Terms of sale

Who we are

Dapplewood Books (our details are at the foot of every page). Questions: support@dapplewoodbooks.com.

Your account

• You need an account to make a book, and you must be 16 or over. Accounts are for parents, guardians and other grown-ups making a book for a child.
• You confirm your email address before your first book.
• You can start 3 books for free. When you order a book, you have 3 free books again. Deleting a book doesn't give its place back. The limit is there to keep bots and misuse out, nothing else.
• You can delete your account at any time from your account page (see the privacy policy for what we keep).

What you give us

• You tell us about the child and the people in the story, and you can add photos so the pictures look like them.
• You confirm you're the child's parent or guardian, or have their permission, and that you have the right to use any photo you add, including permission from any adult in it.
• Don't add anything hurtful, unlawful or inappropriate for a children's book. We check what's typed, and the pictures we draw, automatically, and we may refuse or stop a book.

How your book is made

• The story and the pictures are made with AI from what you tell us, then checked automatically for child safety. Some pictures are redrawn, and a page can be held for a person to look at.
• AI can get things wrong: a name, a detail, how someone looks. That's why you read the whole book, can change the words and redraw pages (25 redraws per book), and approve it before ordering. Please check names and spelling.
• Making and previewing a book is free.

Ordering and paying

• You can order an approved book as a paperback or a hardcover, with or without the PDF, or the PDF on its own. Prices, in your currency, are shown before you order, and include VAT where it applies. Postage is extra and shown before you pay.
• You can order 1 to 5 copies of a printed book to one address. Every copy after the first is 20% cheaper. For more, write to us.
• Discount codes: if you let us quote what you said about a book you ordered, we email you a code for 20% off your next printed book. It works once, on the printed book itself (not postage, the PDF or extra copies), for 6 months. Any quote we publish from someone who got a code says they received a discount for sharing.
• You pay by card or a local payment method, through Stripe. Your order is placed when the payment goes through, and we email you a confirmation.
• No changes after payment: we print exactly the version you approved.

Delivery

• Our print partner (Lulu) prints your book close to where it's going and posts it. We ship to every EU country, the UK, the US and Canada.
• Before you pay, checkout shows the estimated delivery dates for your address. You get a tracking link when it ships. Dates are estimates, not promises.
• If it hasn't arrived in reasonable time, tell us and we'll sort it out.

Cancelling and refunds

• A personalised book can't be returned or refunded just because you've changed your mind. It's made to your own specification, so the 14-day right to withdraw doesn't apply.
• The PDF, on its own or added to a printed book: you get it straight away. By ticking the box at checkout you agree to that, and accept that you then can't cancel the PDF.
• If your book is deleted while you're paying for it (you, or deleting your account, removed it while you were on the payment page), we refund the payment in full, automatically.
• A misprinted, damaged or wrong book: we reprint it or refund you. Please tell us as soon as you can, ideally within 30 days, with a photo. This doesn't limit your legal guarantee.
• Anything else ("not quite what I hoped"): write to us. We look at each case, and may offer a credit or a refund as a goodwill gesture.

Your book and our work

• You may share and use your book for personal, non-commercial purposes.
• The copyright page names Dapplewood Books as the publisher, and you as the author if you give a name at checkout.
• We never use your book or photos in marketing, examples or case studies without asking you first, separately, for that book. We don't train AI on your book.

Our responsibility

• Your legal rights come first. By law, what you buy must be as described and fit for use. If it isn't, you have the right to a repair, a replacement or your money back, and nothing in these terms limits that.
• Otherwise, if something goes wrong through our fault, we are liable for no more than you paid for that order. This limit doesn't apply to harm we cause on purpose or through gross negligence, or wherever the law doesn't allow a limit.
• We aren't responsible for delays or failures caused by things outside our control, such as an outage at our printer, the post or one of our service providers. If that happens, we'll tell you and put it right as soon as we can, or refund you if we can't.
• Nothing in these terms takes away the rights the consumer law of your own country gives you.

Law and disputes

• Complaints: please write to us first at support@dapplewoodbooks.com. We reply within 14 days, and most things can be sorted out that way.
• Dutch law applies. That never takes away the protection the law of the country where you live gives you.
• If we can't agree, you can take the dispute to the competent court where you live. (The EU's online dispute resolution platform closed in 2025, so there is no link to it.)

Changes

We may update these terms. The version that applies to an order is the one you accepted when you placed it.