Privacy policy

1. Overview — who's responsible

EarnDraft ("we," "us") is the data controller for personal data processed through this site and app. This policy covers the EarnDraft website, account, book workspace, exports, and hosted book and author pages. Retailers where you sell (Amazon KDP, Etsy, Gumroad, Apple Books) process reader purchases under their own policies — we never see those transactions.

2. Data we collect

• Account & profile. Email, name, handle, bio, avatar, sign-in method (Google, email link/code, or password hash — never your plain password), and verification status.
• Your content. Book ideas, briefs, outlines, chapters, edits, covers, listing copy, reviews you attach to pages, and support messages. Draft and unpublished books are private to your account and never indexed by search engines.
• Billing records (not cards). Plan status, AI usage balance and spend history, and Polar transaction references. Card numbers go directly to Polar as Merchant of Record — they never touch our servers.
• Usage & device. Product events (generation requests, exports, publishing actions), error logs, and privacy-light performance telemetry: pages viewed, approximate region from IP, device and browser type. No cross-site ad tracking, no social pixels.
• Public pages you publish. Anything you publish at /b/[slug] or /c/[handle] — cover, contents, preview excerpt, purchase links, displayed reviews — becomes public and indexable by design.
• Communications. Receipts, requested account and billing emails, and your replies to support.

3. How we use it — and the legal basis

• Run the service (contract): sign-in, autosave, version history, generation, covers, exports, hosted pages.
• Billing & fraud prevention (contract, legitimate interests): entitlements, AI usage metering, dispute handling, abuse detection.
• Transactional email (contract): receipts, download links, security notices via Resend.
• Improvement & reliability (legitimate interests): aggregated performance analytics, error diagnosis, and keeping pages fast. We don't build advertising profiles.
• Marketing email, only with consent we do not currently send promotional emails or collect reader emails. Free-book downloads do not require email or signup. Existing unsubscribe links still work for prior reader and author marketing consent.
• Legal compliance (legal obligation): tax records via Polar, responding to lawful requests, enforcing the Terms.

4. AI processing & your manuscripts

AI features send your prompts and relevant book content to model providers through Vercel AI Gateway. We use DeepSeek for text features, including book ideas, outlines, writing, and editing chat, and image models for artwork. Provider retention and training practices vary. Avoid submitting confidential information that you are not authorized to share with these providers.

EarnDraft stores drafts and operation records to run the service. We do not sell manuscripts. Private drafts are not shown to other users; material you explicitly publish becomes public. Download your account data from Account or request deletion by email — details in section 8.

5. Who else touches your data

We share personal data only with the subprocessors needed to run EarnDraft, each limited to its job:

• Hosting, database & file storage — runs the app, stores accounts, books, covers, and exports.
• Polar — Merchant of Record for checkout, subscriptions, invoices, tax/VAT. Receives your payment and billing-contact details directly.
• Resend — delivers transactional and (consented) marketing email.
• Google — only if you choose Google sign-in; Google confirms your identity under its own policy.
• AI inference gateway & model providers — process generation prompts to return chapters and covers, as described in section 4.
• Analytics & performance — privacy-light page analytics and speed insights; aggregate only, no ad trackers.

We don't sell personal data or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We disclose data only to these providers, to enforce our terms or protect safety, or when required by law — and we push back on overbroad requests where we can.

6. Cookies & analytics

• Essential. Sign-in sessions and security cookies, plus remembering anonymous briefs before you create an account. The app doesn't work without these. A guest book is kept for 72 hours unless you save it to an account. The guest identity cookie lasts seven days and renews when you begin another book; it does not extend a book's deadline or reset its AI allowance.
• Performance. Privacy-light page analytics and speed insights to keep pages fast — no cross-site ad trackers, no social pixels.
• Your control. Block cookies in your browser and the marketing site still reads; sign-in and the workspace need essential cookies. "Do Not Track" signals are respected where technically feasible; we don't run interest-based ads either way.
• Optional measurement. With your permission, a first-party random browser identifier connects your landing page, campaign, and device category to verified signup and product outcomes. Its cookie lasts 90 days; visitor attribution is retained for up to 90 days. We do not collect your manuscript, prompts, birth date, or authentication secrets for this purpose. Change your choice using Analytics preferences on this page. Turning it off removes this browser's visitor attribution. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control keep optional browser measurement off. Account and billing outcome records remain available to operate and assess the service, independently of promotional email preferences.

7. Retention & security

• Your content lives while your account does. Manuscripts, covers, and hosted pages persist for autosave, history, and republishing until you delete them or delete your account.
• Deleting your account deletes your manuscripts, covers, and hosted pages from our live systems (exported files you downloaded are yours to keep). Deletion from live storage does not immediately erase provider backups or logs. We will explain applicable retention and any legally required billing records when handling your verified request.
• Closed-account financial records. Our default retention period is seven years after account deletion completes or the latest financial activity, whichever is later. Unresolved charges, payment disputes and legal holds can require longer retention. This does not delay removal of your manuscripts or personal profile. Minimal deletion records and aggregate provider costs remain to prevent restored access and incorrect spending limits.
• Anonymous preview audit records. Preview books expire after 72 hours. Their limited usage and provider-cost records normally expire after seven years of inactivity. Unknown charges and review holds remain until resolved. A minimal retired identity and aggregate expense remain to prevent trial reuse and incorrect spending limits.
• Unpublishing removes a page from our site and sitemap going forward — copies already indexed, linked, or downloaded elsewhere are beyond our control.
• Security. Encrypted connections, hashed credentials, least-privilege database access, and best-effort logging that never breaks your session. No system is impregnable — if we discover a breach affecting your data, we'll notify you as required by law.

8. Your rights — access, export, delete

Access, correct, export, or delete your personal data at any time — including EU GDPR and UK GDPR requests (access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, objection) and equivalent rights elsewhere. Download an account-data copy and edit your profile from your account ; request account deletion or other privacy rights by emailing hello@earndraft.com. We verify the requester, respond within 30 days (sooner where the law requires), and never charge or discriminate for exercising your rights. You can also lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.

9. US state privacy notice

For California (CCPA/CPRA) and other US state privacy laws: the categories above — identifiers (email, handle), account and commercial information (plan, AI usage history), internet activity (product events, performance telemetry), and user content — are collected to operate, bill for, and improve the service. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we don't knowingly sell data of anyone under 16. You can request to know, correct, delete, or get a copy of your data, and to opt out of any future sale/sharing, via the email in section 8. Authorized agents may act with your signed permission plus identity verification.

10. Children

EarnDraft isn't directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their data. Before signup, we ask for an age range. We store only a signed eligibility cookie: 30 minutes for eligible users, or 24 hours after an under-18 response to prevent immediate retries. We do not store your birth date or exact age. Author accounts are restricted to adults age 18 and older. If you believe a child provided us personal data, email hello@earndraft.com and we'll delete it promptly.

11. International transfers

We process data in the United States and wherever our subprocessors operate. International processing is subject to applicable data-transfer requirements. Contact us for the safeguards applicable to your request; this notice does not represent that a particular provider agreement has been independently verified.

12. Changes & contact

We'll update this policy as the product evolves. Material changes get reasonable advance notice in-app or by email; smaller clarifications take effect when posted with a new "Last updated" date. Privacy questions or requests: hello@earndraft.com. We respond to rights requests within 30 days.