Terms of service
What you're agreeing to when you order. Written to be read, not to be survived.
These terms cover The Dewey DeciMail Club (“we”, “us”) and this website. Placing an order means you accept them. The seller of record is The Dewey DeciMail Club.
1. What we sell
A monthly mailer: an envelope of handmade items chosen to go with one book. The book itself is never included. We say this on the home page, in the FAQ, on a stamped callout, and now here, because it is the single thing most likely to be misunderstood. If you ordered expecting a book, see refunds — we will make it right.
Contents vary month to month. Every month includes original art and original writing; everything else depends on the book. One item per envelope is deliberately not described in advance.
2. Ordering
- Ordering opens on the 1st of each month and closes at the end of the last day, US Pacific time. Orders are made after the window closes, in one batch.
- There are two ways to order, chosen at checkout: a one-time order for that month only, which never charges you again, or auto-renew, described in section 3.
- Prices are shown before you pay and include the mailer plus flat-rate postage. The price is recomputed on our server when you check out, so what you are charged is always the listed price.
- We may cancel and fully refund an order if something is mispriced, out of stock, or undeliverable. If we cancel, you pay nothing.
3. Auto-renew
If you choose auto-renew, the card you paid with is stored by Stripe and charged automatically for each following month. Your delivery address and quantity carry over from the order that started it, so there is nothing to fill in again.
- You are told before every charge. Three days before each month’s window closes we email you naming that month’s book, with a one-click link to skip it.
- The charge is taken on the day the window closes — the last day of the month, US Pacific time — at that month’s listed price plus postage. Prices can change month to month; the reminder email tells you what the book is before the charge, and skipping costs nothing.
- Skipping is per month and needs no cancellation. A skip applies to that month only and clears itself when the next window opens.
- You can cancel at any time, from the link in any email or from your subscription page. Cancelling stops all future charges. It does not refund a charge already taken — see section 6.
- If a renewal charge fails, we email you a secure link to update your card. No envelope is made and nothing is owed until a charge succeeds.
4. Payment
Card payments are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your full card number. Your order is only confirmed once Stripe tells us the payment succeeded.
5. Shipping
Everything for a given month ships in one batch on that month’s stated ship date. It travels as ordinary stamped mail: no tracking number, typically 5–14 days. We post within the United States only and cannot deliver to addresses outside it.
You are responsible for the address you enter. Orders with a delivery address outside the United States will be cancelled and refunded in full.
Delivery estimates are estimates. Mail is genuinely unpredictable, and that is the trade for something that costs a stamp instead of a shipping label. Lost mail is replaced free — see refunds and replacements.
6. Refunds
Refunds, replacements and the case-by-case exceptions are set out in full on the refunds page, which forms part of these terms. A renewal charge is refundable on the same footing as any other order: in full until that month’s window closes, and after that only in the circumstances described there, because by then it has been made.
7. What you may do with what we send you
The art and writing in each envelope are original and remain ours. You bought a copy, and you can do the things you’d expect to do with a thing you own: keep it, frame it, give it away, post a photo of it, stick the sticker on your laptop.
Please don’t reproduce the artwork or writing for sale, print it at scale, or use it commercially without asking. Asking is usually fine — write to hello@thedeweydecimailclub.com.
Books discussed on this site belong to their authors and publishers. We quote briefly and with attribution, and we don’t distribute anyone’s text.
8. Age
You need to be 18 or older to order, or have a parent or guardian do it. Some months’ books deal with adult subject matter; the book description on each volume’s page is written to tell you honestly what you are getting into.
9. Things we can’t promise
The site is provided as is. We can’t promise it will never be offline or never contain a mistake. To the extent the law allows, our total liability for any order is limited to what you paid for that order. Nothing here limits liability for anything that can’t legally be limited.
10. Changes
We may update these terms. The version in force for your order is the one published when you placed it, and the date at the top of this page tells you when it last changed. Substantive changes get mentioned in the monthly email.
11. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of California, USA. If we disagree about something, email first — it has always worked so far.