Contractor agreement

1. The parties and how it works

This agreement is between T101 Group Ltd, trading as Fable & Frontier Publishing (“we”, “us”), and the person or business who applies to offer services through us (“you”). Fable & Frontier Publishing is a trading name of T101 Group Ltd, registered in England and Wales (company number 11130649), registered office Unit 21, Cwm Cynon Business Park, Mountain Ash, Rhondda Cynon Taf, CF45 4ER, VAT number GB448099751.

We run a marketplace where authors book services such as editing, proofreading, alpha and beta reading, cover design and typesetting. We act as agent. When an author books you, the contract for that job (an “engagement”) is between you and the author. We arrange it, take payment from the author on your behalf, and pay you.

2. Your status and tax

• You are an independent contractor: a self-employed individual, your own company, or an overseas business. Nothing in this agreement makes you our employee, worker, partner or agent, and you are free to work for others.
• You decide how and when you do the work, within the deadline agreed with the author, and use your own equipment.
• You are responsible for your own income tax, National Insurance or overseas equivalents, and for VAT or any sales tax on your fees. If you are VAT-registered, your listed prices must say whether they include VAT.
• The tax status you declare when you apply must be accurate, and you must tell us within 14 days if it changes.
• Reporting to HMRC. UK law requires digital platforms to collect and verify information about the people who sell services through them and report their earnings to HMRC each year. You agree to give us, or our payment provider, your full name, address, date of birth or company details, country of residence and tax identification number when asked, and confirm that it is correct. We may hold payouts until it is provided. This applies wherever you live.

3. Your listing and prices

• You describe your services, experience and samples, and set your own prices and turnaround times.
• We add our commission (currently 10% of your price) on top, shown to the author separately. You receive your listed price in full, less only any fees our payment provider charges for paying you in another currency or country.
• Your listing must be accurate. We may decline, edit or remove a listing that is misleading or breaks this agreement.

3a. Working with our authors only through the platform

• While you are registered with us, any paid work you do for an author who is registered with us must be booked and paid through the platform. You must not offer, accept or arrange such work directly, or through anyone else, to avoid our commission.
• Existing working relationships. If you already worked with an author before either of you joined, you may continue outside the platform, but only once you have declared it to us in writing: in your application, or by email to hello@fnfbooks.co.uk within 14 days of the author joining, with evidence of the earlier work such as an invoice or contract. We confirm each declaration in writing. Work not declared this way is treated as arranged around the platform.
• If we find that work has been arranged around the platform, we may remove you, and the author involved, at our discretion. You are free to work with anyone who isn't registered with us, however you like.

4. Engagements

• An engagement starts when you accept an author's booking. The booking records the work, price, deadline and number of revision rounds.
• The author pays when booking. We hold the payment through our payment provider and release it to you on delivery, or in agreed stages (for example half at the start and half on delivery).
• You deliver the work by the agreed deadline, to a professional standard and as described in your listing. Tell the author and us straight away if you can't.
• One round of reasonable revisions is included unless your listing says otherwise.
• If you cancel, any payment for undelivered work is refunded to the author.

5. Disputes

If an author is unhappy with delivered work, we will ask both of you for your side and may look at the work ourselves. We may then release the payment, release part of it, or refund the author. Our decision on the held payment is final as between you, the author and us; it doesn't limit either of your legal rights against each other.

6. The work and its rights

• The author's manuscript, characters, world and ideas remain the author's property at all times.
• When you are paid, everything you create for the engagement (edits, notes, reports, designs, files) is assigned to the author, who may use it freely. You keep any general skills and know-how, and any pre-existing tools or templates of your own.
• Designers: you must have the rights to every font, image and asset you use, licensed for commercial book publishing, and tell the author which licences apply.
• You may show finished work in your portfolio only with the author's written permission, and never before the book is published.
• You must not use any author's work to train, fine-tune or prompt AI systems, or put it into AI tools that keep or learn from it.

7. Confidentiality and anti-piracy

Our Non-Disclosure Agreement and Anti-Piracy Charter form part of this agreement. A breach of either is a serious breach.

8. Conduct

Be professional and respectful with authors and with us. No harassment, discrimination or plagiarism. Reviews are left only by authors who booked you; you must not write, buy or swap reviews.

9. Liability and insurance

You are responsible for the quality of your work and for any loss caused by your breach of this agreement, the NDA or the charter. We recommend professional indemnity insurance. Our liability to you is limited to the commission we earned from your engagements in the previous 12 months, except where the law does not allow a limit.

10. Ending the agreement

• Either of us may end this agreement with 30 days' written notice. Engagements already accepted continue until they are delivered or cancelled.
• We may end it immediately, and hold any payments under dispute, for a serious breach, including any breach of the NDA or Anti-Piracy Charter.
• Your obligations on confidentiality, rights and anti-piracy continue after the agreement ends.

11. General

• We may update this agreement with 30 days' notice. Changes don't affect engagements already accepted.
• We handle your personal information as described in our privacy policy.
• This agreement is governed by the law of England and Wales, and its courts deal with any dispute, wherever you live.