I recently released The Gray Horn for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords and I decided I might do a Giveaway promotion at Amazon. It’s where you give away a book for free to a limited number of customers in the hopes of getting reviews and generating “buzz”.

I haven’t done it before but I was thinking, what the heck. As I went through the process I clicked on the ubiquitous Terms and Conditions button and gave it my usual cursory glance. Then I stumbled on item 6.

You grant us a royalty-free, non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use, reproduce, perform, display, distribute, adapt, modify, excerpt, analyze, re-format, create derivative works of, and otherwise commercially or non-commercially exploit in any manner, any and all of Your Materials, and to sublicense the foregoing rights; provided that nothing in this Agreement will prevent or impair our right to use Your Materials without your consent to the extent that such use is allowable without a license from you or your Affiliates under applicable Law (e.g., fair use under United States copyright law, referential use under trademark law, or valid license from a third party).

I mean to say …

Holy s***!

Are you kidding me? That’s more than just terms and conditions. That’s some serious rights I’m giving away. I was rendered speechless. Which, if you know me, is no small feat.

I thought I’d pass it along just for general knowledge to anyone else thinking about going with a Giveaway promotion on Amazon. Frankly, you should read all the Terms and Conditions but it’s hard because they make them so long and difficult.

Have a great day!

Oh, and buy my books. Only $2.99. Write reviews! They help, they really do.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Gray Horn
Next Release: For the Gray