Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy


1. Introduction

We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy policy informs you how we look after your personal data when you visit our website, use our self-publishing services, upload manuscripts, or communicate with us. It also tells you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.


2. The Data We Collect About You

Personal data means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. We may collect, use, store, and transfer different kinds of personal data about you, grouped as follows:

- Identity Data: First name, last name, username, title, and author pen names.
- Contact Data: Billing address, delivery address, email address, and telephone numbers.
- Financial Data: Bank account details (for royalty payouts) and payment card details (processed securely via third-party processors).
- Transaction Data: Details about payments to and from you, and details of services or books you have purchased from us.
- Content Data: Manuscripts, book descriptions, cover designs, and other intellectual property you upload to our platform.
- Marketing Data: Your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties.


3. How We Use Your Personal Data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we use your personal data in the following circumstances:

- To perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you (e.g., publishing your book, printing copies, distributing to retailers).
- Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (e.g., managing our relationship with you, keeping our records updated, improving our platform).
- Where we need to comply with a legal obligation (e.g., tax records for royalty payouts and sales).


4. Disclosures of Your Personal Data

We do not sell your personal data or intellectual property. To deliver our publishing services, we may share your personal data with the following categories of third parties:

- Printing & Distribution Partners: To manufacture and distribute your physical or digital books to global retailers (e.g., Amazon, IngramSpark).
- Service Providers: Freelance editors, designers, or formatters you contract through our platform.
- Payment Gateways: Secure third-party payment processors (e.g., Stripe, PayPal) to handle transactions.


5. International Transfers

Some of our external third parties, such as global book retailers and distribution networks, are based outside the UK. Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

- We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data.
- Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved for use in the UK (the International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum) which give personal data the same protection it has in the UK.


6. Data Security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data and uploaded manuscripts from being accidentally lost, used, altered, disclosed, or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal data and files to those employees, agents, contractors, and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.


7. Data Retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

- Account & Royalty Data: Retained for 6 years after the end of the financial year in which the contract ends, to comply with UK tax law.
- Manuscript Files: Retained on our secure servers for the duration of our publishing agreement to facilitate ongoing print and distribution requests.


8. Your Legal Rights

Under UK data protection laws, you have rights in relation to your personal data, including the right to:

- Request access to your personal data (a "data subject access request").
- Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you.
- Request erasure of your personal data ("the right to be forgotten").
- Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest.
- Request restriction of processing of your personal data.
- Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party.
- Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your data.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details below.


9. Contact Details and Complaints

Our details are:
- Full name of legal entity: North Coast Books Ltd
- Email address: info@northcoastbooks.co.uk You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues ( ​