Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 17, 2026

1. Introduction

Quilltips LLC (“we,” “us,” or “our”) is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our platform at quilltips.co (the “Service”).

Quilltips LLC, a company based in the United States, is responsible for your personal information under this policy (the “controller”). When an author collects your information through their Quilltips pages (for example, a signup form or their newsletter), that author also decides how it is used; see Section 4.

2. Information We Collect

Information you provide

  • Account information: Email address and password when you register
  • Profile information: Name, bio, avatar, social links, and other profile details
  • Book content: Cover images, descriptions, videos, character art, and other media you upload
  • Tips: Your name, email, optional message and avatar, and whether you asked to join the author's newsletter
  • Messages: Fan mail and messages sent between readers and authors
  • Signup form submissions: Information provided when readers sign up for newsletters, launch updates, book club visits, ARC reader, or beta reader lists on book pages (such as name, email, location and answers to the author's questions)
  • Payment information: Processed by Stripe; we do not store credit card numbers
  • Shop orders: Buyer email for purchases and free e-book downloads; for shipped physical products, name, shipping address, and phone number collected via Stripe Checkout; for in-person / event checkout sales, payment details without a shipping address (and any contact details collected at checkout); optional buyer notes where offered
  • Book Formatter uploads: Your manuscript (Word files or a Google Doc you share with us), your name, email, book title, genre and any notes, and the choices you make while reviewing your book (accepted fixes, edits, designs and replaced images)

Information collected automatically

  • Usage data: Pages visited, features used, and interactions with the Service
  • Device information: Browser type, operating system, and screen size
  • Log data: IP address, access times, and referring URLs
  • Security signals: When you send fan mail, sign in, or download a purchase, we record your IP address, approximate country and browser details to detect spam, fraud and account abuse
  • Cookies and similar technologies: See Section 10

Partner portal

If your organization is granted partner access, the partner portal may display operational data for authors you are permitted to manage—such as signup and engagement-related records tied to their book pages—as part of providing that service.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

  • Provide, maintain, and improve the Service
  • Create and manage your account
  • Display your public author profile and book pages
  • Process optional reader support (tips) and other payments via Stripe
  • Process Quilltips Shop purchases and platform fees
  • Deliver digital download links and notify authors of Shop orders
  • Share fulfillment details with the selling author for physical Shop orders (including shipping details for shipped orders, or contact details needed for in-person / event handoff)
  • Send transactional emails (account confirmations, password resets)
  • Send product updates, news, and marketing emails (you can unsubscribe in every email or by contacting us)
  • Provide analytics about your pages' performance
  • Format your book with the Book Formatter and deliver your files (see Section 5)
  • Respond to support requests and communications
  • Detect and prevent fraud or abuse (for example, we automatically screen fan mail and form submissions for spam; screened messages can be reviewed by a person)
  • Show and measure our ads, if you allow marketing cookies (see Section 10)

Legal bases (EU, UK and similar laws)

  • To provide the Service you asked for (contract): your account, book pages, tips, Shop orders, Plus, the Book Formatter, and the emails these require
  • Our legitimate interests: keeping the Service secure, preventing spam and fraud, fixing errors, understanding how the Service is used in aggregate, and telling authors about Quilltips features (you can opt out at any time)
  • Your consent: analytics and marketing cookies, and joining an author's newsletter. You can withdraw consent at any time (see Sections 8 and 10)
  • Legal obligations: keeping payment and tax records, and responding to lawful requests

4. Information Sharing

We do not sell your personal information. We may share information in the following circumstances:

  • Public content: Your author profile, book pages, and any content you choose to make public is visible to anyone on the internet
  • Selling authors (Shop): When a reader buys a Shop product from an author, we share with that author the buyer contact and, for shipped physical orders, shipping information needed to fulfill the order. In-person / event sales do not include a shipping address; we share the order and contact details needed for handoff at the event
  • Authors whose newsletter you join: When you subscribe to an author's newsletter (on their page, or by ticking “subscribe me” on another form), that author sees your name and email, can send you their newsletter through Quilltips, and can export their subscriber list to use with another email service. Every newsletter includes an unsubscribe link; you can leave one author's newsletter or every Quilltips author's newsletter at once. We record when and where you subscribed, and whether newsletters reach you (for example, if an address bounces), to keep sending reliable
  • Authors you interact with: When you tip an author, send them fan mail, or sign up through a form on their page (ARC or beta reader, book club, launch updates), that author sees what you sent, including your name and email, and can export the contact details of readers who interacted with their pages. Authors are responsible for how they use your information once they have it. If an author uses a partner organization (such as their publisher) to manage their Quilltips pages, that partner can see the same signup and engagement records
  • Service providers: Companies that process data on our behalf under contracts that limit how they can use it: Supabase (database, sign-in and file storage), Vercel (website hosting), Stripe (payments and payouts), Resend (email delivery), PostHog (product analytics and error tracking), Plausible (cookie-free website statistics), Cloudflare Turnstile (bot protection), Google (address suggestions at checkout), Lulu (printing, shipping and print-file checks), and Anthropic, through Vercel's AI Gateway (AI used by the Book Formatter)
  • Advertising partners: If you allow marketing cookies, Meta and Google receive information about your visit to measure our ads (see Section 10)
  • Legal requirements: We may disclose information if required by law, regulation, or legal process

5. Your Manuscript and the Book Formatter

Your manuscript is yours. We use it only to format your book, to let you review and change it, and to improve how the formatter works. We never publish it, sell it, or share it with anyone except the service providers below, who process it on our behalf.

Your manuscript is never used to train AI models

The formatter uses AI to read your book's structure and suggest proofreading fixes. Your manuscript is not used to train any AI model, by us or by anyone else:

  • We do not train AI models, and we do not give your manuscript to anyone to train theirs.
  • The AI providers we use are bound by terms that do not allow them to train their models on what we send them.
  • Every request we make requires a provider that does not train on it; a request that can't meet that rule fails instead of going anywhere else.

When we say we use your book to improve the formatter, we mean that we look at what went wrong (for example, a chapter heading that was read as body text) and improve our own rules and instructions. That is not training an AI model.

Who handles your manuscript

Only service providers that help us run the formatter: secure hosting and storage, the AI providers described above (currently Anthropic, reached through Vercel's AI Gateway), and Lulu, which tests your formatted print file the way a printer would. If you share a Google Doc, we download it from Google. Each provider may use your manuscript only to provide its service to us.

Keeping and deleting it

We keep your manuscript and formatted files so you can come back to your book, make changes and download it again. Your book's page is reached through a private link, so keep that link private. To delete your manuscript and files, delete your Quilltips account (if your book is saved to one) or email us at hello@quilltips.co.

6. Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your data, including encryption in transit (TLS) and at rest, secure authentication, and regular security reviews. However, no method of transmission or storage is 100% secure.

7. Data Retention

We retain your data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the Service. If you delete your account, we will delete your personal information within 30 days, except where retention is required by law or for legitimate business purposes (e.g., fraud prevention). In particular, we keep records of payments and Shop orders (including the buyer details on them) as long as tax and accounting laws require, and security logs such as IP addresses as long as needed to prevent fraud and abuse.

8. Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have the right to:

  • Access the personal information we hold about you
  • Correct inaccurate or incomplete data
  • Delete your account and personal information
  • Export your data in a portable format
  • Object to or restrict certain processing
  • Withdraw consent you have given, at any time

Authors can delete their account from their account settings. To exercise any other right, contact us at hello@quilltips.co. If you shared information with an author (for example, through their signup form), you can also contact that author directly. If you are in the EU or UK, you also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.

9. International Transfers

Quilltips is based in the United States, and we and most of our service providers store and process data there. If you use the Service from outside the United States, your information is transferred to and processed in the United States. Where EU or UK law requires it, these transfers rely on safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (with the UK addendum) or our providers' certification under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.

10. Cookies

  • Essential: Cookies that keep you signed in, remember your cookie choices, and protect forms from bots (Cloudflare Turnstile). These are always on.
  • Website statistics: Plausible counts visits without cookies and without identifying you. This is always on.
  • Analytics: PostHog helps us understand how the Service is used and fix errors. With your permission it stores an identifier in your browser, links your activity to your account if you are signed in, and can record sessions (with what you type hidden).
  • Marketing: The Meta Pixel and Google Ads tag measure how our ads perform. They let Meta and Google recognize your browser across websites.

If you are in the EU, the European Economic Area, the UK or Switzerland, analytics and marketing cookies stay off unless you allow them. Elsewhere they are on by default. Wherever you are, you can change your choice at any time with the “Cookie settings” link at the bottom of every page.

11. Children's Privacy

The Service is not intended for children under 13, or under the minimum age your country sets for using online services without a parent's permission. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under that age. If we learn that we have collected such information, we will delete it promptly.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by posting the updated policy on this page and updating the “Last updated” date.

13. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at hello@quilltips.co.