Privacy notice

Last updated: [DATE]

Serial Shelf (serialshelf.co.uk) is a directory that links to novels authors publish on their own websites. This notice explains what personal information we collect, why, and what you can ask us to do with it.

Who we are

Serial Shelf is run by [YOUR NAME OR BUSINESS NAME], [ADDRESS], who is the data controller for the information described here. Contact: [CONTACT EMAIL].

Readers

You can browse the directory without giving us any personal information. We don't use analytics, advertising or tracking cookies.

• My shelf. Novels you add to your shelf are saved in your own browser's local storage. They never reach our servers, and clearing your browser data removes them.
• Fonts. Pages load typefaces from Google Fonts, which means your browser sends your IP address to Google when it fetches them. See Google's privacy policy.
• Hosting logs. Our host, Netlify, keeps short-lived technical logs (such as IP address and pages requested) to run and secure the service.

Authors who list a novel or request a change

When you submit a listing or ask us to update or remove one, we collect:

• your email address, used only to confirm the request is genuinely from you and to reply about it;
• the listing details you give us: your author or pen name, the novel's title, description, links, feed address, genre, status and schedule;
• any note you add.

Why and on what basis. We use this information to review and publish listings and to make the changes you ask for. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: running an accurate directory and making sure only authors control their listings.

What's public. Published listings show the pen name, title, description, links, genre, status and schedule. Your email address is never published.

How long we keep it. A request, including your email address, is deleted as soon as we approve or dismiss it. Published listing details stay until you ask us to remove them or we take the listing down.

Automatic chapter updates

If a listing includes a feed address, our system reads that public feed about once a day to show the latest chapter title, link and date. We store only those three details.

If an author opts in to showing their cover, we also read their novel's page about once a day to find its preview image, and store only that image's address. Readers' browsers then load the image directly from the author's site.

Who processes data for us

• Supabase stores listings and requests. Our database is hosted in [REGION, e.g. London (eu-west-2)].
• Netlify hosts the website and runs the daily feed check.

Where a provider processes data outside the UK, it does so under safeguards recognised by UK data protection law, such as the UK International Data Transfer Addendum.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask to see, correct or delete your personal information, object to how we use it, or ask us to restrict it. Email [CONTACT EMAIL] and we'll respond within one month. If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Changes

If we change how we use personal information, we'll update this page and the date at the top.