Thy Olive Tree Marketplace: Vendor Terms and Conditions

Last Updated: 11/6/2024

This document makes up our Terms and Conditions for participating in Thy Olive Tree’s Marketplace. This is a legally binding contract between you and Thy Olive Tree. This contract sets out your rights and responsibilities when participating in our Marketplace. Your acceptance of these terms also constitutes acceptance of our general website Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

This Agreement is Between: You (the Vendor), and Thy Olive Tree whose registered business is at PO Box 1672, Portage, Michigan, United States of America, 49081 (the Business).

WHEREAS
The Business desires to list the approved Product(s) (E.g., books, stationery, bookmarks) by the Vendor on its Website in its Marketplace.

The Marketplace, sometimes simply referred to as Market or Directory, is a way for customers to browse products and be redirected to the Vendor’s preferred site.

Sales of Vendor products do not take place on the Business’s site or within the Marketplace.

Vendors must be self-published authors and/or artisans, as defined below:

• Self-Published: You are the author and/or illustrator of your book, and you have not licensed the rights to a traditional publisher. You have not worked with a publisher (traditional, hybrid, large, or small press) to get your book to market. Platforms like Amazon KDP and IngramSpark are perfectly fine. It's also fine to have hired designers, illustrators, editors, proofreaders, etc. to help you publish your book. The key is YOU. It's your book you've seen through from start to finish.
• Artisan: You are the artist or creator of the product. It does not need to be handmade, but it does need to have been designed or invented in some way by you. For example, reselling Holy Cards you purchased online is not allowed. But if you create your own cards and have them printed, that would be allowed.

INTERPRETATIONS
The headings in this Agreement are for convenience only and shall not affect their interpretation.

BASIC RULES FOR PARTICIPATION
By entering into this agreement, you certify that:

• You agree to be mindful and respectful of Thy Olive Tree’s adherence to Catholic Church teaching.
• Nothing about your products would go against Catholic Church teaching or be deemed inappropriate to a Catholic audience. If at any point you learn otherwise, you will immediately notify us to remove said Products from the Marketplace. We also reserve the right to remove Products in question at our discretion and without refund.
• You are the author/creator of the product(s) you are submitting.
• If submitting a book, it was self-published. You have not used traditional publishers or hybrid presses.
• Your products (including text and images) were not AI-generated. (Artificial intelligence). AI-assisted is allowed.
• We define AI-generated content as text, images, or translations created by an AI-based tool. Even if you applied substantial edits after, we still consider your product to be AI generated if an AI tool created the actual text, image, or translation to begin with.
• AI-assisted is allowed. This is when you created the content or images yourself (or worked with a real person to do this for you). You may have used AI-based tools to edit, brainstorm, refine, fact-check, or help improve your work in some way.
• Your products do not violate the copyright of anyone. You've taken the necessary steps to ensure you have permission to use quotes/images, if needed.
• You have taken the utmost care in the creation of your products to include editing, fact-checking, and theological review, if needed.
• You agree that, if accepted, you will promote the Marketplace in your email newsletter and on social media at least once per year, or something similiar if you don't use those marketing tools.
• You are at least 18 years old.

MARKETPLACE BENEFITS
At a minimum, you’ll be given one listing for each approved Product, up to the limit of your plan. A listing looks just like a product sales page, except it includes your preferred link for purchasing the book off our site. You can include a product title, description, and up to 5 images in your listing. Each individual image must be less than 1MB.

You will be given a link to your own collections page, where any listing(s) you have in our Marketplace will appear collectively. This is a basic page that only contains your product listing(s), with no additional Vendor descriptions or photos.

When you are accepted into our Marketplace, you also get basic access to our community. This is a private group held on a platform called Heartbeat. It consists of independent authors as well as Vendors accepted into our Marketplace. You'll get access to a few discussion channels.

Upon acceptance, you'll be given a digital badge you can use on your website and in marketing to highlight your acceptance into our highly selective and curated Marketplace. Using it is optional.

Additional benefits or promotions may be available to Vendors who participate in our Marketplace from time to time and at the Business’s discretion. If an additional benefit is offered, consider it above and beyond the scope of these terms, with no guarantee it will be continued.

As needed, these benefits may be subject to change or modification.

The Business makes no warranty that being in the Marketplace will result in sales or increased traffic.

It is possible you will see listings or collection pages within our Marketplace that differ from the benefits described in these terms. For example, some vendors have more allotted listings, images, enhanced descriptions, etc. This is because some of our vendors joined during a time where benefits were different. You should always determine your actual benefits from these terms and conditions and not from other vendor listings.

HEARTBEAT APP
We use Heartbeat as our community and billing platform. You may learn more by reading their terms of use and privacy policy. 

COMMUNITY TERMS
Upon joining our community in Heartbeat, you will be presented with additional terms which specifically apply to our community rules and guidelines. These are subject to change and can be accessed once you have joined our community.

PRODUCT APPROVAL
The Business vets each product that enters the Marketplace for its quality of design and production, and Catholic marketability. We have strict selection criteria and cannot guarantee all products will be accepted. Even Vendors with a previous product in the Marketplace may not have subsequent products accepted. Refunds and/or pro-rating of subscriptions will not be provided for Vendors who have products denied.

You are allowed to submit multiple products at once for pre-approval before paying for your plan. This is highly recommended.

After payment, additional products may still be added, if approved.

ALLOTTED NUMBER OF LISTINGS
Upon joining, you’ll be given an allotted number of product listings for the year. Opportunities to purchase additional listings may be available. Once a product is approved and listed, that counts as one listing, even if you decide to deactivate it later. Listings can’t be swapped out throughout the year.

PRODUCT VARIANTS
We are unable to set up a listing to toggle between variants. For example, if a book is available in both hardcover and softcover, we recommend simply including this information in your book description. Once the customer clicks your link and goes to your product page, they can see the variants you offer.

For books that have different covers this would require a separate listing per book. For example, it is fine to include in your description that “the journal comes in 5 different colors,” but the listing would only link to the sales page of the exact journal you have listed.

We generally have a “no stuffing” policy. This means you can’t add a bunch of content or images to your listing of other products or other color/cover variations as a way to bypass your allotted number of listings. Our exception to this rule is if you already have all the products listed separately. It would then be fine to include an image of all 5 journals together as a non-dominant image for each listing, or to show that they are available as a bundle. However, creating a separate bundle listing, would count as a new listing.

HANDMADE PRODUCTS
Our exception to the Variant rule above is one-time handmade products. For example, if you make custom bookmarks or books that are each individual and unique, you are allowed to create a general listing per category. E.g., let’s say you make holy cards out of old greeting card images. You have 100’s of holy cards for sale, but you only have 1 in stock of each image. You could create one listing for a Variety of Handmade Holy Cards and include a more general description and sample images. The link would need to take a customer to your Holy Cards collection page.

CREATING A LISTING
The Vendor is responsible for filling out a form to provide product details. Listings will be reviewed by the Business and approved or temporarily rejected with necessary changes requested. The Vendor should fill out the form exactly as they’d like their product listed, including accurate details, spelling, grammar, and formatting.

The Business is not responsible or liable for any listing errors. It is the responsibility of the Vendor to review listings for accuracy.

EDITING A LISTING
Once a year, during your subscription renewal, you are allowed to request edits be made to your listing(s). In between this time, only substantial edits will be made by the Business, if requested. A substantial change would be something like: your book received an Imprimatur or Catholic Writers Guild Seal of Approval; your website link is broken; or there is an error in your product description that would affect a customer’s experience. Small changes will need to wait until the time of renewal. Small changes include things like: updated photos, preferred link changes, changes to descriptions, minor price fluctuations, etc.

The Vendor should always notify the Business of any urgent changes needed on listings.

The Business reserves the right, but with no obligation, to edit product listings. This includes, but is not limited to: descriptions, such as for clarity, relevance, adherence to these Terms and Conditions, length, and spelling and grammar errors; adding or removing product tags and categories; changing a link to more accurately represent the product listed; editing meta data, etc.

If at any point, the Vendor needs to deactivate a listing, they may request this. Refunds are not provided for disabled listings. We are unable to turn listings off and on multiple times. This should only be done if requesting permanent deactivation. This still counts as a used product listing and will not free up a new product listing until time of renewal.

PRODUCT PRICES
The product price you provide should match the retail price that appears on the sales page that you direct customers to. If the sales price fluctuates, enter the standard retail price. Our site will list your product price with a disclaimer that it is approximate. Therefore, it is okay if your price on our website does not always match exactly. We may also adjust the price, with or without notice, if we feel the price you provided does not accurately reflect the standard price of your product. If you ever feel the price that is listed in our Marketplace is considerably off, you may contact us to discuss.

PRODUCT IMAGES
Images should be bright, clear, free from clutter, and accurately depict your product. Low quality images may be rejected.

Each product listing may have up to 5 images. Each image may not be larger than 1MB. Images submitted larger than 1MB may be rejected. Vendors should check and reduce file sizes before uploading.

The Vendor will not upload any images in which they do not have copyright or written permission to use. Any required photo credits will be listed in the product description.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS
The Product description solely describes the product being listed and nothing else. Descriptions are not to be used to talk about other products or services. No links are allowed unless necessary and specifically related to the product. Images and videos are not permitted within the description. The Vendor will not include any content in which they do not have copyright or written permission to use. Any required credits will be listed in the product description.

PERMISSIONS
The Vendor shall provide and grant use of images and descriptions of products to the Business to be used in our Marketplace. While not guaranteed, it is possible the products will be promoted in other ways. As such, the Vendor also grants use of images and descriptions in other promotional and marketing efforts, such as, but not limited to social media, e-blasts, marketing materials, and blog posts. The Vendor retains all rights to all images and descriptions of products provided.

LINKS AND AFFILIATE LINKS
The Vendor must provide one link for each product. The link should take a customer to the Vendor’s preferred sales page for that specific product. This might be Amazon, Etsy, your own website, etc. It should not take a customer to a broken link, insecure link, full catalog, homepage, or other website that would make it challenging for the customer to immediately find the product they are looking to purchase. The Business is not liable for faulty, insecure, or misleading links.

The Vendor is not allowed to use their own Affiliate links. This gets too complicated, as FTC guidelines require disclosure of this information.

Link tracking (number of clicks) are not provided by the Business. It is recommended that the Vendor monitor referrals using their own analytics, such as using Google Analytics to monitor how much traffic our site brings you.

VENDOR NAME

Upon joining, you may indicate your preferred Vendor name. This can be your name, your pen name, or your business name. You get ONE vendor name for all products you list, so please make sure you use the same name anytime you submit a form to us.

MARKETPLACE PRODUCT ORDER AND CATEGORIES
The Business has full control over the order in which products are listed on our website and within Vendor collections. It may be alphabetical, random, or based on other factors, and may change at any time.

The Business also has full control over the categories, tags, and filters used to organize products. These are subject to change, addition, and removal.

PLAN RENEWALS
Renewing your plan keeps your current listings active and is the one time product edits and swapping of products is allowed. Your total allotted listings stay the same, but you can decide if you want to continue to list your active products or swap them out for new ones.

Failure to renew will deactivate your Products within the Marketplace.

ASSIGNMENT AND SUBCONTRACTING
The Business may assign the Agreement or any part of it to any person, firm or company. This includes the Business changing its name. The Vendor shall not be entitled to assign the Agreement or subcontract any part of it without the prior written consent of the Business.

WARRANTY
The Vendor warrants and represents that (subject to the other provisions of these conditions) all Products and listings shall not infringe any person’s Intellectual Property Rights or other rights and will not be in contravention of any applicable laws.

INDEMNITY
The Vendor shall indemnify the Business in full against all liability, loss, damages, costs and expenses (including legal expenses) awarded against or incurred or paid by the Vendor or the Business as a result of or in connection with these terms and conditions, including anything arising after contract termination.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
The Business shall not acquire any intellectual property rights or license relating to the Products.

If any claim is made against the Business that the Products or Listings infringe the patent, copyright, design, trademark or other industrial or intellectual property rights of any other person, the Vendor shall indemnify the Business against any liability incurred by the Business (including associated expenses reasonably incurred) in connection with the claim.

TERMINATION
The Business and the Vendor agree that the term of the Agreement shall commence upon acceptance of these terms and shall continue for as long thereafter as the Vendor remains in the Marketplace.

If the Business or the Vendor is not satisfied with the terms of this Agreement, and the results thereof, either party may terminate this Agreement for any reason by written notice to the other aforementioned party and/or termination of participation in the Marketplace.

The Vendor may choose to remove products and/or leave the Marketplace at any time. However, reimbursement for prepaid listings will not be provided.

If the Business determines the Vendor has breached this contract, they may be removed along with their Products from the Marketplace, without reimbursement. 

The obligations and liabilities of the Vendor incurred prior to the termination date shall survive the termination of this agreement for all purposes.

WAIVER
No waiver by the Business of any breach of the Agreement by the Vendor shall be considered as a waiver of any subsequent breach of the same or any other provision.

SEVERANCE
If any provisions of this Agreement are held by any competent authority to be invalid or unenforceable in whole or in part the validity of the other provisions of this Agreement and the remainder of the provisions in question shall not be affected thereby.

NO RIGHTS FOR THIRD PARTIES
A person who is not a party to this Agreement shall have no right under this Agreement.

DISPUTE RESOLUTION
If any dispute, controversy or claim between the parties arises out of or in connection with this Agreement, they shall use all reasonable endeavors to resolve the matter amicably. This document is governed by and is to be construed in accordance with the laws of Michigan, USA applicable therein. Each party irrevocably and unconditionally submits to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Michigan (and any court of appeal) and waives any right to object to an action being brought in those courts, including on the basis of an inconvenient forum or those courts not having jurisdiction.

COUNTERPARTS
This Agreement may be executed in any number of counterparts and by the parties to it on separate counterparts, each of which shall be an original but all of which together shall constitute one and the same instrument.

UPDATE TO THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS
The Business may update these Terms and Conditions from time to time. Changes will be effective upon the posting of the changes and the “last date updated” will appear at the top. The Vendor is responsible for reviewing and becoming familiar with any changes. Participation in the Marketplace following the changes constitutes the Vendor's acceptance of the updated Terms and Conditions.

NOTICES
Any notice or other formal communication to be given under this Agreement shall be in writing, with the preferred communication method of email.
E-mail address: marketplace@thyolivetree.com
Mailing Address: ATTN: Kate Frantz, Thy Olive Tree, PO Box 1672, Portage, Michigan, 49081 United States of America (An email to notify of correspondence sent to the P.O. box is required.)