Adapted from the lovely people at Writers’ HQ. As per their explicit request, here goes the official attribute:
“With thanks to Writers’ HQ, our supreme writing commanders, glorious leaders and excellent but tiny overlords, who have verily granted us permission to use their splendid and sweary Privacy Policy.”
WHY a Privacy Policy?
In this world where privacy and confidentiality are highly valued while constantly being breached, laws were put in place as a sincere attempt to stop identity thieves and privacy violators. This means that, as someone who collects your data, I must comply with all the privacy regulations in Canada (that’s where I operate from). Ironically, the biggest invaders of privacy—those who stalk every click we make and every word we speak aloud—are usually above these laws and are doing it with or without our consent. But hey, I’ll just put this policy here to make sure we’re all on the same page.
Basics
I’m a writer, a consultant, a speaker, and the owner of a one-person business, which means I have neither the time nor the energy to do anything perverse with your data. I keep all my evil plots for my novels. On this website, using built-in tools from Squarespace, Mailerlite, and Bookfunnel, I collect and store basic information on subscribers’ demographics (aggregated information about where my subscribers are located, for example, from their IP addresses). I’m not looking at your individual location, ergo “aggregated data.” I also have a standard and legal SEO plugin to collect information that I can use to target advertising, if I ever decide to do it. If you visit my website, and then later on see one of my books following you around social media or Amazon, that’s why.
Email Marketing and Related Data
When you visit my website, you have a choice of signing up for my newsletter. If you sign up, I will send you a newsletter, generally about two a month but occasionally more if I have interesting stuff to tell you. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe button in every email. I use reputable services to maintain the privacy of your contact information and promise to only use it to promote the books I write, the services I provide, share my blog, and tell you about my joys and woes as a writer and as a human being. These services automatically add tracking things to links. This means if you open an email I sent you, I have a way of knowing it. But, with all honesty, I rarely look at that data because I’d much rather do pretty much anything else. And even when I do take the time to look at the data, it’s the overall, aggregated information that matters to me. Don’t get me wrong, I do care about you as an individual, and if you’d like to connect or to express yourself, feel free to contact me through the “Connect” section, make comments on my blogs, or join me on social media. Whatever you do, your personal information is always safe with me.
By the way, if you subscribed for my newsletter and you aren’t receiving it, try signing up with a different email address, and/or add nava@navainc.ca to your address book as a known contact. Then look for the next one and reply to it. That helps train your email supplier that you actually want to hear from me.
What Data Do I Have on You?
Nowadays, it’s all about the data. I store your data in a few different places and use it in a couple of different ways.
Social media: From time to time I may use Google and Facebook to track you, but it’s really THEM that have your data; they just connect us through an algorithm. None of this data is personal, identifiable, or stored by me.
Mailing List: If you’ve signed up for my newsletter, your email address wings its way over to Mailerlite, which is the system I use to manage my newsletters and emails, or if you purchased an e-book or an audio book through my website your email address wings its way over to Bookfunnel. They are both (as per their own declaration) GDPR compliant. You can unsubscribe from emails at any time by hitting the unsubscribe button at the bottom of any message from me.
Cookies and Tracking
There are no cookies on my website, but I may end up using them on my social media. If you don’t want my delicious home-baked scripts, then you need to block cookies on your browser, but don’t come crying to me when nothing does what it’s supposed to.
The way the internet works nowadays it is all about data tracking. It’s creepy but effective, and all of us out there in the knowledge-sharing world want to deliver targeted information. Though I’m not using cookies at the moment of writing this privacy policy, I reserve the right to up my creep-o-meter on this score, because it’s actually a good way to promote my books, blogs, and services to interested readers.
None of these data tracking “things” (pretty sure that’s the professional term) store any super personal data about you, but they probably nab your IP address. Not that I’d know where to look for it or what to do with it. All I may end up seeing is that a person or many people have interacted with my social media in a particular way. You can mess with me by doing something totally unexpected and skewing my stats. Or you could do something way more fun and useful with your time like reading my books and blogs.
Social Media et al
I use some aspects of social media, partly to promote my books and services, but mostly as a vehicle for involving likeminded people in interesting, enlightening discussions. If you share your thoughts and ideas on the website and on my social media and I become familiar with you, I might find you on that social media and say hello. Feel free to ask me to be less friendly if you wish and I will of course respect your boundaries.
Important note:If you turn out to be a racist, bigot, hater, instigator or an obstinate asshole, I will encourage you to think deeper and more positively, and then remove you from my forums. This is for everyone’s best interest, including yours.
Your Right to Disappear
Literally the only identifying information I keep on someone is their email address for my newsletter. Once you unsubscribe from that, my mailing list service will keep track of it, so I don’t email you again. BUT, if you really want to be erased like you’re going into the witness protection program, shoot me an email at nava@navainc.ca and I’ll bend over backwards to delete you from my database.
Please note that this policy was put together by an unprofessional legal persona (me). It is not a legally binding anything, and I’m pretty sure I’ve left stuff out. I reserve the right to change this policy at any time, though, as I already said, I have better things to do. But, in general, I respect your privacy and won’t do anything to willfully violate it.
