Privacy and Data
On this page, we share our Privacy Policy, details about the data we collect, as well as a history of updates to the policy.
Privacy Policy
1. Introduction
This Privacy Policy outlines our practices concerning the collection, use, and sharing of your personal data, in accordance with the requirements of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other applicable data protection laws. By using Novelcrafter, you agree to the collection and use of your personal data as described in this policy.
2. Information Collection
When you use Novelcrafter, we collect the following types of data:
- Personal data you provide to us directly, such as your name, email address, and other account information.
- Data generated as you use our services, like access logs or usage statistics.
We, and our partners, collect data points to help with support questions, improving our product, as well as making informed business decisions. This includes information such as:
- Device and Operating System: We collect information about the type of device and operating system you use (e.g., phone, tablet, desktop). This helps us ensure we properly support the hardware you’re utilizing.
- Browser Usage: We gather data on the specific browser you’re running Novelcrafter in. This information aids us in maintaining software compatibility across different platforms.
- Feature Usage Metrics: We track metrics related to which Novelcrafter features you use. This data guides us in optimizing and improving our product offerings.
- User Location: We collect information about the country you’re accessing Novelcrafter from. This helps us better understand our global user base and improve product performance and latency worldwide. We also need this information for tax purposes (during checkout).
3. Use of Information
We use your data to:
- Provide, maintain, and improve Novelcrafter services.
- Respond to your inquiries or support requests.
- Monitor and analyze usage and trends to enhance user experience.
- Gather feedback and ideas to develop new features and functionality.
- Communicate with you about updates, promotions, or other relevant information.
4. Information Sharing and Disclosure
We share your data with the following third-party services to facilitate our operations:
| Name | Location | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure | ||
| Amazon Web Services (AWS) | EU (Frankfurt)/US | We use AWS for storing data and hosting our services. The data may be stored in the EU or US (primary data location is the EU). |
| Bunny CDN | EU/US | We use Bunny CDN to deliver our website and app content. |
| Clerk | US | Clerk is our trusted partner for storing and managing user accounts and profile data. |
| customer.io | EU | We use customer.io for our marketing and transactional emails. |
| dub.co | US | We use dub.co to manage and track shortened links in our communications. When you click these links, basic technical information about the interaction is processed to analyze link performance. |
| Sentry | EU | In order to collect and trace errors, we use Sentry to improve the user experience. While certain data is being collected to help fix issues, IP addresses are not. |
| Zapier | US | We use Zapier to automate data processing between our various services. |
| Support | ||
| Canny.io | US | We partner with Canny.io to collect feedback and suggestions from our users to improve Novelcrafter. |
| Intercom | US | Support agent and help desk software. This is how we help you in any way we can. |
| Linear | EU | We use Linear to manage customer requests and feedback, integrating with our support and feedback systems. |
| Slack | EU | We use Slack for internal communication and collaboration. Some support-related data may be shared with Slack. |
| Tally.so | EU | Whenever you fill out a survey, for which we use Tally, they might collect any personal details that you enter. |
| Payments | ||
| Lemon Squeezy | US | Our primary payment provider and merchant of record until April 2024. |
| Paddle/ProfitWell | UK/EEA | We switched to Paddle as our primary payment provider and merchant of record in April 2024. |
| Tolt | US | Our partner of choice for the affiliate program. |
| Analytics | ||
| Fathom Analytics | EU/US | We utilize Fathom Analytics to gain insights into how our users interact with Novelcrafter. Fathom Analytics is a GDPR-compliant platform that doesn’t use cookies. |
| PostHog | EU | We use PostHog to collect product analytics and usage metrics to improve our service and user experience. Only pseudonymized data is collected. |
We do not sell, trade, or rent your personal data to third parties for their marketing purposes. We might disclose your personal data if required by law, in connection with any legal proceedings, or to establish, exercise, or defend our legal rights.
We do not, under any circumstances, use the novels or other creative content created by our users to train any artificial intelligence or machine learning models. Your intellectual property and creative works remain entirely yours. We are committed to respecting your privacy and not exploiting your creative efforts for our own gain through the use of AI systems.
5. Cookies and Tracking Technologies
We want to process as little personal information as possible when you use our website. That’s why we’ve chosen Fathom Analytics for our website analytics, which doesn’t use cookies and complies with the GDPR, ePrivacy (including PECR), COPPA and CCPA. Using this privacy-friendly website analytics software, your IP address is only briefly processed, and we (running this website) have no way of identifying you. As per the CCPA, your personal information is de-identified. You can read more about this on Fathom Analytics’ website.
The purpose of us using this software is to understand our website traffic in the most privacy-friendly way possible so that we can continually improve our website and business. The lawful basis as per the GDPR is “Article 6(1)(f); where our legitimate interests are to improve our website and business continually.” As per the explanation, no personal data is stored over time.
6. Data Retention and Location
We retain your data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you with our services. Data may be stored in either the European Union or the United States, which means that your information might be transferred outside of your country of residence. You can request account deletion at any time, after which we will take steps to delete your data unless retention is required by law or for legitimate business purposes.
7. Security Measures
We implement a variety of security measures to ensure the safety of your personal data. We use industry-standard encryption and secure protocols to communicate with your devices. However, no system can be entirely secure, and we cannot guarantee that unauthorized access, hacking, data loss, or other breaches will never occur.
In the event of a data breach that is likely to result in a high risk to your rights and freedoms, we will notify you and the relevant supervisory authority as soon as possible.
8. User Rights
Under applicable data protection laws, you have the right to:
- Request access to your personal data.
- Ask for corrections or deletions.
- Object to our use of your personal data.
- Withdraw consent.
- Request portability of your data.
- Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.
Please contact us directly to exercise any of these rights.
9. Children’s Privacy
Novelcrafter is not designed for or directed towards children under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect or maintain data from those who are under 18 years old. If we become aware that we have collected data from someone under the age of 18, we will promptly take steps to remove that information.
10. Changes to the Privacy Policy
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or for other operational, legal, or regulatory reasons. We will notify you of any material changes and always have the most recent version available on our platform.
We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.
11. Contact Information
For any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at support@novelcrafter.com.
Last updated: February 20, 2025
Product Metrics
When using Novelcrafter, we collect metrics to help us improve our product. We strive to strike a balance between collecting enough data to make informed decisions and respecting your privacy.
This data is collected under legitimate interest. We do not share this data with any third parties, and we do not use it for any purpose other than improving our service. Our tracking methodology does not use cookies, ensuring compliance with GDPR requirements.
In addition to the details outlined in Section 2 of our Privacy Policy, we collect specific metrics as you use the Novelcrafter platform. For transparency, here’s a comprehensive list of what we collect and why:
| Metric | Details |
|---|---|
| Device/Browser | |
| Device type and operating system | Most users access Novelcrafter on desktop or laptop computers, but we also support tablets and phones. Knowing which devices you use helps us ensure our platform works optimally across all hardware. |
| Browser type and version | Different browsers can display and process content differently. We track which browsers you use to identify and address any browser-specific issues. |
| Web Vitals | We track performance metrics such as page load times, time to first interactivity, and layout shifts to evaluate and improve Novelcrafter’s speed and stability for your experience. |
| User Information | |
| Country and Timezone | We derive your country from your IP address to better understand our global user distribution and optimize our infrastructure accordingly. Our metrics do not contain precise location data. |
| Subscription status | We track whether you’re using a free trial or have a paid subscription, and which features you utilize. This helps us understand how to improve our service tiers and feature offerings. |
| Feature Usage | |
| AI interaction | We collect the following data points when you interact with AI:
We do not store or log any text content or prompts you send to the AI. |
| Collaboration | We track frequency metrics for team creation, member invitations, and novel/series sharing to improve our collaboration features. We collect only event data, not personal information. |
| Novels | We monitor creation, import, and deletion rates for novels to understand usage patterns. |
| Series | We track the frequency of new series creation. |
| Outline | We collect data on outline creation activities (including acts, chapters, and scenes). Are people creating a lot of acts, but not many scenes? This helps us optimize for diverse writing styles and approaches. |
| Specific feature usage | We track usage frequency for specific features including:
|
Update History
To provide transparency and keep you informed about changes to our Privacy Policy, we’ve outlined the updates made over time:
February 2025
- Third-Party Service Providers:
- We added Bunny CDN for content delivery.
- We added dub.co for managing and tracking shortened links in our communications.
- We added Linear since we started using it for customer requests and feedback.
- We added PostHog for metrics tracking since Sentry sunsetted their analytics product.
- We added Slack for internal communication and collaboration.
- We added Tally.so for collecting feedback and survey responses from our users.
- We added Zapier for automating data processing between our various services.
August 2024
- Third-Party Service Providers: We switched from Sentry (US) to Sentry (EU) for error tracking and monitoring.
April 2024
- Third-Party Service Providers: We added a more detailed table outlining the third-party service providers used, their locations, and the purpose for sharing data with them.
- Data Collection: We added specifics on the types of data collected from users of the Novelcrafter platform, such as device type, browser information, feature usage metrics, and user location.
- Payment Providers: In April 2024, we transitioned our primary payment provider and merchant of record from Lemon Squeezy to Paddle/ProfitWell.
- Affiliate Program: Concurrent with the payment provider change, we selected Tolt as our new partner for the Novelcrafter affiliate program.
- Email Provider: We switched to customer.io for our marketing and transaction emails.
- Support Software: We added that Intercom is used for our support agent and help desk functionality.