Who we are
Romance Writing Lab LLC is a craft-focused fiction writing website offering information, classes, & personalized trainings & coaching to help writers become better storytellers.
Our websites are https://romancewritinglab.com and https://courses.romancewritinglab.com and The Lab, our private dicussion forum.
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
Romance Writing Lab, LLC collects the minimum necessary information to provide essential products and services.
We encourage you to use any name you wish when registering for courses or forums, and to use email addresses that are not used on any of your social media accounts. (Siloing such information is one way to protect yourself & maintain privacy).
We do not need ‘real’ information, other than what is required for payment. We do not care what you call yourself on our sites; the only rule it to be civil & decent and not a white supremacist.
We do not want your data–we want to help you tell stories.
Comments
Where comments are enabled, when visitors leave comments on our sites, we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the courses.romancewritinglab.com website, or our private discussion forum (provided through Tribe), you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images posted to a website.
There is free & paid software available that can strip EXIF data from images. Romance Writing Lab LLC strongly suggests you use it.
Contact forms
Cookies
Where enabled, when you leave a comment on our site, you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
Where available, when you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
You can clear the cookies & cache stored in your browser(s) at any time. Romance Writing Lab, LLC strongly encourages his. There are simple tutorials available online for how clear your cache & cookies on all browsers. Be aware: if you do this, you will be logged out of sites, but you will also reduce tracking & profiling.
Embedded content from other websites
Material on our sites may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
You can see the software we use on the Romance Writing Lab, LLC’s websites below.
Analytics
Who we share your data with
Romance Writing Lab, LLC does not sell, rent, or share your data with anyone, except as outlined in this policy (and all those exceptions involve secondary software required to deliver essential products & services: for instance, video embeds for courses, or a newsletter provider to send you emails with news & updates.)
Software &/or plugins used to deliver Romance Writing Lab, LLC’s essential products & services have their own privacy policies. You can view them here:
WordPress (website platform): https://wordpress.org/about/privacy/
LearnDash (course platform): https://www.learndash.com/privacy-policy/
Wishlist Member (membership software, to let you sign in, see a dashboard, & access masterclasses/webinar replays): https://wishlistproducts.com/privacy-policy/
Tribe (discussion forum): https://tribe.so/
ThriveCart (payment processing): https://legal.thrivecart.com/platform/privacy/
Stripe (payment processing): https://stripe.com/privacy
Mailerlite (newsletter): https://www.mailerlite.com/legal/privacy-policy
Zoom (video/audio live meetings): https://zoom.us/privacy
How long we retain your data
Where enabled, if you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely by WordPress or the other software that’s used to host the comments (ex: Tribe discussion forum). This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our websites (if any), we also store the personal information they provide. Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Our contact information
contact@romancewritinglab.com
Additional information
How we protect your data
Your data is protected via the security protocols & data breach procedures handled by the premium software used to deliver Romance Writing Lab, LLC’s essential products & services, including WordPress, LearnDash, Tribe, ThriveCart/Stripe, Zoom, and Mailerlite.
What third parties we receive data from
We receive no information from third parties other than what is necessary to provide the requested & required services (ex: ThriveCart/Stripe processing alerts us if there is a payment issue.) We do not retain data for any longer than needed, and we do not request it.
What automated decision making and/or profiling we do with user data
We profile nothing & no one, and the only thing done automatically is that done via the third party software required to deliver essential products & services.
We don’t want your data–don’t give it to us. Be free and tell stories.
