Street Team Terms & Conditions

These terms apply to the Inside Story Street Team — the reader promotion program, its points, quests, and leaderboard, its prizes, and the book entries authors submit to it. They sit alongside our main Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy. Joining the Street Team means accepting these terms.

1. What the Street Team Is

The Street Team is a shared book-promotion program:

• Readers pick up books from a shared board, post about them on social media, submit proof of the post, and earn points immediately on submission. Readers can also complete weekly quests for bonus points and a shot at a weekly prize.
• Points accumulate over a period (a calendar month, UTC) and rank readers on a leaderboard. Top-ranked readers win prizes, such as gift cards.
• Authors submit books to the board. Some entries are free (including as part of a paid Inside Story plan, or at our discretion); some are paid entries, which readers can additionally pay to boost for a higher points value.

Inside Story runs the program, sets and adjusts the rules, checks a period’s top-ranked posts before paying out, and awards prizes. Our decisions on points, eligibility, verification, and prizes are final.

2. Joining the Street Team

• You need a free Inside Story reader account. From the Street Team board, joining is one click and costs nothing.
• You can leave at any timeby resigning from your account settings. Resigning takes you off the leaderboard and stops new points, but keeps your history intact — your past posts, points, and any prizes already awarded are untouched. You can rejoin later and pick up where your history left off.
• We may pause, remove, or permanently ban a member for breaking these terms — see section 7.
• Deleting your Inside Story account entirely removes your Street Team identity (name, email, and the specific links/screenshots you posted) but keeps the aggregate point totals attributed to the books you promoted, since authors rely on that data and it doesn’t identify you.

3. Eligibility

• You must have an Inside Story account in good standing and meet the age requirement in our main Terms (currently 16+) to participate.
• To claim a prize you must be 18 or older and legally permitted to receive it where you live. If you are 16 or 17 you can take part and appear on the leaderboard, but prizes will pass to the next eligible reader.
• The program is open worldwide, except where taking part or receiving a prize would breach local law— it is void where prohibited. You are responsible for knowing the rules that apply to you.

4. Earning Points (Readers)

A post’s points are a base score for the post type, multiplied by how you accessed the book, then multiplied again if the book is on boost, with a capped bonus for engagement added last.

The access-method and boost multipliers stack— they don’t cap each other. A boosted paperback post scores 3× (paperback) × 2× (boost) = 6× the base points. An unboosted book is always 1× here, however you got it. Whether a post counts as “boosted” depends on whether the book was on boost on the day you posted, not the day you submit it — so a backdated post about a book that has since come off boost can still earn the boost multiplier if the book was boosted at the time.

Formula: post points = (base points × access-method multiplier × boost multiplier) + engagement bonus. The engagement bonus is worked out on its own and added after the multipliers, and is capped at +20 no matter how many milestones a post hits.

Points rules that always apply:

• You must submit proof of your post — a link, a screenshot, or both — when you log it. Points count immediately on submission; they are not held back pending review.
• Only the top-ranked posts get individually checked, and only once, at the end of a period, before we pay out its prizes: the eventual leaderboard winner’s posts first, then the runner-up’s if the winner’s don’t hold up, and so on down the standings. A post that is never in contention for a prize is unlikely to be individually checked, but every post remains subject to these terms and can be voided at any time if we find it broke them.
• We may cap points per book, per day, or per period, and may exclude posts that are low-effort, duplicated, spammy, or that don’t genuinely feature the book.
• If an author withdraws a book from the board early, posts already logged about it keep their points as a floor — we will only ever raise them (to your own recent average for other posts), never cut them, to protect readers who posted in good faith.
• Points have no cash value, are not transferable, and are not property. They exist only to rank the leaderboard for the current period and reset when it ends.

5. Disclosure Is Mandatory

Because points and prize eligibility are an incentive, every Street Team post is advertising and must be disclosed as such under the FTC’s Endorsement Guides, the UK CMA/ASA rules, and equivalent laws elsewhere.

• Every post must include the disclosure “Inside Story Street Team #ad” in a place people will actually see it.
• This disclosure is used uniformly, whether the book was free, gifted, borrowed on KU, or bought by you. It discloses the incentive relationship itself, not how you got the book.
• Use any platform-native paid-partnership label as well, where one is available.
• Posts without a proper disclosure earn no points and repeated failures can get you removed from the program.

6. Reviews Are Never Required or Rewarded

• No points are ever awarded for writing or posting a review, or for a rating, on any retailer or review site. Nothing in the Street Team is contingent on you leaving one.
• A Street Team post can be purely promotional (“out now”, “on my TBR”) with no opinion in it at all.
• If you do choose to share an opinion, it must be your honest one, and it must never be conditioned on being positive. Do not represent a paid or incentivized post as an organic, unpaid review.
• You are responsible for following the review rules of any retailer you post to (for example Amazon’s policy on incentivized reviews). If in doubt, keep retailer reviews separate from the Street Team.

7. Fraud & Prohibited Conduct

You must not:

• Fake, stage, edit, or reuse proof of a post, or submit a post that isn’t yours;
• Inflate engagement with bots, engagement pods, bought followers, click farms, or coordinated like-for-like schemes;
• Post without the required disclosure, or delete posts early to dodge checks;
• Run multiple accounts, or submit on behalf of someone else as if it were your own activity;
• Promote your own book (or one you have a financial interest in) through the Street Team for points;
• Misrepresent how you accessed a book to claim a higher access-method multiplier;
• Falsely self-report a weekly quest as completed.

Breaking these rules can mean voided points, forfeited prizes (including prizes already awarded but not yet delivered), and a permanent ban from the Street Team. Serious or repeated fraud may also mean losing your Inside Story account under the main Terms.

8. Leaderboard, Periods & Prizes

• Periods: the leaderboard runs in calendar-month periods (UTC) and resets to zero at the start of each one.
• Newcomer bracket: for your first three months of participation you compete in a separate bracket and prize pool from established members. Tenure is measured from your first logged submission.
• Secondary categories: alongside the main points leaderboard, we run separate recognition (and prizes) for “most posts” and “most books promoted”.
• Monthly prizes:the top three ranked readers in each category (main, most posts, most books promoted, and newcomer) currently receive Amazon gift-card vouchers of $30, $20, and $10 respectively. We may substitute any prize for one of equal or greater value, and may change these amounts — see section 12.
• Prizes are personal to the winner, not transferable, and not exchangeable for cash unless we say so.
• Winner verification: before a prize is sent we check a winner’s submissions and may ask them to confirm their identity, age, and eligibility. We can disqualify anyone who can’t be verified or who broke these terms, and move the prize to the next eligible reader.
• Delivery: prizes are usually sent by email (for example a gift-card code) to your account email within a reasonable time after the period closes and verification is complete.
• Taxes: any tax on a prize is the winner’s responsibility.
• Void periods: if a period is materially affected by a technical fault, abuse, or circumstances outside our control, we may extend it, re-run it, or void it and not award its prizes.

9. Weekly Quests

• Each week we feature a rotating set of quests — small extra tasks (for example logging posts in different formats, or reading activity in your library) that award bonus points on top of your regular post points when completed.
• Some quests are tracked automatically from your activity; others (where we have no way to verify the activity ourselves, such as a post made about Inside Story itself) are self-reported by you, with the same “counts immediately” approach as regular posts, and the same consequences under section 7 for falsely reporting one as done.
• Everyone who completes every featured quest in a week is entered into a random draw for a weekly prize (currently a $10 Amazon gift-card voucher). One winner is drawn per week.

10. Author Book Entries

• Entry types: free / ARC (you provide the book at no cost, or it’s an advance copy); KU (the book is in Kindle Unlimited, shown with a KU badge); and paid entry, where readers use their own ebook copy or buy the paperback.
• Free entry with a plan: a live campaign (ARC or beta) on an eligible paid Inside Story plan can be entered onto the board at no extra charge for as long as the campaign runs.
• Paid entry: any author, on any plan, can enter any of their own already-claimed books for $20 per 4-week block, purchasable in multiple blocks upfront or set to renew automatically every 4 weeks until cancelled.
• Paid “boost”:$25 per week, purchasable any number of times, applies the boost multiplier in section 4 to posts made about your book while it’s active. A boost window must fall inside your book’s own entry window — time outside it doesn’t count. A boost is not a guarantee of a number of posts, a level of reach, sales, reviews, ratings, or any particular result.
• Payment:fees are shown at checkout and charged through our payment processor. Once a paid entry or boost’s window has opened, payment is non-refundable, except where a refund is required by law or we agree one for an exceptional circumstance. We may also grant free or promotional entries at our discretion.
• Withdrawing early:if you remove a book from the board before its window closes, readers who already posted about it in the current period keep their points as a floor (see section 4) — withdrawing never reduces points already earned.
• Your responsibilities: you must have the right to distribute any file you upload and to authorize readers to post your cover, blurb, and short quotes; your book must comply with our main Terms’ content rules; and any KU or retailer-exclusivity status you declare must be accurate.
• We may decline or remove a book entry at our discretion, for example if it breaches content rules, if entitlement or payment lapses, or to keep the board balanced.

11. Content & Licenses

• Authors keep ownership of their books and materials. By entering a book, you grant Street Team readers and Inside Story a limited, revocable license to use the cover, title, blurb, and short promotional quotes to promote that book while it is on the board.
• Readers keep ownership of the posts they create. By submitting a post, you grant Inside Story a non-exclusive license to reference, display, and screenshot it to run and verify the program, to resolve disputes, and to showcase the Street Team (for example on this site or in our own marketing).
• The link and/or screenshot you submit for a post is also visible to that book’s author, so they can see what’s being posted about their book.
• Readers are responsible for making sure their posts comply with the rules of the platform they post on and don’t infringe anyone else’s rights.

12. Kindle Unlimited & Retailers

A KU badge on a book is informational only, to tell readers they can access it through Kindle Unlimited. Inside Story is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Amazon, Kindle Unlimited, or any other retailer or social platform. You are responsible for complying with those services’ own terms when you borrow, buy, read, or post.

13. Changes, Suspension & Termination

• We may change the points values, multipliers, brackets, categories, quests, period length, prizes, pricing, and these terms. For material changes we’ll give reasonable notice (for example by email or on the Street Team page) and, where practical, apply them from the start of the next period.
• We may suspend or discontinue the Street Team, or a period, at any time. If we discontinue it, we will still award prizes for any period that has properly completed.
• You can leave the program at any time (section 2). We can remove or ban you for breaching these terms or the main Terms. Leaving or being removed ends any unclaimed points and pending prize eligibility going forward, but doesn’t undo prizes already awarded.

14. Disclaimers & Liability

The Street Team is provided “as is”. To the fullest extent the law allows, and in addition to the limitations in section 10 of our main Terms & Conditions, we are not liable for:

• lost, delayed, or miscounted points, or a missed place on the leaderboard;
• a prize that is delayed, undelivered by a third party, or reduced in value (for example a gift-card provider changing its terms);
• anything a social platform or retailer does to your account or posts, including removing content or restricting reach;
• the results, or lack of results, of any promotion — free or paid;
• tax, or the consequences of you not disclosing a post properly.

15. Privacy

To run the Street Team we process your name, email, the social accounts and posts you submit, your points and standings, and — for winners — what we need to verify eligibility and deliver a prize. We use this to operate the program, prevent fraud, award and send prizes, and contact you about the Street Team (you can control most of these emails from your notification settings). We keep it while you take part and for a reasonable period afterwards for records, tax, and dispute purposes. See our Privacy Policy for your rights and how to exercise them.

16. Contact

Questions about the Street Team, these terms, or a submission? Email us at [email protected].