Privacy

How we look after your details

Last updated 7 October 2026

Alice Kettleby’s horror books, free stories, letters and The Kettleby Archive podcast are published by Lou Lou Press, a small independent press. This page explains, in plain words, what happens to your details when you use louloubooks.com: when you ask for a free gift, read our letters, buy a book, join a membership, listen to a podcast or simply visit.

Who looks after your details

Lou Lou Press is responsible for your details (in data-protection law, the “controller”). You can reach us at hello@louloubooks.com or by post:

Lou Lou Press
Lou Lou Press
46 Hanover road
London
NW10 3DS

What we collect, and why

Free gifts and letters

When you ask for a free story, bonus, quiz result or our letters, we ask for your first name and your email address, and a clear yes. Some forms also ask optional questions (such as which book brought you here, or your quiz answers) so that what we send suits you. We then send one email with a link. Your address only joins our letters once you press that link, which stops anyone signing someone else up. We keep a record of where and when you signed up and when you confirmed. If you sign up in one of our apps, we look after those details in the same way.

You can leave at any time with the unsubscribe link at the bottom of every letter. Your record is then marked “do not email” and kept that way, so that we don’t write to you again by mistake. If you’d like us to delete the rest of it too, just ask.

Opens and clicks in our letters

Our letters contain a tiny image, and their links pass through our website first. Together they tell us whether you opened a letter and which links you pressed, and this is noted on your record with us. It shows us which letters are useful, so we can write more of those. Turning off images in your email app stops the open count; the letters work just the same. Leaving the list stops it all.

Buying a book

When you buy, we keep your name, email address, what you bought and the amount. Stripe takes the payment; we never see or keep your full card number. For a paperback we also need your delivery address and a phone number for the courier. We pass your name, address and phone number to Lulu, which prints and posts the book.

As a customer you will also receive our letters now and then, about new books like the one you bought. We say so before you pay, with a “No letters, thanks” box you can tick, and you can stop them later with one click in any letter. We never send them to anyone who has unsubscribed.

Every ebook carries its owner’s name and email address inside (a short line on the pages of the PDF and in the file’s details, and a page at the front of the EPUB). This personal stamp is how we keep our books affordable without locking them. Please keep your copy to yourself.

Memberships

If you join our membership, we keep your name, email address, your plan and its payments (through Stripe), and, if you ask for one, the delivery address and phone number for a members’ paperback. Members also receive our letters and members’ emails, and can stop them with one click. Some courses are on our own website. Others, and the private group, run on other services (for example Thinkific or Facebook). Members’ videos play in YouTube or Vimeo players. Using these is optional, and their own privacy policies apply.

The AI reading guide

Members can ask questions of the AI reading guide for members. Your questions and its answers are kept with your membership, so the conversation can continue, and Lou Lou Press can read them to improve the guide. To write each answer, your question and the last few messages of the conversation are sent to Anthropic, the company that makes the Claude AI model. Under its commercial terms, Anthropic does not use them to train its models. If a question sounds as though someone may be in danger, it isn’t sent to the AI at all: the guide answers with places to get help, and we are told, so that a real person can follow up with care. Please don’t put details in a question that you wouldn’t want stored.

The question box on this website

The box in the corner of our pages answers questions about the stories. You don’t need to give your name or email to use it. To write each answer, your question and the last few questions and answers of your conversation are sent to Anthropic, the company that makes the Claude AI model; under its commercial terms, Anthropic does not use them to train its models. We keep the questions and answers, with the page they were asked on, so we can see what visitors want to know and make the answers better; they aren’t linked to you unless you ask for a free gift inside the box, and questions from people who never sign up are deleted after about 13 months. So that one connection can’t use up the box for everyone, we count how many questions come from each internet address in a day; the address is scrambled with a secret code and the date first, so it can’t be turned back into the address. While your browser tab is open it remembers the conversation, so it carries on from page to page; closing the tab forgets it. Please don’t type anything into it that you wouldn’t want stored.

Visiting the website and listening to podcasts

We count visits ourselves, without cookies and without any outside analytics company. For each visit we note the page, the day, the kind of device (phone, tablet or computer), the website or link that sent you (for example a YouTube video), your browser’s language and the country your device’s own time-zone setting belongs to. We also note roughly how far down a page people read, how much of an episode they hear on our website, and which sign-up offer they press. We never look up where you are from your internet address. To tell one visitor from another on the same day, your internet address and browser type are mixed with a random code that is deleted the next day and scrambled one way. So we can’t see your address, and we can’t follow anyone from one day to the next. The counts are kept for about 13 months.

When you listen in a podcast app (such as Apple Podcasts or Spotify), the app fetches the episode from us, and we count that once a day in the same scrambled way. The app’s own privacy policy covers what the app itself does.

When you write to us

If you email us, fill in a contact form or use a chat box, we keep your message and our reply, so that we can help you and remember what was said. Writing to us doesn’t sign you up for our letters; a form has a separate box for that. On some forms and chat boxes, an AI assistant (Claude, made by Anthropic) may write the first reply for us, so your message is sent to Anthropic to do that. We are told about every message. If a form asks for your phone number and you tick the box, we may text you about that enquiry only (by Twilio). Reply STOP at any time.

Cookies

We don’t use advertising or tracking cookies, so you won’t see a cookie banner here. We only set small cookies that make things work: they remember that you have confirmed your email for a free gift, that you are a member or have a course, or that we are signed in to run the site. If you delete them, you can open your gift again from your email. Longer forms also keep your answers in your browser while you fill them in, so nothing is lost if the page reloads, and clear them when you send.

To show our typefaces, most of our pages load font files from Google Fonts, so your browser connects to Google’s servers, which see your internet address. Card payments happen on Stripe’s own secure page, which uses its own cookies to prevent fraud. Members’ videos play in YouTube or Vimeo players, which may set their own cookies when you press play.

The companies that help us

We don’t sell or rent your details, and we don’t share them with anyone for their own marketing. A few trusted companies handle them for us, only to do the jobs below:

• Hostinger: the server that runs this website and its database, and our email inbox.
• Cloudflare: stores our book files, downloads and podcast audio.
• Resend: sends our emails.
• Stripe: takes payments and handles refunds.
• Lulu: prints and posts paperbacks.
• Anthropic: writes the answers in the question box and the AI guide’s answers for members, and some first replies to contact forms and chat messages.
• Twilio: sends text messages, only if you asked for them.
• Google: font files (see Cookies), YouTube (see below) and Google Maps business listings (see “If you run a business”).
• Vimeo: plays some members’ videos.

Some of these companies are based in, or use servers in, the United States. Where your details leave the EU or UK, they are protected in the ways the law requires, such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU–US Data Privacy Framework. We may also share details if the law requires it, for example with the tax authorities for sales records.

Our YouTube uploading tool

We make our videos in our own tool, StoryForge, and upload them to our own YouTube channels with the YouTube API Services. Only Lou Lou Press uses this tool, and only for channels we own. By using it we agree to the YouTube Terms of Service, and Google’s handling of data is described in the Google Privacy Policy.

• What it can see: each connected channel’s name, ID and picture, and the channel’s playlists (so we can add a new video to one).
• What it does: uploads a video with its title, description, tags, category, privacy setting and schedule, adds its thumbnail and subtitles, and puts it in a playlist. It doesn’t read viewers’ details, comments or messages, and it never deletes videos.
• What it keeps: the permission key Google gives us for each channel, stored only on our own server and readable only by the tool, plus the channel’s name and picture. The video files are deleted as soon as an upload finishes. If an upload fails, they are kept for up to three days so that it can be retried, then deleted. A short history of the last 60 uploads (each video’s title and details, channel, date and YouTube link) is kept so we can see what went up.
• Who else sees it: no one. Nothing from YouTube is shared with or sold to anyone else.
• Taking access back: the channel owner can remove the tool’s access at any time from Google’s security settings (third-party access), or press ✕ beside the channel in the tool, which deletes its key from our server and tells Google to cancel it.

How long we keep things

• Letters and free gifts: until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete you. After you unsubscribe, your record stays, marked “do not email”. Ask us and we’ll delete everything except your address, which we keep only so that we never email you again.
• Orders: as long as tax and accounting law requires (in the Czech Republic this can be up to 10 years).
• Memberships and AI guide conversations: while you are a member, and afterwards until you ask us to delete them (payment records stay as long as the law requires).
• Visit counts: about 13 months. The daily scrambling code is deleted the next day.
• Unconfirmed sign-ups never receive our letters, and we delete them on request.

The legal reasons we rely on

• Your consent: for letters and free gifts you sign up for. You can withdraw it at any time, without affecting what came before.
• A contract with you: to deliver what you buy, and to run your membership.
• The law: to keep sales records for tax and accounting.
• Our legitimate interests: to send customers and members letters about similar books (which they can refuse at any time), to see which letters are opened and read, to count visits in the privacy-friendly way described above, to keep records of consent, to keep the site safe, and to stop emailing people who have asked us not to.

Your rights

You can ask us for a copy of your details, ask us to correct them or delete them, ask us to limit or stop using them, or ask for them in a form you can take elsewhere. Write to hello@louloubooks.com and we’ll reply within a month, usually much sooner. If you’re not happy with how we handled your details, you can complain to a data-protection authority. In the Czech Republic, where Lou Lou Press is based, that is the Office for Personal Data Protection (uoou.gov.cz). In the UK it is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk). You can also complain to the authority where you live.

Children

This website is for adults. We don’t knowingly collect details from anyone under 16. Our children’s books are bought by grown-ups. If you think a child has signed up, write to us and we’ll delete their details.

If you run a business

Lou Lou Press also offers marketing help to small businesses, such as free website and review check-ups. For that we use business details that are publicly listed, mostly on Google Maps and the business’s own website (such as its name, address, website and reviews), and the contact details a business gives us or lists publicly. We rely on our legitimate interest in offering a relevant service. If you’d like us to stop, reply “stop” to any message or write to hello@louloubooks.com, and we will.

Changes to this page

If we change how we use your details, we’ll update this page and the date at the top. If a change matters to you, for example a new use of your email address, we’ll tell you before it happens.

Thank you for trusting us with your details.