Affiliate Programme Terms

Version 2026-10-03. Valid from 3 October 2026.

These Affiliate Programme Terms supplement the General Terms and Conditions of Shelf Publisher. Where they say nothing, the General Terms and Conditions apply. Where they conflict, these Affiliate Programme Terms prevail for the affiliate relationship.

Provider: Orbita Media GmbH, Ericusspitze 4, 20457 Hamburg, Germany (see the Legal Notice).

1. Participation requires our approval

1.1 Participation in the affiliate programme is not open automatically. An account holder applies through the Platform. We decide at our discretion whether to approve the application. There is no claim to approval and we do not have to give reasons for a refusal.

1.2 Participation begins when we release the affiliate functions in the account and the applicant has accepted these Affiliate Programme Terms in the version in force. Acceptance is recorded with the version number and a hash of the document.

1.3 Only account holders with complete and verified master data can be approved, because we have to settle commission by credit note and need the tax data for that.

1.4 The affiliate acts in its own name and for its own account. These terms do not create an employment relationship, an agency within the meaning of Sec. 84 of the German Commercial Code, a partnership, or a joint venture. The affiliate is not authorised to make declarations on behalf of Orbita, to grant discounts, or to promise services.

2. What the affiliate does

2.1 After approval the affiliate receives a personal referral link and a referral code. The affiliate may draw the attention of third parties to the Platform using its own channels, in particular a website, a newsletter, social media or a video channel.

2.2 Advertising must be recognisable as advertising. Every recommendation that is made in return for commission must be marked as advertising in a way that is clear and easy to see, in the language of the target audience, before the reader engages with it. Marking with a German or Italian word is required in the German and Italian markets; abbreviations in English are not sufficient there. This follows from Sec. 5a(4) of the German Act against Unfair Competition and from the equivalent rules in the affiliate's own country.

2.3 The affiliate is responsible for the content of its own advertising and for its lawfulness, including data protection law where the affiliate operates a website, sends e-mails or sets cookies.

3. Commission

3.1 Basis of the commission. The affiliate receives 10 % of the Net Amounts that Orbita receives from a referred customer.

3.2 Net Amounts are all amounts that the referred customer actually pays to Orbita for packages and other paid services, excluding value added tax and after deduction of discounts, coupons, refunds, withdrawals, chargebacks and payment service provider fees.

3.3 The commission is paid on every purchase of the referred customer for as long as the referral link under clause 4 exists, not only on the first purchase.

3.4 What is not a basis for commission. No commission is paid on:

• a) the referred customer's own earnings from book sales; those belong to that customer and are not reduced by the affiliate programme;
• b) amounts that were paid with wallet credit rather than with new money;
• c) amounts that are refunded, withdrawn, charged back, or never received;
• d) purchases made by the affiliate itself or by a person or entity that the affiliate controls or that shares a household with the affiliate;
• e) purchases of a customer who already had an account with the Platform before the referral, or who was already in contact with us about a purchase.

3.5 The commission rate applicable to a purchase is the rate in force at the time of that purchase. We may change the rate for the future with 30 days' notice in text form. The change does not affect commission already earned. If the affiliate does not accept the new rate, the affiliate may terminate the participation with effect from the date the new rate takes effect.

3.6 The commission arises when the payment of the referred customer has finally been received and the period for withdrawal and chargeback has expired, at the earliest 30 days after payment.

4. Referral link, attribution, and duration

4.1 A customer is attributed to an affiliate if the customer registers using the affiliate's referral link or referral code.

4.2 The referral link sets a cookie with a lifetime of 90 days. The cookie is only set with the consent of the visitor through our cookie banner. If the visitor does not consent, attribution takes place only if the referral code is entered during registration.

4.3 Once a customer has been registered through a referral, the attribution of that account to that affiliate is permanent and cannot be transferred to another affiliate, even if the customer later arrives through another link.

4.4 If several attributions are possible, the last referral link clicked before registration counts, unless a referral code was entered manually; the manually entered code always prevails.

4.5 The attribution ends when the affiliate participation ends (clause 8). Commission already earned remains owed.

5. What the affiliate must not do

The following are prohibited and constitute good cause for immediate termination:

• a) Self-referral: registering as a customer through one's own link, or having a purchase made through one's own link for one's own benefit;
• b) Second accounts and straw persons: creating further accounts, having accounts created by family members, employees or third parties for the purpose of generating commission, or using the identity of another person;
• c) Cookie dropping and cookie stuffing: setting the referral cookie without a deliberate click by the visitor, in particular through invisible iframes, automatic redirects, pixels, pop-unders, browser extensions or scripts;
• d) Misleading advertising: statements about guaranteed sales figures, guaranteed earnings, bestseller placements, a guarantee that a manuscript will be accepted, or about a cooperation with a retailer that does not exist;
• e) Brand bidding: booking the terms "Orbita", "Orbita Media", the name of the Platform, or misspellings of them as keywords in search engine advertising, and using them in the visible advertisement text or in the display URL;
• f) Domains and profiles that contain the name Orbita or the name of the Platform, or that could give the impression of being an official page of Orbita;
• g) Unsolicited advertising: e-mail, messenger or telephone advertising without the prior express consent of the recipient (Sec. 7 of the German Act against Unfair Competition), and posting in forums and comment sections against their rules;
• h) advertising on pages with content that is unlawful, glorifies violence, pornographic, harmful to minors, or that infringes the rights of others;
• i) using the Orbita logo, screenshots or texts in a modified form or in a context that damages our reputation. Unmodified use of the material we provide is permitted for the duration of the participation;
• j) offering discounts, cash back, or any other financial advantage from the commission to the referred customer, unless we have agreed to it in text form;
• k) any attempt to circumvent the rules above with technical or organisational measures.

6. Checking, clawback, and forfeiture

6.1 We may check whether commission has been earned in accordance with these terms. For that purpose we evaluate the technical attribution data, the master data of the accounts involved, and, where necessary, publicly available information about the advertising used.

6.2 On request the affiliate shall tell us within 14 days which channels it uses for advertising and shall provide evidence of consent under clause 5 g) where e-mail advertising is used. If the affiliate does not comply, we may suspend the payout of commission until the information has been provided.

6.3 If commission was earned by breaching clause 5, the claim to that commission does not arise. Commission that has already been credited is reversed, and commission that has already been paid out is repaid. This does not affect our right to claim further damages.

6.4 If a breach of clause 5 a), b) or c) is established, we may declare the whole commission of the accounting period in which the breach occurred forfeited, and terminate the participation without notice. The forfeiture is limited to that accounting period, so that it stays in proportion to the breach.

6.5 Commission is also reversed if the underlying payment of the referred customer is later reversed, in particular through withdrawal, refund or chargeback. The reversal is set off against future commission.

7. Payment, credit notes, taxes

7.1 Commission is credited to the affiliate's Wallet (clause 13 of the General Terms and Conditions) and is paid out under the same rules, in particular the minimum payout amount.

7.2 We settle the commission by way of a credit note within the meaning of Sec. 14(2) sentence 2 of the German VAT Act. The affiliate agrees to this settlement procedure and may object to a credit note within 14 days of receipt.

7.3 The commission is income of the affiliate. The affiliate is responsible for declaring and taxing it in its own country. If the affiliate acts as an entrepreneur, the affiliate must give us the VAT identification number and the tax status, so that value added tax can be shown or the reverse charge applied. We do not give tax advice.

7.4 A statement of commission is available in the account at any time and shows, per referred customer, the date, the net basis and the commission.

8. Term and termination

8.1 Participation in the affiliate programme runs for an indefinite period. Both parties may terminate it in text form with 14 days' notice.

8.2 The right to terminate for good cause without notice remains unaffected. Good cause exists in particular in the case of a breach of clause 5.

8.3 On termination the referral links and codes are deactivated. Commission already earned before the end of the participation remains owed and is paid out under clause 7, unless clause 6.3 or 6.4 applies.

8.4 Termination of the affiliate participation does not affect the customer relationship of the affiliate as an author.

8.5 We may discontinue the affiliate programme as a whole with 3 months' notice.

9. Data protection

9.1 In the affiliate area the affiliate sees, for each referred customer, only the first name and the initial of the last name, the month of registration, the net basis of the commission and the commission itself. The affiliate does not see the e-mail address, the postal address, the telephone number, the titles published, the sales figures or the earnings of the referred customer.

9.2 The affiliate may not try to identify a referred customer beyond that, and may not use the data shown for any purpose other than checking its own commission. In particular the data may not be used to advertise to that customer.

9.3 How we process the data of affiliates and of referred customers, and on what legal basis, is set out in the Privacy Policy.

9.4 Where the affiliate itself processes personal data of visitors of its own channels, the affiliate is the controller for that processing and is responsible for its lawfulness, including the information duties and the cookie consent.

10. Liability and final provisions

10.1 Clause 15 of the General Terms and Conditions applies to our liability.

10.2 The affiliate shall indemnify us on first demand against claims of third parties, and against fines, that are based on the affiliate's own advertising breaching clause 2.2, clause 5 or the law, unless the affiliate is not responsible for the breach.

10.3 Clause 17 of the General Terms and Conditions applies to changes to these Affiliate Programme Terms, with the qualification that a change of the commission rate is governed by clause 3.5.

10.4 Clause 19 of the General Terms and Conditions applies to the governing law, the place of jurisdiction, the language and severability.