Legal Stuff

TERMS & CONDITIONS

Giveaway Rules

From time to time I run giveaways here on my blog/site.  The prizes will usually be for an ebook copy of one of my books, a gift voucher to an online store, or very occasionally, a print copy of one of my books.

Having recently read some rather interesting blog posts on the subject of giveaways (or sweepstakes as they technically are) these are the rules that will apply to all giveaways as from 1 June 2013.

Please note, any guests hosting giveaways on this blog will set out in their posts the giveaway duration, prize offered, entry requirements and selection of winners for their giveaways.  When a guest blogger’s giveaway rule contradicts a rule set out below, the guest blogger’s giveaway rule will take precedence.  All other rules, terms and conditions will continue to apply.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE TO ENTER

  • No purchase is necessary to enter the giveaway.
  • All entrants must be over the age of 18 years.  You should not be on my blog if you are under 18 anyway since my stories are all of an adult nature.
  • Giveaways are open for anyone over the age of 18 to enter, except where entry into the giveaway/sweepstake is prohibited by law.
  • Void where prohibited by law.

THE GIVEAWAY SPECIFICS

  • The duration of each giveaway will be from the date/time of the blog post announcing the giveaway to the time specified therein.
  • The prize for each giveaway, including retail value, will be set out in the individual blog post announcing the giveaway.
  • Entry into the giveaways will be by leaving a comment with a valid email address on the blog post made announcing the giveaway.  Entries without a valid email address will be discounted and void.
  • Entries for each giveaway are limited to one entry per person unless stated otherwise.
  • The odds of winning is determined by the number of eligible entries received.  At the moment this blog is small and my readership is likewise, so the odds are pretty good for everyone.

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

  • In the event of technical difficulties with the blog, such as the site going down for a period of time exceeding 24 hours, the giveaway may be extended for the same period of time as the outage at the discretion of the blog owner.  Any extension of time will be announced on the blog.
  • In the event of comments on the blog entry being lost due to technical failure, the back up comments in the form of the email notifications sent to the blog owner at the time of the comment being made will form the entry to the giveaway.
  • In the event of technical issues preventing comments being made on the giveaway post, please email lmbrownauthor at gmail dot com.  This email will constitute your entry into the giveaway.

HOW THE WINNERS ARE CHOSEN

  • Each entrant will be allocated a number according to their posted comment or email.  First commenter is number 1, second commenter is number 2 etc.  Any duplicate entries will be discounted. Any emailed entries due to technical difficulties as set out above will be allocated the number they would have been allocated had the comment been posted on the blog at the time the email was sent.
  • Winners will be chosen via the random number generator random.org
  • Winners will be announced on my blog following the end of the giveaway.

CLAIMING YOUR PRIZE

  • When one specific ebook/voucher prize is offered the prize will be sent out to the winner by email immediately following the conclusion of the giveaway.
  • If a choice of prize is offered (e.g. a book from my back list) or the prize is a print copy of a book (where a mailing address is required) then the winner has seven days in which to claim/choose their prize or notify the blog owner of their mailing address.  If the prize is not claimed within seven days an alternative winner will be chosen.
  • If you are aware that you are not going be online at the end of the contest (eg due to holidays) then please leave details of the date you will return in your comment entry.  In those circumstances, if you are the winner the seven days time limit will run from the date of your return.  Again, an alternative winner will be chosen if the prize is not claimed in this time.
  • All prizes are non-transferable and no cash equivalent alternative is offered.

WHO TO CONTACT

Any complaints, questions, queries or disputes relating to the giveaways run on this blog should be addressed to lmbrownauthor at gmail dot com.

JURISDICTION

All giveaways held by the owner of this blog are run from England.

All giveaways run by guest bloggers are determined to be held in the country of residence of the guest blogger.
 
INDEMNIFICATION AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

By entering into the giveaway, each entrant agrees to indemnify, release and hold harmless the administrator, L.M. Brown, from any liability damages, losses or injury resulting in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, from the entrant’s participation in the giveaway and the acceptance, use or misuse or any prize that may be won.

The administrator does not make any warranties, express or implied, as to the condition, fitness or merchantability of the prize and the administrator disclaims any liability for damage to any computer system resulting from access to or the download of information or materials connected with the giveaway.

By entering into a giveaway on this blog
you are agreeing to these rules.

Needless to say, most of these rules are standard giveaway/sweepstakes rules and are required by law.

That being said, if you do receive a prize from any of my giveaways that does have a problem (e.g. an ebook with some seriously faulty formatting) please let me know by emailing lmbrownauthor at gmail dot com and I will do my best to rectify it.  If a print book prize arrives damaged it is unlikely I’ll have a spare to send (I have very few in total) but would be happy to offer an ebook alternative of the same book.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

On 25 May 2018 the EU law GDPR comes into effect.  In the interests of making it as small a headache for me as possible, all comments have been removed from my blog.  The only posts that will have comments turned on are ones for giveaways.  So here is what you need to know.

The information collected by the comment form is the information you provide (including your email address if you want me to be able to send you your prize) and your IP address.  By posting a comment you are consenting to me having that information.

Your email address will not be added to a mailing list. I don’t even have one anyway.

Your data will not be shared with anyone else.

The information will be stored on a server that may be outside of the EU. I have tried to find out where the WordPress.com sites are hosted but can only find vague references to them being all over the world.  

Once the giveaway is over and the winner has received their prize the comments (and the data provided when posting them) will be deleted from the blog. 

If at some point WordPress.com decides to make the sites for free users compliant with the GDPR, eg, by telling users about the data they submit at the time they are submitting it, I may change this policy to allow comments again. However, with just 20 days to go until the law is in force, and with no sign whatsoever of anything useful from WP, it appears it is up to the website owners to make their sites compliant.

Copyrights & Credits

Writing

All free reads published in this blog are my own.

Excerpts of published works are my own unless indicated otherwise.

Photos

All photos on this site are my own or used with permission.

Those who have been here a long time will realise that there used to be a lot more.  Then I read this cautionary tale and removed the lot.