Risk, Exit & Who We Are

You'd be inconvenienced, not destroyed — by design. The assets that matter survive independently of us: the app listing and install base live on your developer accounts; your reader data is yours and exportable at any time (test the export whenever you like — see 3.9); your content files are yours; and the DRM is Readium LCP, an open standard operated by an independent non-profit ecosystem (EDRLab), not our proprietary lock — LCP-protected libraries don't die with any single vendor. The platform's service — the running backend — would need replacing, and that's real disruption we don't minimise: readers' apps would need a successor platform behind them. But compare the failure modes across the market: a shared-app vendor's failure deletes your channel and your readers' libraries outright; ours leaves you holding the app, the audience, the data and openly-licensed content, shopping for a new engine rather than a new life. See 8.2 for continuity specifics.

The strongest continuity provision isn't a contract clause — it's the structure: the app sits on your developer accounts, your reader data is exportable in full at any time, and your content is protected by Readium LCP, an open standard rather than a proprietary lock. Contractual continuity commitments — wind-down notice periods and data-return guarantees — are stated in the agreement, and we'll walk your FD through them before signature.

You keep: the app (it's on your developer accounts — listing, ratings, install base), your readers (full data export: identities, consents, purchase history, engagement data — see 3.9), your content (your files, plus LCP-protected copies readable in any LCP-compliant system), and your storefront (it was always yours). Offboarding on 30 days' notice involves: final data export and verification, transfer of any operational credentials, and an agreed reader-communication plan for the service transition. What leaving costs you: the platform's running services (delivery, sync, analytics, care) until a successor is in place. What it doesn't cost you: your audience, your asset, or your history. We'd rather be kept by merit than by moat — and an exit this clean is only a risk to vendors who expect customers to want one.

We're early, and we won't pretend otherwise. We share adoption data from our founding publisher cohort at the demo, plus direct reference calls where publishers have agreed to take them. What we won't do is decorate this page with logos of houses that ran a pilot once. The platform's economics don't require you to take adoption on faith — bring your own catalogue to the demo and the evidence is your own titles, your own readers, your own numbers.

Eden Interactive has run consumer ecommerce since 1999 and has operated Eden.co.uk — one of the UK's largest independent online book retailers — since 2004, serving over three million customers and selling many millions of books. That matters for a specific reason: Publish360 wasn't built by a software company guessing at retail; it's the productisation of two decades of actually selling books to actual readers — merchandising, checkout, customer care, promotion cycles, Christmas peaks and all. We're also an EDRLab member (the European Digital Reading Lab, home of Readium and LCP), which anchors the platform's open-standards commitments in governance, not just marketing copy. The candid version of "why trust us": don't — verify us. The inspectable calculator, the exportable data and the 30-day notice period are all designed so that trust is continuously optional.

Two layers. In transit and at rest, content lives encrypted on the platform's infrastructure with access controlled per reader entitlement. At the reader's device, Readium LCP encrypts every delivered file with per-user licensing — a copied file is unreadable without its licence, which is revocable and expirable (that's also what makes lending/subscription mechanics enforceable — see 2.9). No DRM prevents determined piracy — anyone who claims otherwise is selling something — but LCP raises the effort above the casual-sharing threshold where nearly all leakage actually happens, without punishing legitimate readers with the account-and-authorisation rituals that made older DRM infamous. Review copies deserve special mention: access codes with expiring licences (see 5.6) close publishing's leakiest pipe — the emailed PDF.

Professional indemnity, cyber liability and public liability cover are in place, with certificates available on request — ask at the demo or during procurement and we'll send the current schedule the same day, so your procurement team gets what it needs without an email round-trip.

Seven questions, and we'll answer all of them on this page or at the demo: (1) Whose developer account is the app published under — and what happens to the install base if we separate? (See 4.2.) (2) Who is merchant of record, and does our revenue flow through your accounts? (See 1.10.) (3) What DRM do you use, and is it an open standard or your proprietary lock? (See 4.4.) (4) Who controls our reader data, under what DPA, and in what format do we get it back? (See 3.3, 3.9.) (5) What does exit actually involve — walk us through offboarding. (See 8.3.) (6) What are the total costs — setup, commission, transaction fees, delivery/bandwidth, and fee-growth as we grow? (See 1.1, 5.8.) (7) Show us adoption evidence from live publishers — or tell us honestly that you're early. (See 8.4.) We've published this list because the comparison genuinely favours structures like ours — and because a publisher who asks all seven of every vendor will make a good decision even if it isn't us. That's the confident version of candour, and it's the house style.