Terms of Service

1. Who we are

Spark of Tales ("we", "us", the "Platform") is an online fiction platform operated by Marko Kostic, sole proprietor, Serbia. Writers publish serialized stories and readers follow, unlock, and help shape them. By creating an account or using the Platform you agree to these Terms.

2. Accounts

You must be at least 16 years old to create an account. You are responsible for your account credentials and for the activity on your account. You may delete your account at any time from Settings; deletion permanently removes your content and data as described in the Privacy Policy.

3. Your content and ownership

Writers keep full ownership of the stories, worlds, and characters they create. By publishing on the Platform you grant us a license to host, display, distribute, and sell access to your content through the Platform for as long as it remains published here. Spark of Tales is the sole seller of record for everything sold on the Platform: readers never transact with individual writers, and writers are compensated by us through the royalty program described in Section 5, in the same way a book publisher compensates its authors. You can unpublish or delete your content at any time.

Reader contributions (inspiration questions, event suggestions, wandering characters and quests) are offered to the receiving writer for use in their story. By submitting a contribution you license the writer to incorporate it into their work; accepted substantial suggestions additionally earn the rewards described in Section 5.

You may only publish content you created or have the right to use. Plagiarism, AI-impersonation of other authors, and content that is illegal in Serbia or in your country are prohibited.

Stories may be written in any genre we offer, including dark ones, and may contain violence, crime, tragedy, and mature themes. Sexually explicit content is not permitted: no pornographic writing, and no sexual content involving minors under any circumstances, real or fictional. Content that sexualizes real people without their consent, glorifies or incites real-world violence, or harasses a real person is likewise prohibited. Any reader can flag a book with the “Report this book” link on its page. We remove content that breaks these rules and terminate accounts that do so repeatedly.

If you believe a book infringes your copyright or breaks these rules, use the “Report this book” link on its page, or email support@sparkoftales.com with a link to the book and to the original work. We review reports promptly and take down infringing content; repeated infringement leads to account termination. If your content was removed and you believe that was a mistake, contact the same address.

4. Purchases and Premium

Payments are processed securely by PayPal; Spark of Tales is the seller. PayPal handles checkout and your payment data, so your card details never touch our servers. Taxes may apply and will be calculated at checkout.

• Book purchases permanently unlock a completed book for your account.
• Premium is a monthly subscription that gives full reading access to every completed paid book while active. It renews automatically each month and can be canceled at any time from your profile; access continues until the end of the period you already paid for, and no further charges occur after that.

Refunds are handled per the Refund Policy.

5. Royalties

Spark of Tales sells its licensed catalog and its own subscription; authors do not sell directly to readers. Authors and contributing readers are paid by us under this royalty program. All amounts are calculated in USD, net of payment processing fees:

• Book sale royalty:the author earns a royalty of 80% of net revenue for each sale of their book. If the author has accepted substantial event suggestions from readers on that book, 5 percentage points of that royalty are split equally among those contributing readers. Accepting a suggestion is always the author's free choice.
• Premium royalty pool:80% of monthly Premium subscription revenue funds an author royalty pool, distributed in proportion to how much premium subscribers read each author's completed paid books that month.
• Prizes: we may award cash prizes for competitions and community events at our discretion. Winners are confirmed manually before any prize is credited.

Earnings accrue in your on-platform wallet. You can request a payout once your balance reaches $10, to the PayPal address or bank account you saved in Settings. Payouts are reviewed and sent within a few business days. You are responsible for any taxes on your earnings in your country of residence.

Earnings obtained through fraud, self-dealing, bot activity, or manipulation of Platform mechanics (including reputation or read farming) may be forfeited and the related accounts closed.

6. Founders program

The first 100 writers to complete a qualifying book (at least 3 chapters) and the first 300 readers to unlock a book each receive one free month of Premium. One reward per person per category. Platform administrators are excluded. We may adjust or end the program for abuse, but rewards already granted are never revoked.

7. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• upload malicious code, scrape the Platform, or interfere with its operation;
• create multiple accounts to manipulate reputation, reads, follows, or rewards;
• harass other users or publish hateful, defamatory, or unlawful content;
• misrepresent your identity to other users or to us.

8. Termination

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms. Where reasonable we will warn you first. Legitimate earned balances are paid out on termination unless they result from the violation itself.

9. Disclaimers

The Platform is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total liability for any claim related to the Platform is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose.

10. Changes

We may update these Terms as the Platform evolves. Material changes will be announced on the Platform at least 14 days before they take effect. Continuing to use the Platform after that constitutes acceptance.

11. Contact and governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Serbia. Questions: support@sparkoftales.com.