Platform Policies

These Terms of Service govern your access to and use of Sọna Books, operated by Sọna Books Ltd. By creating an account, browsing, or purchasing on the platform, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the platform.

1.1 Eligibility

• You must be at least 13 years old to create an account.
• Users under 18 may not purchase or access books marked 18+. Age is verified via date of birth provided at signup.
• Users under 13 will be blocked from account creation.
• By registering, you confirm that the information you provide, including your date of birth, is accurate.

1.2 Your Account

• You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials.
• You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account.
• You must notify us immediately at support [at] readsona.com if you suspect unauthorised access.
• We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, engage in fraudulent activity, or access the platform through unauthorised means.
• For reader accounts, violations may result in a strike. A first strike may lead to suspension; repeated violations can lead to permanent bans. We retain evidence for enforcement actions and will provide notice by email.
• You may not create more than one reader account per person.

1.3 Purchases and Access to Content

• When you purchase a book on Sọna Books, you are purchasing a non-exclusive, non-transferable, personal licence to read that book through the platform.
• You do not own the ebook file. The licence is tied to your account.
• Purchased books are accessible in the Sọna Books app only. Files cannot be downloaded, exported, or printed.
• Purchased books are protected with account-bound DRM encryption and invisible watermarking tied to the buyer account. Attempting to extract or bypass these protections is a violation of these Terms and may constitute an offence under Nigerian law.
• We reserve the right to revoke access to content later found to infringe copyright, violate these Terms, or contravene Nigerian law, with notice provided where reasonably possible.

1.4 Prohibited Conduct

You agree not to:

• Upload, share, or distribute pirated, plagiarised, or unauthorised copies of any content.
• Attempt to extract, copy, or reverse-engineer any ebook file from the platform.
• Use automated tools, bots, or scrapers to access the platform or its content.
• Impersonate any person or entity, or misrepresent your affiliation with any person or entity.
• Use the platform for any unlawful purpose or in violation of applicable law.
• Upload, transmit, or distribute content that is defamatory, obscene, threatening, or violates the rights of any third party.

1.5 Imported Books

Sọna Books allows you to import personal EPUB files from your device into the app on supported mobile devices. Importing is not available on web. Imported files are stored locally on your device and are not uploaded to Sọna Books’s servers. They are only available on the device where they were imported and are not synced across devices. By importing a file, you confirm that you have the legal right to possess and read that file. Sọna Books takes no responsibility for imported content and applies no DRM to files you import.

1.6 Intellectual Property

All platform software, design, branding, and original content created by Sọna Books is our property and protected by applicable intellectual property laws. Book content belongs to the respective authors and publishers. Nothing in these Terms transfers any IP rights to you.

1.7 Availability and Changes

• We reserve the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the platform at any time, with or without notice.
• We will make reasonable efforts to notify users of material changes to these Terms via email or platform announcement.
• Continued use of the platform after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

1.8 Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by Nigerian law, Sọna Books and its officers, employees, and affiliates are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the platform. Our total liability in any matter arising from your use shall not exceed the total amount you have paid to us in the twelve months preceding the claim.

1.9 Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Any dispute shall first be subject to good-faith negotiation. If unresolved, disputes shall be submitted to the jurisdiction of the courts of Lagos State, Nigeria.

1.10 Contact

For legal matters: admin [at] readsona.com

This Author Agreement applies to all individuals and entities who register as authors or publishers on Sọna Books. By completing the author signup process and accepting this Agreement, you agree to the terms below.

2.1 Eligibility and Verification

• You must complete account verification before your books can be published on the storefront.
• Verification is based on the account and payout details you provide.
• Individual publish account holders must provide their legal name and a valid personal bank account to get verified on Sọna Publish.
• Publishers must provide valid registered business details and a bank account linked to the business details to get verified on Sọna Publish.
• We may request additional documentation where review cannot confirm the business details from the information provided.
• You can prepare and save books as drafts while verification is in review, but submission for approval is locked until verification is approved.
• Duplicate payout identities are not allowed. Accounts using the same bank account number or account holder name as an existing verified author account may be rejected.
• Duplicate identities are not allowed. Accounts using the same names or bank account details as an existing verified publish account may be rejected.
• We reserve the right to reject verification submissions and to request additional supporting information at any time.

2.2 Discounts, Gift Copies, and eARC Credits

• Discounts: authors may schedule temporary price reductions for live books. Discounted pricing is time‑bound and visible on the storefront during the scheduled window.
• Gift copies: authors may grant free, permanent access to a live book for specific recipients. Gift copies are non‑transferable and tied to the recipient’s account.
• eARC credits: Authors start with 50 free credits (50 sends), and may purchase credits and send advance review copies for eligible books. eARC copies are limited to the intended recipients and are tied to the recipient’s account. If a recipient does not yet have an account, they receive an invite to join Sọna Reader and the eARC is added to their account after signup.
• We reserve the right to suspend or revoke distribution privileges if abuse or fraud is detected.

2.3 Licence to Sọna Books

By uploading a book to the platform, you grant Sọna Books a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to:

• Display, store, and deliver your book to readers who purchase it through the platform.
• Generate and serve a free sample chapter (first chapter only) to prospective readers, if you enable this feature.
• Apply DRM protection and invisible watermarking to your uploaded files to protect against piracy.
• Display your name, pen name, author bio, profile photo, and book metadata on the platform and in associated marketing materials.

You retain full copyright to your work at all times. This licence does not prevent you from publishing your work elsewhere. You may withdraw a title from the platform at any time, subject to a 30-day wind-down period for in-progress transactions.

2.4 Royalties and Commission

• You set the sale price for each book in Nigerian Naira.
• You receive 70% of your book’s base price.
• Sọna Books retains 30% of the base price as its platform fee.
• Example: A book priced at NGN 3,000 means your earnings are NGN 2,100, and the platform fee is NGN 900.

2.4a Re‑Approval Fees

After a book has been approved, you may submit revisions for re‑approval. The first two re‑approvals are free. From the third re‑approval onward, a fee of NGN 250 applies per submission. Re‑approval fees are billed separately and must be settled before account deletion or further financial processing.

2.5 Payouts

• Payouts are issued to your verified bank account once you meet the minimum payout balance.
• You can select your preferred payout schedule in your dashboard, and we align payouts to the schedule you choose.
• Payouts are sent to the bank account you provided during signup. It is your responsibility to keep your bank account details current.
• We are not liable for failed payouts caused by incorrect bank details provided by you.
• Payout history is available in your Earnings dashboard. Failed payouts are flagged and will be retried or escalated manually.

2.6 VAT and Taxation

• Where tax is applicable by law, required tax may be added to reader payments.
• Applicable tax handling does not reduce your agreed royalty split unless required by law.
• You are responsible for declaring and paying your own income tax on royalties received.
• We provide downloadable CSV exports of your earnings for your own tax records.

2.7 Content Warranties

By uploading content to Sọna Books, you warrant and represent that:

• You are the original author of the work, or you hold all rights necessary to publish it on this platform.
• The content does not infringe any copyright, trademark, trade secret, or other intellectual property rights of any third party.
• The content does not contain plagiarised material.
• The content does not violate any applicable law, including laws relating to obscenity, defamation, privacy, or CSAM (child sexual abuse material).
• The age rating you assign to a book accurately reflects its content.
• If you are a publisher uploading on behalf of an author, you have the contractual right to do so.

2.8 Content Review and Removal

• All uploaded content is subject to review before publication.
• We reserve the right to reject any content that violates these policies, without obligation to provide a detailed explanation.
• Content found to violate these policies after publication will be removed immediately. You will be notified where possible.
• Repeated violations, deliberate plagiarism, or uploading harmful content may result in permanent account suspension and withholding of pending earnings. We may also report serious violations to the required authorities.

2.9 DMCA and Copyright Complaints

If you believe content on the platform infringes your copyright, submit a report through the platform's Report function or email admin [at] readsona.com with:

• A description of the copyrighted work you claim has been infringed.
• A description of where the infringing material is located on the platform, and a link to it.
• Your contact information.
• A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or applicable law.
• A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorised to act on their behalf.

2.10 Account Suspension and Termination

• We may suspend or terminate your author account at any time for material breach of this Agreement.
• On termination for cause (fraud, plagiarism, CSAM), all pending earnings may be withheld pending investigation.
• On voluntary termination by you, settled earnings will be paid out once your balance is cleared and any outstanding fees are paid.
• Books you have published will be removed from the storefront within 30 days of termination. Readers who have already purchased your books retain access.

This Privacy Policy explains how Sọna Books collects, uses, stores, and protects your personal data. We are committed to compliance with the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA) 2023 and the regulations issued by the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC).

3.1 Who We Are (Data Controller)

Sọna Books (Sọna Books Ltd) is the data controller for personal data collected through this platform. For data-related enquiries, contact admin [at] readsona.com.

3.2 Data We Collect

Information you provide directly:

• Reader accounts: display name, email address, date of birth, and authentication credentials handled by our auth provider.
• Individual publish accounts: full legal name, email address, country, pen name, bio, profile photo, social links.
• Publisher accounts: registered business name, registration number, and business bank account details used for verification and payouts.
• Publish bank account details: account number, account holder name, bank name, used solely for processing payouts.
• Payment information needed to process purchases and payouts.

Information collected automatically:

• Purchase history: which books you have bought, when, and at what price.
• Reading progress data: which books you have opened, your reading position, completion status, and timestamps.
• Platform usage data: pages visited, features used, session duration.
• Device and browser information: IP address, browser type, operating system, device type.

3.3 How We Use Your Data

• To provide and operate the platform: account creation, purchase processing, content delivery, reading progress sync, payout processing.
• To communicate with you: purchase confirmations, payout notifications, book approval status, platform announcements. These operational emails cannot be disabled.
• To send marketing emails where applicable and permitted. You can unsubscribe at any time.
• To protect the platform: fraud detection, abuse prevention, DRM enforcement, CSAM scanning.
• To comply with legal obligations: responding to valid legal requests, NDPA compliance, tax record-keeping.

3.4 Legal Basis for Processing (NDPA 2023)

• Contract performance: processing necessary to deliver the services you sign up for.
• Legitimate interests: fraud prevention, platform security, platform improvement.
• Consent: marketing emails (you can withdraw consent at any time).
• Legal obligation: compliance with Nigerian law, including the NDPA, the Consumer Protection Act, and tax laws.

3.5 Third-Party Services

We use trusted third-party service providers to operate core platform services, including account authentication, payment processing and payouts, and cloud hosting/storage. These providers process limited personal data only as required to deliver the service.

We do not sell your personal data to any third party. We do not use your data for advertising on external platforms.

3.6 Data Retention

• Active account data is retained for as long as your account exists.
• On account deletion, personal data is deleted within 60 days for reader account holders and 30 days for publish account holders, except where retention is required by law.
• Financial transaction records must be retained for 6 years under Nigerian law.
• Anonymised, aggregated analytics data may be retained indefinitely.

3.7 Your Rights Under the NDPA 2023

As a data subject, you have the right to:

• Access: request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Correction: request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Deletion: request deletion of your personal data, subject to legal retention requirements.
• Portability: receive your personal data in a structured, machine-readable format.
• Objection: object to processing based on legitimate interests.
• Withdraw consent: withdraw consent for marketing emails at any time.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at admin [at] readsona.com. We will respond within 30 days.

If you believe we have not handled your data appropriately, you may lodge a complaint with the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) at ndpc.gov.ng.

3.8 Data Security

• All data is transmitted over HTTPS/TLS encryption.
• Passwords are hashed using industry-standard algorithms. We never store plaintext passwords.
• Ebook files are stored in private cloud storage and are not publicly accessible.
• Payment data is handled by our payment processing partners.
• In the event of a data breach likely to result in risk to your rights, we will notify you and the relevant authority within 72 hours.

3.9 Children's Privacy

We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, please contact us at admin [at] readsona.com and we will delete the account promptly.

These guidelines apply to reviews, author profiles, book descriptions, messages, disputes, and all account activity on Sọna Books. We want a safe, respectful place for readers and authors.

4.1 Be Respectful

• No harassment, hate speech, threats, doxxing, or targeted abuse.
• Critique the work, not the person.

4.2 No Illegal or Harmful Content

• Illegal content, CSAM, or content that encourages harm is strictly prohibited.
• We may report illegal content and related account activity to the relevant authorities.

4.3 No Piracy or IP Infringement

• Do not upload, share, or distribute content you do not have the rights to use.
• Do not attempt to bypass DRM or distribute purchased ebooks outside the platform.

4.4 No Fraud or Manipulation

• No fake reviews, review swapping, impersonation, or attempts to manipulate rankings or payouts.
• No misuse of discounts, gift copies, or eARC distribution. These are intended only for the recipients you select.

4.5 Enforcement

• We may remove content, suspend accounts, or permanently ban users for violations.
• We retain evidence needed to enforce these guidelines and will notify you by email where required.

By accepting these Policies at signup, you acknowledge and agree to the refund and chargeback terms set out below.

5.1 All Sales Are Final

All purchases made on Sọna Books are final. Because ebooks are digital goods delivered instantly upon purchase, we do not offer refunds except in the specific circumstances in Section 5.2.

5.2 Eligible Refund Circumstances

A refund will be issued only where:

• Technical fault: the purchased ebook file is corrupted, unreadable, or fails to load in the Sọna Books reader after reasonable troubleshooting. Issues caused by your device, browser, or internet connection do not qualify.
• Wrong book delivered: the book added to your library is demonstrably different from the book you purchased.

Refund requests must be submitted within 48 hours of the purchase date by contacting support [at] readsona.com with your order reference number and a description of the issue. We will investigate and respond within 2 business days.

We do not issue refunds for change of mind, not liking the content, purchasing the wrong book by mistake, or having already read a significant portion of the book.

5.3 Pre‑Order Refunds

If a book is withdrawn or cancelled before its release date, all pending pre‑orders for that book will be refunded in full. We will notify affected readers when a pre‑order refund is processed.

If a book is withdrawn after being listed as a pre‑order and purchased, a fixed NGN 100 administrative fee may apply to cover processing costs.

5.4 Chargeback Policy

A chargeback is a payment reversal initiated by your bank or card issuer. Initiating a chargeback for a Sọna Books purchase without first contacting our support team is a breach of these Terms.

• Before initiating a chargeback, you must contact support [at] readsona.com and allow us 5 business days to resolve your concern.
• If a chargeback is raised without prior contact, or where the purchase was legitimate, we will submit evidence of the transaction and digital delivery to your card issuer to contest the chargeback.
• Evidence we may submit includes: your purchase receipt, account login records, proof of digital delivery, and your acceptance of these Policies at signup.
• Accounts that raise fraudulent chargebacks may be suspended immediately pending investigation.
• Accounts found to have engaged in repeated or deliberate chargeback fraud will be permanently banned and may be reported to the payment processor, the relevant card network, and law enforcement.

If you believe a charge was made on your account without your authorisation, contact us immediately at support [at] readsona.com. We will investigate and, if the charge is confirmed as unauthorised, process a full refund promptly.

5.5 Refund Processing

• For approved refunds, we will reach out to the relevant parties to complete settlement.
• On refund approval, access to the refunded book will be removed from your library.

This Cookie Policy explains what cookies and similar technologies are used on Sọna Books and why.

6.1 What Are Cookies?

Cookies are small text files placed on your device when you visit a website. They are widely used to make websites work properly, remember your preferences, and provide usage information to site operators.

6.2 Cookies We Use

Essential cookies (cannot be disabled):

• Authentication session cookies: these keep you logged in across pages and sessions. Without them, the platform cannot function.
• Security cookies: used to detect and prevent fraudulent or abusive activity.

Functional cookies:

• Preference cookies: remember your reader settings (font size, background colour, dark mode) so they persist across sessions.

Analytics:

• Platform usage analytics: we may use aggregated, anonymised analytics to understand how the platform is used. This data does not identify you personally.

We do not use advertising cookies, third-party tracking cookies, or share cookie data with advertisers.

6.3 Local Storage

In addition to cookies, we use browser local storage to save reading progress and reader preferences locally on your device. This data is not transmitted to third parties.

6.4 How to Control Cookies

You can control and delete cookies through your browser settings. Note that disabling essential cookies will prevent you from logging in or using core platform features.

• Chrome: Settings, Privacy and security, Cookies and other site data
• Safari: Preferences, Privacy, Manage Website Data
• Firefox: Settings, Privacy and Security, Cookies and Site Data

6.5 Changes to This Policy

We may update this Cookie Policy as the platform evolves. Material changes will be communicated via email or platform notice.