Your work, your rights

Riffable is free

You don't pay to take part, write, publish or download the books you have access to. There are no subscriptions or credits. Groups and communities can also write together for free.

Every riff belongs to whoever wrote it

Every passage you write, called a riff, stays yours. You keep the authorship and rights to it without transferring them to Riffable or anyone else.

When you join a shared story, you allow other authors to continue your passage and create new paths from it. You also allow the organizer to include it in the book's free editions on Riffable, new ones included, always with credit to you and without asking again each time.

This permission covers only that work, on Riffable. Any other use of your text is up to you, as explained below.

Everyone is credited

• In the story, the author's name appears next to every riff.
• In the book and EPUB file, every passage carries its writer's name. The “Authors of this work” page shows how many words each person contributed.
• Even someone who contributed a single riff gets credit for their passage.

Who can download the book

Anyone can read public books on the site. The EPUB file can be downloaded by the organizer and any author with a riff in the published edition.

Having the file does not authorize selling the book or distributing it outside Riffable. This applies to the organizer and to every co-author.

How Riffable uses the work

Riffable hosts and displays the work on the platform. It may also promote it on its pages, social media and promotional materials, using the title, cover, short excerpts and authors' names, always with credit.

Riffable doesn't sell the work, license it to third parties or publish it outside the platform. It doesn't receive royalties from it either.

For promotion, we only use the username and avatar you chose for your public profile, not other personal images of you. If you'd rather not appear in these materials, write to contact@getriffable.com and we'll remove your identifying details.

Selling the book or using it in another project

To sell the book, in print or through stores such as Amazon KDP, Apple Books and Google Play, or to publish it outside Riffable, you need a prior agreement between the organizer and every author with a riff in that edition. No one sells alone. If an author doesn't agree, the edition with their text can't be sold, but it stays published for free on Riffable.

Taking someone else's riff into another work, such as another story, an anthology or a standalone book, also requires their permission. Removing the author's name or disguising the text doesn't change that.

The “Authors of this work” page shows how many words each person wrote. That number helps the conversation, but it doesn't decide how much each person gets. The authors can agree on a different split, taking into account organizing, editing, art and expenses.

The agreement is between you. It can be made through Riffable's messages or any other way. Riffable doesn't write, approve or manage that agreement, doesn't collect or pass on payments and takes no commission.

After publishing

The story can keep receiving riffs and chapters after it becomes a book. Each edition preserves the content published at that point, and new contributions can be included in future editions.

Because other people write on top of your riff, the permission for the work isn't withdrawn just because you change your mind, before or after publication. As long as no one has continued a riff of yours, you can delete it: the text stops existing and won't be in future editions. Editions already published stay as they are.

If you delete your account, your riffs remain in the story anonymously, but your credit is preserved in editions already published.

Worlds and characters

Worlds and characters exist to be used in other stories. Whoever creates them allows any work on Riffable to use them, including works that are later sold, with no agreement needed. The creator keeps the authorship of the sheet, the premise and the images and should receive credit in the works that use them.