Privacy Policy

Last updated: 27 September 2026

This policy explains what NovelRelease collects, why, and what you can do about it. NovelRelease is run by the operator of NovelRelease ("we"), which is responsible for your data. Questions and requests: the contact address in the Admin CP (not set yet).

When you create an account and use it:

• Account details: your email address, username, display name and, if you add them, a bio, location and links to a profile picture and banner. If you sign in with Google, Discord or GitHub, we get your name, email and picture from them, and the sign-in tokens they give us. Passwords are stored only as a secure hash.
• Reading: your library and shelves, which chapter you are on and how far you scrolled, the chapters you finished and how long you read. We use this to keep your place, show your history and progress, and work out rankings and recommendations. Your library is public on your profile unless you make it private in Settings.
• What you write and do: books, chapters, comments, reviews, reading lists, likes, follows, seals, reports, contest entries and private messages. Comments you delete are hidden and kept for moderation.
• Money: your quill balance and every quill you buy, spend, receive or exchange; payment records (amount, provider, status); for writers, the Stripe account or PayPal email for payouts. Card and PayPal details are handled by the payment provider; we never see them.
• Security: the IP address or email address used when signing in or signing up, kept for up to about a day to stop password guessing. Our web server also keeps standard access logs (IP address, browser, page) for security and troubleshooting.

When you visit without signing in, we collect nothing about you unless you allow analytics.

If you allow analytics in the cookie notice, we count page views with a random visitor ID in a cookie: the page, the site that sent you (its name only), and whether you use a phone or a computer. We do not store your IP address or name with it, and we delete page views after 395 days. If the site uses Google Analytics, it runs only after you allow analytics too, under Google's privacy policy. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals switch analytics off.

• Necessary: your sign-in session (30 days), a short-lived cookie during email sign-in, a cookie that remembers your cookie choices, and one that remembers you dismissed a notice.
• Analytics, only with your consent: novelrelease_vid (about a year) and, if used, Google Analytics cookies.
• Your browser also stores reader settings, your reading place, draft backups for writers, and chapters you save for offline reading. These stay on your device.

You can change your cookie choices at any time from "Cookie settings" at the bottom of every page.

We do not sell your data. We share it only with services that help us run NovelRelease, for that purpose:

• Payments: Stripe and PayPal, and NOWPayments or Coinbase Commerce if you pay with crypto. Writers' payouts go through Stripe or PayPal.
• Email: Resend, to send sign-in codes and links.
• Hosting and delivery: our server host, Cloudflare (which carries traffic to the site), and our file storage for book covers.
• Sign-in: Google, Discord or GitHub, if you choose to sign in with them.
• Search engines: when a chapter is published we tell search engines its address; no personal data is sent.

Some of these are in other countries, including the United States; they protect data under contracts or legal frameworks that allow such transfers. We may also disclose data when the law requires it, or to protect people or the site.

Your username, display name, profile, public library, public reading lists, comments, reviews and books are public. Large tips and gifts are announced on the site with your name, and top supporters appear on public leaderboards. Private messages are seen only by the people in the conversation.

We keep account data while your account exists. When an account is closed, its books, comments, reviews, library and messages are deleted. Payment and payout records are kept for as long as tax and accounting law requires, without your account attached. Reading history is kept without your name. Backups are deleted after 14 days.

You can see and change most of your data in Settings, make your library private, change your cookie choices, download a copy of your data and delete your account (Settings, Privacy). You can also ask us to correct or delete your data, or object to how we use it, by writing to the contact address in the Admin CP (not set yet) from your account's email address. We answer within a month. If you are unhappy with our answer, you can complain to the data protection authority where you live.

NovelRelease is not meant for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data.

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will say so on the site before it takes effect.