the credit is neither paid out nor invoiced, so there is no reason for them.

Anyone who wishes to recommend for a commission in money should use the affiliate programme; that one, however, is intended for businesses, because the commission is paid against an invoice. Participation in both programmes at the same time is not possible and only one reward is ever due for a single recommendation. A switch between the programmes is possible for the future upon a request sent to the contact e-mail; entitlements that have already arisen are settled under the terms of the programme in which they arose.

3. Start and duration of participation

Participation arises upon approval of the application by the operator. The programme is subject to approval: the operator is not obliged to accept an application and may reject it even without giving a reason. There is no legal entitlement to participate in the programme.

After approval, the participant receives their referral code and link. The code is personal and non-transferable.

4. Referral link, code and recording of recommendations

Recommendations are recorded as follows:

• When a visitor clicks on the participant's referral link, the participant's code is stored in a cookie in the visitor's browser.
• The cookie is valid for 30 days from the last click.
• An order is attributed to the person whose code is in the cookie at the moment of ordering. The last-click rule applies.
• If the visitor deletes cookies, uses a different device or browser, or has them blocked by browser settings, the recommendation may not be recorded. No entitlement to credit arises from an unrecorded order and the operator is not liable for technical limitations on the visitor's side.
• Your own purchase does not count. An order paid for by the participant themselves — whether from the account to which the code is linked, or to the e-mail address of that account — does not give rise to credit. This is where the programme differs from the affiliate one, where own purchases are allowed: credit is a reward for recommending to someone else, not a discount for yourself.

5. Discount for the recommended customer

A customer who arrives via the participant'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 do not add up: if the customer applies a separate discount coupon, the coupon replaces the automatic referral discount. This has no effect on the recording of the recommendation or on the participant's entitlement to credit.

6. Credit — what it is and what it is not

For a recommended and paid order, the participant is credited with 10 % of the base, which is the price of the book actually paid excluding value added tax, i.e. after deduction of discounts and coupons. Shipping, the audiobook add-on and value added tax are not included in the base.

Credit is a promise of a discount off the price of a future purchase from the operator, not a monetary payment. It follows that credit:

• is not paid out in money and cannot be exchanged for money, not even in part, nor upon termination of participation,
• is non-transferable — it cannot be given away, sold or otherwise transferred to another person; nor does it pass to heirs,
• cannot be used to pay outside the operator's offering and cannot be exchanged for a gift voucher or for any other transferable store of value,
• bears no interest and does not create a monetary claim against the operator.

Credit is recorded in the currency of the market version in which it arose.

7. Arising and lapse of the entitlement

The entitlement to credit arises upon payment of the recommended order and the credit is added to the participant's balance immediately. There is no waiting period and no additional approval.

The entitlement lapses if:

• the order was cancelled or the amount paid was refunded to the customer (even in part — in which case the entitlement lapses to the corresponding extent),
• the order arose fraudulently, through misuse of means of payment or through a breach of Article 10 of these terms,
• the order was created only for show in order to obtain credit.

Because credit is added immediately, the lapse of the entitlement is dealt with retroactively: the operator is entitled to reduce the participant's balance by the corresponding amount, or to invalidate the credit. The balance never falls below zero. If the discount has already been used up, the operator does not recover anything from the participant — it may, however, set it off against credit arising to the participant later.

8. Using the credit

Credited amounts are held by the participant's account as a balance. No exchange, conversion or issuing of a code takes place — the participant uses the credit simply by being logged in when ordering; the balance is deducted from the price automatically.

• The balance is reduced gradually as it is used — the unused part remains for the next purchase.
• The balance is valid for 365 days from the last credit added. Each further reward extends this period. Upon expiry of the period, the unused balance lapses without compensation; it is not converted into money.
• The balance is tied to the participant's account and is non-transferable — it can only be used on an order of the same participant; if another person attempts to use it, the system will not accept it.
• The balance cannot be used to pay for a gift voucher or for any other performance that is transferable to another person (Article 6). It applies to the book, its printing, shipping and add-ons for the participant themselves.
• No review reward arises for a purchase paid for with credit.

The lapse of an unused balance upon expiry of the period concerns a discount, not money paid — the participant paid nothing for the credit, so it is neither a deposit nor a gift voucher.

9. Annual cap

The total credit added to a single participant per calendar year is limited to $500. Once that amount is reached, further recommendations are recorded until the end of the calendar year, but no credit arises from them.

The cap is part of the promise, not a technical limitation: above that threshold this is no longer an occasional benefit for a customer, but a systematic gainful activity, which is governed by the affiliate programme and which presupposes a business licence.

10. Rules for recommending

The participant is not obliged to publish, promote or state anything anywhere; the programme creates no such obligation and the operator orders no performance. If the participant decides to share their link, the following rules apply.

No reward is provided under this programme for commissioned content creation or for agreed promotion. If the participant agrees with the operator that they will create or publish something for the operator, such cooperation is governed by separate terms of cooperation with creators; the reward under those terms does not count towards the cap under Article 9 and is not mixed with credit.

The participant is obliged to:

• present the product truthfully and in line with the information on the operator's website; not to promise features, prices, deadlines or guarantees that the operator does not provide,
• label the communication as advertising or cooperation wherever legislation requires it, including on social networks,
• comply with the rules for sending commercial communications (the recipient's consent and the option to unsubscribe at any time).

Advertising must be recognisable as advertising. Within the European Union and the European Economic Area, using editorial content to promote a product where the trader has paid for the promotion without making that clear to the consumer (advertorial, hidden advertising) is an unfair commercial practice in all circumstances under point 11 of Annex I to Directive 2005/29/EC; no proof that anyone was actually influenced is required. The same rule applies in substance in the United States: a material connection between the endorser and the advertiser must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. § 45) and the FTC Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255). The label must be visible in the publication itself (in the post, video or article), not only in a profile description or behind a link.

For commercial communications sent by e-mail or SMS the rules differ by country and the stricter one applies. In the European Union and the European Economic Area, prior consent of the addressee is required (Article 13 of Directive 2002/58/EC; in the Czech Republic Section 7 of Act No. 480/2004 Coll., on certain information society services). In the United States, CAN-SPAM (15 U.S.C. §§ 7701–7713) does not require prior consent but demands truthful headers and subject lines, a clear indication that the message is an advertisement, a valid postal address and a working opt-out honoured within ten business days. In Canada, CASL (S.C. 2010, c. 23) requires express or implied consent. Bulk unsolicited messages are not permitted under this cooperation in any case.

The participant is prohibited in particular from:

• forced or hidden setting of cookies (cookie stuffing), automatic redirects, loading the link in a hidden frame, iframe or pixel and any other artificial generation of clicks,
• sending unsolicited commercial communications (spam), including comment spam,
• advertising in search engines and PPC systems on the operator's trade mark or its obvious variants and misspellings, whether as a keyword or in the text of the advertisement,
• impersonating the operator, its employees or official representation, or entering into any obligations in its name,
• publishing false reviews or ratings,
• spreading the link on sites with unlawful content, adult content, hateful, violent or discriminatory content,
• placing the code in discount aggregators, coupon and cashback portals without the operator's prior written consent,
• ordering on someone else's account or arranging reimbursement of an order so that the recommendation merely disguises the participant's own purchase.

11. Taxes

Credit is a reduction of the price of your own future purchase from the operator. It is not transferable, cannot be paid out in money and cannot be exchanged for anything other than a discount on your next order, so in substance it is a purchase-price adjustment rather than a payment for work. The operator withholds no tax from it and issues no tax statement or information return for it (in particular no Form 1099, as the operator is not a United States payer). In the Czech Republic, credit given to a participant who is not a Czech tax resident is not income from Czech sources under Section 22 of Act No. 586/1992 Coll., on income taxes.

Tax law nonetheless differs from country to country and your own tax authority may characterise the benefit as income. The annual cap in Article 9 is therefore set at 500 US dollars, deliberately below the thresholds from which a reporting duty typically arises, for example the 2,000 US dollars of 26 U.S.C. § 6041(a) as amended by section 70433 of Public Law 119-21 for payments made after 31 December 2025, or the 1,000 pounds of the trading and miscellaneous income allowances in Part 6A of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005. If your law does treat the benefit as income, declare it under the rules of your country of residence; each participant is responsible for their own tax obligations.

Taking part in the programme does not make you a business. Wherever a trade or business is defined by an organised, continuous activity carried out on one's own account with a view to profit, an occasional recommendation among friends does not meet that description, and the credit only reduces the price of your own next purchase.

12. Breach of the terms and termination of participation

If the participant breaches these terms, the operator may, depending on the seriousness of the breach, suspend their participation, cancel the as yet unused credit balance that arose in connection with the breach, or terminate the participation with immediate effect and deactivate the code.

The participant may terminate their participation at any time by notice to the contact e-mail. Upon termination of participation, no new credit arises; the unused balance remains available until the end of its validity period under Article 8 and is neither paid out nor replaced in money (Article 6). This does not apply to termination for breach of the terms — in that case the balance lapses without compensation.

If the operator terminates the participation by notice to the participant's e-mail, the participant has at least 30 days from delivery of the notice to use up the balance; this does not apply to termination for breach of the terms.

13. Changes to the terms and revocation of the promise

The operator may unilaterally change these terms, the credit rate, the annual cap and the validity period of the balance, or terminate the programme. It will inform participants of the change or termination by e-mail at least 14 days in advance.

Neither a change nor termination affects credit that arose before it took effect — such credit is settled under the previous wording and the participant may use it for at least 30 days from the effective date of the change, but at least until the end of the validity period of the balance under Article 8. Revocation of a public promise is not effective against a person who made the recommendation before learning of the revocation (Section 2885(2) of the Czech Civil Code).

14. Personal data protection

The operator processes the name, e-mail, referral code, records of recommended orders and the state of the credit balance (credit arisen, added and used) as a controller. The legal basis is performance of the obligation arising from the public promise under Article 6(1)(b) GDPR and compliance with legal obligations under point (c).

The operator does not process a registration number, billing address or bank account number in this programme — nothing is invoiced and nothing is paid out.

Details, including the participant's rights, are in the privacy policy.

15. Liability

The operator is not liable for outages in the availability of the website or for recommendations not recorded due to the visitor's browser settings. It does not guarantee any minimum number of orders or any minimum amount of credit.

The participant is liable for the content they publish and for the compliance of their communication with legislation.

16. Final provisions

The relationship between the operator and the participant is governed by the law of the Czech Republic. If the participant is a consumer habitually resident 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 country (Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008).

The body competent for the out-of-court resolution of consumer disputes with the seller is the Czech Trade Inspection Authority (Česká obchodní inspekce, Gorazdova 1969/24, 120 00 Praha 2, Czech Republic). The seller is established in the Czech Republic, and Articles 5(1) and 13(1) of Directive 2013/11/EU attach that duty to the body competent for the trader, not for the customer. A dispute-resolution body in your own country is therefore not competent to hear a dispute with us.

If you live in another Member State of the European Union, in Iceland or in Norway, the European Consumer Centres Network will help you free of charge in your own language; the centre in your country will pass the matter on to the Czech centre. Outside the European Economic Area there is no cross-border consumer dispute-resolution body for a dispute with us. You may still complain to us directly at the contact address, and the courts remain open to you.

The European Commission's online dispute resolution platform (ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr) no longer exists: Regulation (EU) 2024/3228 repealed Regulation (EU) No 524/2013 with effect from 20 July 2025. Any reference to it in an older document is out of date.

Out-of-court resolution is voluntary for both sides and does not affect your right to go to court, nor the protection afforded to you by the mandatory provisions of the law of your own country under Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008.

The participant is not an employee, commercial agent, broker or partner of the operator.

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

The current wording of the terms is always available on this page. Please send any questions to contact@heroofthebook.com.