Reader privacy and deletion

Effective October 14, 2026. This policy covers reader bonus requests, not the main AuthorScout account.

Your bonus and book-specific email

When you request a book bonus, we use your email to provide it and send one follow-up about that same book three days later. The follow-up may include a neutral invitation to leave an honest, optional review. It does not ask for a positive review, and your bonus does not depend on reviewing the book. Promotional emails about that book and related products from the same author are a separate, optional choice. Leaving that box unchecked does not prevent access to the bonus. You can unsubscribe from promotional or follow-up messages at any time; doing so does not prevent access to a bonus you already requested. Permanent bounces and complaints stop email delivery.

What is recorded

We record your email, book and pen name, request and consent dates, consent wording, download activity, delivery outcomes, and signup source (page, referring website and campaign tags). AuthorScout and the relevant author can access their reader records. Cloudflare provides bot protection and file delivery; our backend and database process these records; Amazon SES handles email delivery. Do not put personal information in campaign tags.

Videos, covers and external resources

Book covers are public images. A video thumbnail may load from YouTube, which receives the network request under its own privacy practices. Video and resource links open third-party websites; those providers control access and their own data collection. AuthorScout does not count external video views, tool usage or completed lessons. Private managed-file download links are separate from these external links.

How long we retain it

Reader records are removed 90 days after their latest request, once pending delivery work has ended. Download and detailed email activity is retained for 90 days. Expired download tokens are removed after one day. Short-lived anti-abuse counters expire within 24 hours.

We retain minimal suppression records (email, opt-out scope, reason and date) to prevent unwanted future mail. Deletion does not remove these safety records. Copies in infrastructure backups expire according to the provider's backup lifecycle and are not immediately erased by deleting a live record.

Unsubscribe or request deletion

Use an email's unsubscribe link to stop one book's follow-ups or all marketing from that pen name. For deletion, contact AuthorScout through our contact page and identify the email address and author. We verify control of the address before deleting records. Deletion removes active reader records, pending jobs, download tokens and associated download history; existing private download links then stop working. Minimal opt-out records remain.