Who we are and how to contact us
Bookish Badger is a trading name. In this document “we”, “us” and “our” mean the person or business named as the seller in the Business details of our Terms of sale, Returns, Privacy notice and Contact us pages, trading as Bookish Badger. Those pages give the seller’s name, geographic address and, where they apply, company and VAT details. Every page gives our email addresses. We are the controller of the personal data described in this notice, which means we decide how and why it is used.
For anything about your personal data, email our privacy address in the Business details, or write to our address. We are a small business and are not required to appoint a data protection officer; we handle requests ourselves.
Browsing the site
When you visit the Site, our hosting provider receives the technical information every website receives: your IP address, browser and device type, the page you asked for, the page you came from and the time. We use it to deliver the Site, keep it secure and investigate faults and misuse.
On forms that need protection from automated abuse (sign-in, sign-up, password reset, support and author enquiries) we use Cloudflare Turnstile. It checks information about your browser and device to tell people from bots, and tells us only whether the check was passed.
We also measure how the Site is used with PostHog analytics: without cookies by default, and with cookies only if you agree, as our Cookies and analytics notice explains.
Your account
If you create an account we keep your name or display name, email address, a securely hashed password if you set one, whether your email is verified, your account type (reader or author) and when you joined. If you sign in with an emailed code, we keep the code briefly. If you use a passkey, we keep its public key and identifier (never your fingerprint or face). If you sign in with Google or Discord, we receive from them your account identifier, name, email address and, if available, profile picture.
For each signed-in session we keep a session identifier, its expiry, and the IP address and browser it was started from. We also keep counters that limit how often sign-in and other actions can be attempted.
Orders, payment and delivery
When you buy, we keep your email address, name, delivery address, a phone number for the delivery service (print books only), the Books, formats and quantities you ordered, prices, delivery charge and total, whether you chose a signed copy, the confirmations you gave at checkout (including your agreement to immediate EPUB access), payment references from Stripe, and the order’s fulfilment, tracking, refund and email history.
Stripe collects your payment details on its own payment page. We receive confirmation of payment and limited details such as the payment reference and amount; we never receive your full card details.
For EPUBs we keep a record of each download grant, the number of downloads used and when access ends. If you send an EPUB to your Kindle, we use the Kindle address you enter only to send that email, and we do not keep it with your account or order.
Order emails contain a private link to your Order Page. We keep a secure fingerprint of that link (not the link itself), the private sessions opened with it, and records used to prevent misuse.
Signed copies
If you order a signed copy, we share your name and delivery address with that Book’s author so they can sign and post it on our behalf. The author sees them only while the copy is waiting to be sent, may use them only to post your copy, and the details are erased from that task when the copy is marked as sent or the order is refunded. We never share your email address with authors.
Reviews and the community
Reviews: your display name, rating, title and text, the Book, when you posted, its moderation status, whether it is a “Verified purchase” (worked out by matching your account email address to paid orders for that Book), helpful votes you give, and any author reply.
Following and shelves: the authors you follow and the Books on your shelves (want to read, reading, read), with the time of each change. These are private: others see only how many followers an author has, never who.
Reader profile: if you switch one on, your handle, display name and bio become public. Your shelves become public only if you separately choose that. Your email address and account identifiers are never shown.
Author updates, comments and likes: what you post, when, and the updates you like. Comments show your display name.
Reports and moderation: when you report something we keep the report, your reason and your account, and we never tell the person reported who reported them. We keep records of moderation decisions (who decided, when and why) and an audit log of community activity that records account identifiers, actions, counts and outcomes, but not the text of posts.
Services listings and Connect requests
If you use Services in the Burrow we keep: your acceptance of the Services rules (the version, when, and your confirmation that you are 18 or over); each listing you post (its type, title, summary, description, category, tags, price information as you enter it, links, the contact routes you choose to share, its status and dates); and what other members can see with it, which is your display name, handle and any author mark. The contact routes you choose to share are private. They are shown only to a member you agree to be contacted by.
Connect requests: when you send one we keep who sent it, the listing, the note (a short plain-text message), when it was sent, how the poster responded and when, and when contact routes were shown. The member who posted the listing sees the note and the name and handle your account shows. We do not handle payment for anything on Services and we keep no payment details for it.
Who can see it: listings are shown to other members and, for Offering listings, to visitors; Wanted listings can be limited to signed-in members. People who run the Site can see listings and any content that has been reported. They do not read Connect notes as a matter of routine, and can read one only if it has been reported or the law requires us to disclose it (see “Who we share it with”). If you or another member reports a listing or a note, we keep the report and, for a note, a copy of it, so that we can decide the report and show how we handled it. We do not use your data for marketing, and we do not use it to profile you.
Support, enquiries and emails to us
If you contact support we keep your messages, their subject, our replies and the conversation’s status, plus any order reference you give. If you register interest in publishing with us, we keep your name, email address, any pen name and working title, the genres, approximate length and any sample link you give, whether you have published before, how you heard about us, your note, when you agreed to be contacted, and the version of this notice you were shown. We also keep our own notes on your enquiry, and we email you a short confirmation. Please do not send passwords, card details, private links or sensitive personal information.
Emails you send to our addresses are received by Amazon’s email service, stored in our cloud account, and forwarded to the mailbox we use to read and answer them.
Authors
If you are invited to publish with us we also keep: your author profile (name, biography, photograph, links), submissions, manuscripts, cover and print files, ISBNs and book details; your acceptance of our Author publishing terms; royalty, signing-fee and payment records; the bank details you give us for payments; signed-copy offers and tasks; and our correspondence with you.
Account deletion requests
If you ask to delete your account we keep the request, its progress and the dates of each step. Any reason you give is erased when the deletion is completed.
Why we use your data and our lawful bases
To create and run your account, sell, deliver and support your orders, supply EPUBs, run the community features you choose to use, and work with authors we publish: because it is necessary to perform our contract with you, or to take steps you ask for before entering into one.
To keep accounting and tax records, respond to lawful requests, and deal with illegal content and our online safety duties: because we have a legal obligation.
To run Services listings and Connect requests, which you ask us to provide when you use them: because it is necessary to perform our contract with you. To limit spam, scams and misuse of Services, and to handle reports and requests to look again about listings and notes: because we have legitimate interests in doing so, balanced against your rights, and because we have legal duties to deal with illegal content.
To keep the Site and accounts secure, prevent fraud, spam and abuse (including bot checks, rate limits, private-link protection and the moderation and audit records), handle reports and complaints, establish or defend legal claims, keep anonymised community content after an account is deleted so that conversations and ratings still make sense, and measure use of the Site in a cookieless way: because we have legitimate interests in doing so, and we have balanced them against your rights. You can ask us for details of that balance.
To set analytics cookies and record anonymised sessions: only with your consent, which you can withdraw at any time using Cookie choices at the bottom of every page. See our Cookies and analytics notice.
We do not use your data for marketing, sell it, or share it for advertising. The only emails we send are about your account, orders, requests and, for authors, publishing.
Where we get data from
Most data comes from you. We also receive payment status from Stripe, printing and tracking updates from our print partner, Lulu, and from carriers, sign-in details from Google or Discord if you use them, and reports about content from other members.
Who we share it with
We use service providers who process data for us under contracts that require them to keep it secure and use it only on our instructions: Amazon Web Services (hosting, database, file storage and email, in the London region); Lulu (our print partner, which prints and dispatches print books, receives your name, delivery address, phone number and the Books ordered, and passes delivery details to the carrier); Cloudflare (Turnstile bot checks); PostHog (analytics, hosted in the EU); and the provider of the mailbox to which our emails are forwarded.
Some organisations decide for themselves how to use the data they receive and have their own privacy notices: Stripe (payments and fraud prevention); Google and Discord (if you use them to sign in); Amazon (if you send an EPUB to your Kindle); and delivery carriers.
We also share data: with an author, only as described for signed copies; with professional advisers, insurers, HM Revenue & Customs, the police, regulators or courts where the law requires it or it is needed to establish or defend legal claims; and with anyone who takes over the Site or our business, who must use it in line with this notice.
International transfers
Our Site, database and files are hosted in the United Kingdom, and PostHog stores analytics in the European Union. Some of our providers, including Stripe, Lulu, Cloudflare, Google, Discord and Amazon, may process data in the United States or other countries. Where personal data is transferred outside the United Kingdom, we rely on UK adequacy regulations (including, for certified US organisations, the UK extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework) or on the International Data Transfer Agreement or UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses included in our providers’ terms. You can ask us for more information about these safeguards. Our print partner prints and posts from several countries, and the delivery services that carry your parcel are in the countries it passes through and in the country you live in. We send your delivery details to them because we need to in order to deliver your order to you, which is necessary to carry out our contract with you.
How long we keep it
Accounts: until you delete your account. Sign-in sessions last 24 hours and emailed sign-in codes 10 minutes. Private order links work for 30 days, and EPUB access normally lasts 365 days from payment.
Orders, payments, refunds and author royalty and payment records: six years after the end of the tax year to which they relate, because of tax and accounting law and the time limit for legal claims. Delivery addresses and phone numbers are removed from order records once the order has been delivered and the time for delivery problems and returns has passed, and no later than 90 days after delivery. Signed-copy recipient details are erased when the copy is sent or refunded.
Support conversations: two years after the conversation is closed. Unanswered or unsuccessful author enquiries: 12 months from your last enquiry. Author manuscripts and files: until the Book is withdrawn and the agreement ends, plus a reasonable period to complete outstanding orders, except an archive copy kept with our records.
Community content: for as long as we need to run the Site, or until you or we delete it, and, when an account is deleted, kept without your name as explained below. Under the licence in our Community guidelines we may store, format and adapt content to run and improve the Site, and nothing in this notice limits that licence. Reports, moderation records and the community audit log, which contain identifiers and counts but not the text of posts: for as long as needed to show how we handled reports and prevent repeat abuse, reviewed at least once a year. Server and security logs: no more than 90 days. Analytics: session recordings no more than 90 days and event data no more than two years.
Services: Connect requests (including the note) for a limited period after their last update, then they are deleted. Your acceptance of the Services rules for as long as you have an account. Listings until you or we remove them, then closed or removed listings for a limited period for evidence and any request to look again. A copy of a reported note, kept with the report, for a limited period after we decide the report.
Data may remain in our backups for up to 35 days after deletion before it is overwritten. We may keep data longer where it is needed for a legal claim, a legal obligation or an investigation of misuse.
Deleting your account
You can ask to delete your account from your account page. A person checks the request first, because accounts with something outstanding, such as an open order, an open support conversation, unpaid royalties or published Books, have to be dealt with by hand. Once it is approved, you have 14 days to change your mind and we email you at each step.
When deletion is completed: your sessions, passkeys, linked sign-in accounts, password and sign-in codes are deleted; your follows, shelves, likes and reader profile are deleted and your handle is released; your name, email address and picture are removed from your account record, which is kept only as an anonymous record; and your reviews, helpful votes, comments, reports, author updates and replies stay on the Site shown as by “Former reader” or “Former author”, so that conversations and ratings still make sense.
Services are an exception to the last point: when deletion is completed, your Services listings and your Connect requests, sent and received, are deleted rather than kept without your name. A copy of a note kept with a report is kept without your name for a limited period.
Order, payment, support and royalty records are kept for the periods above, because the law requires it. If you want particular content removed rather than kept without your name, delete it before your account is deleted or ask us.
Your rights
You have the right to: be informed about how we use your data; have a copy of it; have it corrected; have it erased; have its use restricted; object to our using it on the basis of legitimate interests; receive data you gave us in a portable format where we use it for a contract or with consent; and withdraw consent at any time, without affecting what we did before. Some rights have exceptions, for example where we must keep records by law.
You can correct most account and profile details yourself, and start an account deletion from your account page. For anything else, contact our privacy address. We will respond within one month, which may be extended by up to two months for complex requests, and may ask you to confirm your identity.
We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects. Content that members report may be hidden automatically or by hand, but only temporarily until a person reviews it.
Children
The Site is for adults. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we will close it and delete their data.
Security
We use encryption in transit, hashed passwords, private file storage, access restricted to the people who run Bookish Badger, and records of administrative actions. No system is completely secure, so please keep your sign-in details and private links safe and tell us at once if you think they have been misused.
Complaints and changes to this notice
If you are unhappy with how we use your data, please contact us first. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.
We will update this notice when our use of personal data changes, and tell account holders about significant changes. The version and date are shown at the top of this page.