Privacy Policy

1. Introduction and Overview

This Privacy Policy describes how Winter Forest Press LLC (“Winter Forest Press,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) collects and uses information about you on our website at winterforestpress.com (the “Site”), and all applications, features, content, and other services that we own, control and make available to you (collectively, with the Site, the “Services”). Services include buying books from us, receiving and reading ebooks and advance copies, reading chapters in your web browser (the “browser reader”), and the Foresters’ member community.

2. What Information We Collect

We and our service providers collect the following categories of personal information, depending on your interactions with us:

  • Identifiers and contact information, such as your name, email address, and Forester account username and password
  • Order and payment information, such as the books and formats you order, your billing and shipping address, your phone number if you give it, the amount you paid, and the payment method type and its last four digits. Your full card number, and any details you save with a payment service, are handled by our payment providers and are not stored on our Site (see Section 5)
  • Purchase, viewership, and preference information, such as the books, articles, and content that you search for or view and the details thereof, and the products and items that you browse, add to your cart, or buy
  • Reading and download activity, described in Section 4
  • Internet or other electronic network activity information when you visit the Site or interact with our emails or online ads and content. For example, we use tracking tools like cookies and pixels to automatically collect information like the type of device you are using. We also use UTM tags in the emails we send to you to help us understand how you interact with those messages, such as whether and when you opened an email or clicked on any content within the email. When you place an order, our store software also records how you reached the Site (for example, the website or campaign link you came from) so we can see which of our efforts reach readers
  • General location, collected when you interact with our Site
  • Information collected via an application or registration form, including social media links, favorite books, and profile picture
  • Comments, posts, highlights, notes, and other user-generated content posted to or saved on the Site

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser. When you log in, we use cookies to save your login information. Login cookies last for two days. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

We also use cookies to keep your cart and checkout working, and, if you read an ebook in your browser without logging in, a cookie that remembers that your link is valid (see Section 4). Our payment provider, Stripe, sets cookies and uses similar technology while you check out, to process your payment and to detect fraud.

Articles and pages on the Site may include embedded content (e.g., videos, images, articles). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the same way as if the visitor has visited the external website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

3. How We Use Your Information

We may use personal information (including sensitive personal information) about you for any purposes consistent with this Privacy Policy or as permitted by applicable law, including to:

  • Manage our Site and Services, including your registration and account;
  • Process and facilitate your transactions, including purchases made through the Site, and deliver, ship, and support what you buy;
  • Provide access to free and/or purchased downloads and other similar content, including ebooks and advance copies;
  • Remember where you stopped reading, your bookmarks, and your reader settings, so they follow you from one device to the next;
  • Customize your browsing and shopping experience on the Site;
  • Respond to your comments, questions, and requests, and to provide customer service;
  • Send you technical notices, updates, security alerts, information regarding changes to our policies, and support and administrative messages;
  • Send you reminders related to a book you have received, such as when it is published or when a review is due;
  • Prevent and address fraud, unauthorized sharing or copying of our books, breach of policies or terms, and threats or harm;
  • Monitor and analyze trends, usage, and activities, including how readers move through our books;
  • Conduct research, including focus groups and surveys;
  • Evaluate Forester applications;
  • Verify or authenticate your identity in relation to requests you make or communications you send;
  • Comply with legal obligations;
  • Fulfill any other purpose disclosed at the time you provide personal information.

We will not use information we have collected from you for purposes that are materially different, unrelated, or incompatible with this Privacy Policy without providing you with prior notice. Information that has been deidentified or aggregated is not subject to this Privacy Policy, and we and our Service Providers may use it without obligation to you except as prohibited by applicable law.

4. Downloads and Reading in Your Browser

When you read a book on the Site in your browser, or receive an ebook or advance copy from us, we record how it is used. This applies to members who are logged in and to readers who open a private reading link from an order or an email without logging in.

What we record when you read in the browser. For each chapter you open, we record which chapter, when you opened it, and how many times. We also record how long you actually spend reading it and how far down the page you get. We record the type of device, browser, and operating system you are using, your country (from your connection), your reader view settings, and the page address. If you are logged in, this is connected to your account. If you are not, it is connected to your purchase, using a scrambled (hashed) form of the email address on your order, rather than the address itself.

What we save for you. Your place in each book, your bookmarks, your reader settings, and any highlights and notes you make are saved on our servers so that they follow you to any device. Your highlights and notes are used only to show them back to you, unless you choose to share them with us (for example, with a “Share with the press” option or by posting feedback). Comments you post on a chapter are visible as described in the feature where you post them.

What we record when you download. Each time you use a reading or download link, we record when it was opened, each time a file is downloaded or refused, the type of device and browser, and a scrambled (hashed) form of your internet address. We do not store the address itself. These records let us notice when one link is used from multiple different places at once.

Marked copies. Copies of our books that we send to advance and beta readers, and sometimes to purchasers, may be marked so a copy can be traced back to the person it was made for. A mark may be visible (for example, your email address printed in the file) and may also include hidden markers in the file itself. If we use an outside watermarking service to make a personal copy, your email address is sent to that service solely for that purpose.

Why we collect this information. We use this information to deliver your book, remember your place, help you if something goes wrong (including noticing that an email to you bounced), send reminders, understand how readers experience our books (for example, where chapters lose people), spot sharing or copying that we have not authorized, and protect our authors’ work. We do not sell it, and we do not use it for advertising.

How long we keep records. We keep delivery and download records for advance and beta readers for up to 24 months after your link was created, then delete them. For purchasers, we keep delivery records for as long as your order exists, so you can maintain access to your link, receipt, and ebook. We keep reading activity and saved reading state for as long as needed for the purposes above, and we delete them when you ask us to (see Section 6) or when you delete your account.

5. Retaining and Sharing Your Data

We never sell your personal information to third parties. We use some third-party service providers to help us deliver our services. These providers are contractually bound to maintain the confidentiality of your data and use it solely for our business purposes or as described in their own policies. The kinds of providers we use include:

  • Payment services (such as Stripe, and the wallets and payment methods it supports, including Apple Pay, Google Pay, Link, and Amazon Pay), which process your payment and handle your card or account details under their own privacy policies. If you choose to save your information with a service such as Link, that service stores it, not us
  • Email services, which send you our emails and tell us whether a message was delivered or bounced
  • File storage and security services, such as Cloudflare, which store the books we deliver and protect the Site
  • A watermarking service, if we use one, to make personal copies of ebooks (see Section 4)
  • Printing and shipping services, which receive your name, shipping address, and order contents so they can print and send physical books you order
  • Our website hosting and software providers

We may also share information when the law requires it, to protect our rights and our authors’ work, or in connection with a sale or reorganization of our business.

If you leave a post or comment, the content and its metadata are retained indefinitely. For users who register on the Site, we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time; changing a username requires contacting a Site administrator. Site administrators can also see and edit the same information.

We keep order records for as long as we need them for accounting, tax, and legal purposes.

6. Your Data Rights

If you have an account on the Site, have placed an order, have read or downloaded a book from us, or have posted any content on the Site, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us and your reading and download records. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you, including your reading activity. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes (such as order records). If you would like us to stop recording your reading activity, contact us; note that features like remembering your place and bookmarks depend on it.

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Blocking cookies may stop parts of the Site, such as your cart, logging in, or your reading link, from working.

7. Data Security

We take measures designed to help protect information about you from loss, theft, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. Reading links and download links are personal to you and act like a password, so please do not share them. Nevertheless, transmission via the internet is never completely secure. We cannot guarantee the security of your information collected through our Sites or Services.

8. Privacy Policy Changes

We reserve the right to revise and reissue this Privacy Policy at any time. Any changes will be effective immediately upon posting of the revised Privacy Policy. Your continued use of our Site and Services indicates your acknowledgment of the Privacy Policy then posted. If the changes are material, we may provide you additional notice.

9. Contact Us

If you have any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, or would like to make a complaint about how we process your personal information, please email us at books@winterforestpress.com, or send a letter to Winter Forest Press, PO Box 5731, New York, NY, 11105. We will seek to address any questions, comments, or complaints as soon as possible.

Last updated October 18, 2026