Privacy

What we collect

If you create a reader account: your email address, password (stored securely, never readable by us), ZIP code, and optionally your name.

When you personalize Lit Circle, we save what you tell us so we can show you events you'll like:

• your location and how far you're willing to travel
• favorite genres and event types
• events you add to My Agenda
• bookstores and literary organizations you Favorite
• books you add to My Bookshelf
• your email settings: newsletter, event digest, and morning Agenda reminders (we use your ZIP to work out your time zone), and launch-email consent

If you RSVP to an event: your name and email address (see "RSVPs" below).

If you contact us: the reason you choose, your email address, and your message.

Collected automatically: basic, privacy-friendly site analytics (see "Site analytics"), and records of the emails we send you (sent, delivered, or bounced) so we can fix delivery problems. Our hosting provider briefly processes IP addresses to deliver the site, to limit spam on forms, RSVPs, and referral visits, and in its ordinary request logs.

We don't sell your personal information, and we don't use advertising cookies. An event digest can include a sponsorship that your email app loads from Awin (see "Services we use").

How we use it

• To run your account and the features you use (your Agenda, Favorites, and My Bookshelf).
• To send the emails you've asked for: newsletter, digests, reminders, launch notices, RSVP confirmations, and account emails.
• To recommend events and improve what we show you. This includes grouping readers by shared interests, for example readers near a ZIP code who like author events or a particular book on their bookshelf, so we can feature events they'd enjoy. These groupings are used inside Lit Circle only.
• To understand, in aggregate, how Lit Circle is used, so we can make it better.

Who can see your information

• Your Agenda, Favorites, preferences, and My Bookshelf are private. Other readers can't see them. Bookstores and organizations can't see them either.
• A small Lit Circle admin team can see account details to provide support. For My Bookshelf, admins see only totals (for example, how many readers added a book), never an individual's bookshelf.
• RSVPs are the exception. See below.

RSVPs

When you RSVP to an event, we share your name and email address with the bookstore or organization hosting it, so they can plan for the event and contact attendees about it. We also send you a confirmation email. If you RSVP while signed in, the event is added to your Agenda.

Site analytics

We use Traks to understand how Lit Circle is used. It records page paths, referring pages, campaign parameters, time spent on pages, and clicks to external links or downloads. It also records country, region, and city derived from the connection, plus browser, operating system, device type, and screen size, and whether a visit bounced. Traks uses a temporary browser-session identifier so related activity can be grouped during a visit. We never send Traks your name, email, ZIP code, or what you search for.

Event pages also keep our own records of views, time on the page, and clicks to tickets or other links. Each record includes a traffic channel from the referring site or campaign parameters, a device category from the browser, and the referring site's hostname. Those records use a daily identifier made from the connection, not a cookie, and they are not tied to your name, email, or ZIP code.

Services we use

We rely on a few trusted services to run Lit Circle. They handle data only to provide their service to us.

• Cloudflare: hosts the site and database, and sends our email.
• Buttondown: manages our newsletter subscriber list. When you opt into a newsletter, we also send Buttondown the IP address of that request, along with your email.
• Traks: site analytics (above).
• Mapbox: turns a city or state you type into the location picker into a place, and turns bookstore and organization addresses into map coordinates. We send Mapbox that search or address, not your name or email.
• CARTO: provides the map images on bookstore maps. Your browser loads these directly from CARTO, so CARTO receives your IP address. OpenStreetMap is credited on the map. We don't send your map view to OpenStreetMap unless you open that credit link.
• ISBNdb: book information. We send them book searches, never your personal details. We also send ISBNs to Open Library to identify editions of the same book, without your account details.
• Awin: some event digest emails include a sponsored image and link. If your email app loads images, it requests that image from Awin, which can see the IP address and browser of the request. Clicking the sponsorship also goes through Awin.

Cookies

We use a small number of cookies, all to make the site work, not to follow you around the web:

• Signing in: keeps you logged in.
• Your location: remembers the area you chose for event and bookstore searches, or that you chose to browse everywhere.
• Finishing what you started: if you try to save something before signing in, we remember it so it's saved when you do.

If you close the sign-up prompt, this browser remembers that locally. That memory is not a cookie.

We don't use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

Bookstores and literary organizations

If you join a partner waitlist for a bookstore, literary organization, press, library, or book club, we collect the contact, organization, and location information you submit so our team can review your interest and contact you about joining. It isn't available on the public site.

If you manage a listing on Lit Circle, we store your name and email address, which listings you manage, and activity needed to run your account (such as invitations, events you submit, and connections to other systems through our API). You'll see RSVP lists for your own events. Please use attendee details only for that event.

We may email you updates about Lit Circle as a partner. Every message includes a link to stop partner updates. You'll still receive account emails such as invitations and password resets.

Emails and unsubscribing

Every email we send that you can opt out of includes a link. Use it anytime. No hard feelings, and no guilt trip.

• Newsletter: unsubscribe link in every issue.
• Launch emails: turn consent on or off in Subscriptions. We use your saved ZIP to tell you when Lit Circle launches near you. Launch emails require your consent and a verified email address.
• Event digest: the link opens a short confirmation page, where you confirm the pause. You can also change it in your account. Some email apps can pause it in one step from the message itself, without opening that page.
• Morning Agenda reminders: the link opens a short confirmation page, where you confirm turning reminders off. You can also turn them off on My Agenda. Some email apps can turn them off in one step from the message itself.
• Partner updates: "Stop partner updates" link in every message.

Account emails (sign-in, password resets, invitations, RSVP confirmations) are sent only when needed and can't be turned off while you have an account or RSVP.

You can also contact us and we'll take care of it manually.

Your choices

• Change your name, password, location, favorites, and email settings anytime in your account settings. Your email address is shown there, and it can't be edited on that page. Contact us if it needs to change.
• Remove a book anytime from My Bookshelf. Removing it removes that book from your private saved list.
• Delete your account from your account settings. This removes your profile, saves, favorites, preferences, reminders, and My Bookshelf from Lit Circle. We keep non-identifying history, such as that an account was created. A few identifiable records can remain:
  • An RSVP you already sent stays with that event, so the host can still see who signed up.
  • If you subscribed to the newsletter, Buttondown keeps its subscriber record, including your email. Deleting your Lit Circle account does not erase that record.
  • If an email to you bounced or was marked as spam, we keep that email address on a suppression list so we don't keep trying to deliver to it.
• Ask us for a copy of your information, or anything else, through our contact page.

External links

When you click through to an article, bookstore website, ticketing page, or bookseller, you leave Lit Circle and enter someone else's privacy policy. We can't speak to what those sites collect. Some book links (for example to Bookshop.org or Libro.fm) include the hosting bookstore's affiliate code, so your purchase supports that store.

Bookstores and literary organizations can earn featured placement when people visit Lit Circle through their link. We count the visit. We don't attach your name or email to it.

Some pictures on events, articles, bookstores, organizations, presenters, and books are hosted on another site. Your browser requests those pictures directly, so that site can see your IP address and browser even if you never click through. Pictures we host ourselves are loaded from Lit Circle.

Children

Lit Circle isn't directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information.

Changes to this policy

As Lit Circle grows, we'll keep this policy up to date. When it changes, we'll post the update here with a new effective date. For significant changes, we'll also let you know by email.

Contact

Questions about your privacy? Contact us, or write to Lit Circle · 1624 W Division · Chicago, IL 60622.