What happens to your information.

This policy explains what information AuthorChecklist.com collects, how we use it, and the choices you have. The site is operated by Fosterly, LLC, a Maryland limited liability company ("Fosterly", "we"), PO Box 59204, Potomac, MD 20854, which is the party responsible for this information. The policy is written to be read, not skimmed past.

Reading the site

You can read the complete checklist, every directory record, and the glossary without an account. Our web server keeps standard access logs (the page requested, the time, the browser type, and an IP address) for security and to keep the site running. Logs are retained for a limited period and are not used to build profiles of readers.

We use Google Analytics to see which pages are read and where readers arrive from. It sets its own cookies (the ones whose names begin with _ga) and sends Google the page address, your browser type, and a rough location worked out from your connection. It never receives your name, your email address, private notes, book details, confirmation numbers, or contact details, and we do not use it for advertising.

We count the links to other websites that readers select, keeping the page the link was on, the address it goes to (without anything after the question mark), and an anonymous code for that reader that changes every day, never the reader's own address, so we can tell a listed organization how many readers we sent them. Nothing about this is sold, and nothing is shared with anyone beyond those counts.

The contact form

When you send a message, we store your name, email address, the subject, your message, and the page you came from, so we can reply and act on corrections. We may store a one-way hash of the sending connection's IP address to stop abuse. We do not add you to any mailing list because you contacted us.

Accounts and the Author Profile

If you create an Author Profile or add a book to it, we store your email address, the books you add, and the statuses, dates, notes, files, and results you record. This information exists so you can see it again; it is not sold, shared with publishers, or used for advertising. You can export your profile, books, records, and payment history, and delete your account, from Settings.

Optional profile details such as a birth date, city, or country of birth exist only to tell library and identifier systems which author you are. They are private by default, and they appear on a public page only if you choose to show them.

Who else can see your workspace. Someone you invite as a collaborator sees and edits the books you share (task statuses, dates, assignments, notes, submissions, results, costs, and public-page drafts) and your author profile if you include it. A professional who sponsors your license sees task statuses, dates, assignments, results, and public-page content for the sponsored book, and never your private notes, costs, uploaded files, confirmation numbers, or comments. Every invitation says what the person will be able to see before they accept. You can end anyone's access from Team.

Payments are processed by Stripe. We never see or store full card numbers. We keep a record of the purchase (amount, date, and Stripe's reference identifiers) for accounting and to grant access.

What we keep, and for how long

• Your books, author profile, and uploads stay while your account exists. When you delete your account from Settings they are deleted right away, your public pages stop resolving, your sign-in sessions end, and any collaborator or professional access you granted is revoked.
• Your account record is not erased but anonymized: the email address, name, and sign-in links are removed the moment you delete the account, and the row stays only so payment history keeps its owner.
• Payment records (amount, date, product, and Stripe's reference numbers) are kept for seven years for accounting and tax purposes, whether or not the account still exists.
• Records you asked to be emailed about (an award whose entry window has closed, where you asked to hear when it opens again) are stored as your account and that record, and are kept until the one email goes out or until you stop it in Settings.
• Events you add to your calendar (what it is, the day or days, the time as you typed it, an optional book, a link, and your note) stay while your account exists and are deleted with it. An event you put on a book is visible to everyone who can see that book; your note on it is not, and it never goes out over your calendar feed address.
• Comments and notes you leave in someone else's workspace belong to that book. They stay with it after you delete your account, shown as coming from a deleted account.
• Contact and correction messages are kept for up to two years so we can act on them and show what we changed and why.
• Counts of links to other websites are kept row by row for thirteen months. After that each day becomes a single total per website and the individual rows are deleted.
• Security and audit logs (sign-ins, purchases, access changes, deletions) are kept for up to two years.
• Service work records (what we checked and changed on your behalf) are kept for as long as the payment record.
• Backups of the database can hold deleted data for a short time before they are overwritten. We do not restore a deleted account from a backup.
• Web server access logs are kept for a limited period by our hosting setup for security, and are not used to profile readers.

Public author and book pages

Public pages show only the fields you choose to publish. Private notes, task statuses, costs, submission outcomes, and uploaded files never appear on a public page. You can unpublish a page at any time.

Email

We send transactional email only: receipts, sign-in links, reminders you have turned on, and notices about your account. Marketing email requires a separate, unchecked opt-in, and every marketing message carries a working unsubscribe link.

Cookies

We set four cookies of our own. ac_session keeps you signed in. ac_nav remembers whether you folded the sidebar. ac_book remembers which book you were working on, for up to a year. During sign-in with Google, a short-lived cookie ties the answer from Google back to your browser and is removed as soon as sign-in finishes. Google Analytics sets its _ga cookies as described above. Payment happens on Stripe's own pages, which set Stripe's cookies. We do not use advertising cookies.

Who processes your information for us

• Stripe handles payments. We never see or store full card numbers.
• Google handles sign-in with Google, if you use it, answers our Google Books lookups, which send only a book's ISBN or title, never your account details, and runs Google Analytics, as described above.
• Cloudflare runs the Turnstile check on the contact form, which tells a person from an automated script. Cloudflare sees the connection that loads the form, not what you type into it.
• The Library of Congress, Open Library, Apple Books, and Podcast Index answer the automatic checks with an ISBN, a title, or a topic, never anything private.
• The Internet Archive receives the public addresses of your listings when you use launch-day snapshots.
• Our hosting and email providers run the servers and deliver our email. The policy will name them once counsel has confirmed the list.

Children

AuthorChecklist.com is intended for adults. You must be 18 or older to create an account or buy anything. A parent or legal guardian may run an account for a younger author and is responsible for it. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13; if you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.

Your choices

• Export your profile, books, records, and payment history, or delete your account, from Settings.
• Ask us to correct or delete information we hold about you by using the contact form.
• Unsubscribe from any non-essential email using the link in the message.

Changes

When this policy changes in a material way, we update the date at the top and, for account holders, say so by email.

Contact

Questions about privacy: use the contact form and choose "Something else", or write to Fosterly, LLC, PO Box 59204, Potomac, MD 20854.