Privacy Policy

Garland Press ("we", "us") is a sole trader business run by Tom Bennet, trading as Garland Press. This policy explains what personal data we collect when you use garlandpress.com and the book editor and contributor tools that sit behind it, why we collect it, and what rights you have over it.

We're a small operation - this is written in plain language rather than boilerplate, and it describes what the product actually does. If anything here is unclear, email us at hello@garlandpress.com.

What we collect

If you create a book (editor). Your email address, used to sign you in via a one-time magic link - we never set or store a password unless you add one yourself. If you send invites, we also ask for your name, so contributors know who invited them. Everything you put into the book itself - title, subtitle, dedication, cover choices, the shipping address and phone number you give at checkout - is stored against your account.

If you contribute to someone else's book. Your invite link doubles as an access token; opening or submitting it records that you engaged with the book. Whatever you write, plus one optional photo, is stored and printed as part of the book. Photos are stripped of location and camera metadata in your browser before they're uploaded to us, so we never receive or store that data even transiently.

If you pay for a book. Checkout, including your card details, is handled entirely by Stripe on their own hosted page - we never see or store your card number. Stripe passes us your shipping address, phone number and the amount paid, which we need to print and post the book.

Everyone. Standard technical data (page views, referring pages, rough device/browser type) via Plausible Analytics - see "Analytics" below.

How we use it

• To run the editor and contributor flow - saving drafts, sending invite emails, and rendering your book.
• To take payment and get the finished book printed, bound and shipped to you.
• To email you things you've asked for: magic links, invite reminders, order confirmations.
• To stop abuse of the sign-in and invite systems (rate limiting, keyed on IP address, discarded after the limit window).
• To understand traffic in aggregate, and to find out about errors before you tell us.

We don't sell personal data, and we don't use it for advertising - we don't run any ad or marketing-tracking tech at all.

Who we share it with

We use a small number of specialist providers to run the service. Each only receives the data it needs to do its job:

Most of these providers are based outside the UK (mainly the US). Where that's the case, we rely on their standard contractual safeguards for international transfers (each publishes their own - Stripe, Resend, Netlify, Neon and Sentry all offer UK/EU data processing addenda). We don't share data with anyone beyond this list, and never for marketing purposes.

Analytics

We use Plausible Analytics, a privacy-focused analytics tool that doesn't use cookies and doesn't track you across devices or sites. It counts page views and traffic sources in aggregate; there's no way for us to identify an individual visitor from it. Because it sets no cookies and collects no personal data, it doesn't need a cookie-consent banner - the Information Commissioner's Office's own guidance treats this kind of tool as exempt.

Error monitoring

We use Sentry to tell us when something breaks. It only runs server-side (nothing is added to the pages you load), and it's configured deliberately narrowly: no IP addresses, no cookies, and no request bodies are ever sent to it - so the words you write into a book never reach Sentry. Anywhere a one-time sign-in or contributor link could appear in a URL, we strip it before the error report is sent.

Cookies

We set one cookie: a session cookie that keeps you signed in after you use a magic link. It's strictly necessary for the site to work and isn't used for tracking, so - as with analytics - it doesn't require consent under UK cookie rules. We don't set any advertising, marketing or cross-site tracking cookies.

How long we keep it

• Contributor invite links expire after 60 days whether or not they're used.
• Book and contribution content is kept for as long as your account is active, and afterwards for as long as we need it to fulfil an order, deal with a query, or meet our own legal obligations.
• Once a book has shipped, we keep a copy of what was printed in case of a reprint or a dispute - not indefinitely, but longer than the active-editing period.
• If you'd like your account or a specific book's data deleted sooner, contact us and we'll do it by hand - there isn't yet a self-service delete button.

A note if you're writing about someone else

Most books on Garland Press are gifts: contributors write about, and often upload a photo of, someone who isn't the one using the site. If that's you, please only include what you'd be comfortable the subject of the book seeing, and be thoughtful about anyone else's information you include in your entry (including other people mentioned or pictured). We treat what you submit as content for the book the editor has set up, not as a separate account for the person it's about.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR, you can ask us to: tell you what data we hold about you, correct it, delete it, restrict how we use it, give you a copy in a portable format, or stop using it for a particular purpose. Email hello@garlandpress.com and we'll respond within a month. If you're not satisfied with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.

Children

Garland Press isn't directed at children, and we don't knowingly collect data from anyone under 13. Books are very often about a child (a first birthday, a christening) - that's fine, since the data comes from the adult contributors, not from the child themselves.

Changes to this policy

If we change what we collect or why, we'll update this page and move the date at the top. For anything significant, we'll also email editors with an active account.

Contact

Garland Press is operated by Tom Bennet as a sole trader, trading as Garland Press, garlandpress.com. For anything in this policy, email hello@garlandpress.com.