Terms of Use

Welcome to selfmadecook.com (the "Site"), run by Curtis Shaw ("we," "us"). By using the Site you agree to these terms. If you don't agree, please don't use the Site — no hard feelings.

What this site is

The Site publishes home-cooking recipes, photos, and articles, free to read, for your personal, non-commercial use. It also sells digital recipe books and offers member accounts — those parts have their own rules, in "Buying a book" and "Member accounts" below.

Our content is ours

The recipes as written here — the prose, the step sequences, the tips, the photographs, and the video stills — are original work created for SelfMadeCook. You're welcome to cook from them, print them for your own kitchen, and share links to them. You may not scrape, republish, or repost the recipes, text, or images elsewhere (including AI-dataset use) without written permission. A dish itself can't be owned — but this presentation of it is.

Food safety & allergies — please read

Recipes are provided as-is, from a home kitchen, not a test lab. Cooking times and temperatures vary with your equipment and ingredients — always verify that meat, poultry, and seafood reach a safe internal temperature before serving, and use your judgment about anything that looks or smells off. If you or anyone you're feeding has a food allergy or a medical dietary requirement, check every ingredient label yourself and consult a professional — ingredient swaps mentioned in recipes or comments are ideas, not medical advice. You cook at your own risk, and we can't accept responsibility for outcomes in your kitchen.

Buying a book

What's for sale. Four digital products: the complete collection, “Don't Worry, I Got You” (68 recipes, $19.99); the two shorter books, “The No-Pork Kitchen” ($5.99) and “Weeknight One-Pot Favorites” ($5.99); and “The Whole Shelf” bundle ($24.95) — all of the above plus the SelfMadeCook Vault, a PDF extras collection delivered through Gumroad. Where the bundle mentions future additions (the Vault's on-site access, a next mini book), those are delivered to your Gumroad library if and when they ship — the price never changes and nothing recurs. Each purchase is a download — PDF and, for the books, EPUB. There is nothing physical to ship, and no subscription or recurring charge of any kind.

Who you're buying from. Every purchase goes through Gumroad, which is the merchant of record and the seller for the transaction. Gumroad takes the payment, handles sales tax and VAT where it applies, and sends your receipt and download links. We never see or store your card details. Gumroad's terms and privacy policy govern the payment itself; these terms govern the book you get and what you may do with it.

Delivery. Your files are available immediately after payment, from Gumroad, and stay in your Gumroad library. When a book is updated — new recipes, a new edition — the new files land in that same library at no extra charge. If a download fails, tell us through the contact page and we'll get you the file.

What you're licensed to do. Buying a book gives you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use it: read it on your own devices, print it for your own kitchen, and cook from it as much as you like, forever. You don't own the copyright, and the licence is for you.

What you may not do. Don't resell, rent, sub-licence, or give away the files; don't upload them to a file-sharing site, a group chat, a Drive folder, or anywhere else public; don't reproduce the recipes or photos in your own product, blog, or video; and don't feed the book into an AI training set. Buying one copy for a household is fine and always will be — redistribution is where it stops. If you want to use anything commercially, ask; the answer is often yes.

Refunds. The books are digital files delivered instantly, and the recipes inside them are published free on this site — all 68 of them in the complete collection, all 24 in “The No-Pork Kitchen”, and all 20 in “Weeknight One-Pot Favorites”. Every one of those recipes has its own page here, with the full ingredient list and the steps, so before you spend anything you can read the actual recipes, in full, for nothing, and decide whether the way I write them works for you. What a book adds is the form: one organised, printable, ad-free file that's yours to keep. Because they're delivered instantly and the recipes are free to read first, these are sold as final sale: no refunds. That's set on the Gumroad listing itself, so you'll see it before you pay, not after.

If something is actually wrong — the file won't download, it's corrupted, you were charged twice, or you got the wrong book — that's not a refund question, that's us owing you a fix. Email through the contact page and we'll sort it out.

None of this removes any statutory refund or cancellation right you have where you live. Consumer law in your country takes precedence over anything written here.

Member accounts

Accounts are free and optional. They let you save recipes and unlock cookbook content online if you own the book. Keep your sign-in email secure, don't share access, and don't try to reach content you haven't bought. We may suspend an account that's being used to redistribute paid content. You can close your account at any time — ask through the contact page and we'll delete it, as described in the Privacy Policy.

Third-party services

The Site relies on and links to services we don't control: Netlify (hosting and forms), Supabase (accounts), Gumroad (our recipe books), MailerLite (the weekly email), YouTube (videos), and Google Fonts, Google Analytics and Google AdSense. The Privacy Policy names each one and what it receives. Their terms govern your use of their services, and we're not responsible for their content or practices.

No warranties; limitation of liability

The Site and the books are provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from your use of the Site, the books, or the recipes in them. Nothing in these terms limits liability that can't be limited by law, and none of it affects the consumer rights you have where you live — including your refund rights, which are set out above.

Accessibility

We're working to keep this Site usable for everyone. What we target, what we know still falls short, and how to report a problem are on the accessibility page.

Changes

We may update these terms from time to time; the "last updated" date above reflects the current version. Continuing to use the Site after a change means you accept the updated terms. A change never applies retroactively to a book you've already bought.

Contact

Questions about these terms? Email hello@selfmadecook.com or use the contact page.