Brook is a reader-powered publishing platform at readbrook.com. Readers suggest book ideas, pre-order the books they want to exist, and help shape each one along the way. By using the site, submitting an idea, or backing a book, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree with them, please do not use Brook.
A reader submits an idea. If Brook approves it, the idea becomes a campaign with a goal of 250 backers at $35 each, open for 60 days. If the campaign reaches its goal, the book is greenlit: a writer is commissioned, backers follow the milestones, vote on the cover, and receive the finished book rewards. If a campaign does not reach its goal, the book does not move forward. Campaign pages state the goal, the deadline, and exactly what backers receive.
Backing a campaign is a $35 pre-order, charged to your card immediately by Square, our payment processor. Each pledge counts as one backer toward the goal, and you may pledge more than once. All pledges are non-refundable, even if a campaign does not reach 250 backers. If a book does not move forward, your pledge stays with Brook and supports future authors, future ideas, and the next story our community sparks. You confirm this policy with a checkbox before every payment. What backers receive is listed on each campaign page, and those rewards are the full extent of what a pledge buys.
Submitting an idea costs $35. The fee keeps every idea serious and pays for our staff to read yours with care. It is refunded in one case only: if your idea is declined because it does not fit Brook's values, the fee goes back to your card. In every other case it is non-refundable. By submitting, you confirm the idea is your own and does not copy someone else's work, and you give Brook a worldwide, royalty-free permission to review it, edit it for clarity, develop it into a campaign, and commission a book based on it. Brook is not obliged to use any idea, and similar ideas may reach us independently from different readers. Submitting an idea does not entitle you to payment, credit, or rights in any resulting book unless we agree to that separately in writing.
Voting on a book's cover is a perk for that book's backers. There are no accounts on Brook, on purpose. You vote with the email address you pledged with: one ballot per email per book, and you can change your mind as many times as you like until the vote closes. When the vote closes, the cover with the most votes wins and the result is final.
Every backer is credited in the back of the finished book as part of Brook's community imprint, using the name given at pledge time. If you prefer not to be named, tick the box when you back the book and your line reads Anonymous instead. We may exclude or adjust names that are offensive, misleading, or impersonate someone else.
Backer rewards, such as the free e-book and a discount code for the printed edition, are delivered by email after publication. Printed books are sold through the retailer linked on the campaign page. Making a book is creative work, so the timeline on a campaign page is an honest estimate rather than a guarantee, and we will keep backers informed if it shifts.
Do not submit ideas that are unlawful, hateful, or copied from someone else. Do not abuse the forms, vote with emails that are not yours, or use automated tools to flood the site. We may decline submissions, remove content, refuse service, or block repeat abusers to protect the community.
The Brook site, its design, and its words belong to Brook. Finished books are commissioned works whose rights belong to Brook or its licensors. Backing a campaign buys the rewards listed on that campaign page and nothing more. Your submitted idea remains yours, subject to the permission you give us above.
Every Brook book is written by a commissioned human writer. With our staff in charge, Brook uses AI tools to draft cover options, to polish the wording of approved ideas, and to draft milestone emails that our staff edits before sending. Cover art may be created with the help of AI and is chosen by each book's backers.
Brook is provided as it is. We promise honesty and care, not perfection, and to the extent the law allows we make no other warranties. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Brook's total liability to you for any claim connected to the site or a campaign is limited to the amount you paid Brook in the twelve months before the claim arose. Nothing in these terms limits rights the law does not allow us to limit.
We may update these terms as Brook grows. When we do, the date below changes, and meaningful updates are announced on the site before they take effect.
Questions about these terms, a pledge, or a submission? Write to info@readbrook.com and a real person will answer.
Last updated: September 2026. Questions about these terms? Write to info@readbrook.com.