Privacy Policy

Effective Date: June 1, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how information is collected, used, stored, and protected when you visit the Make Life Better Now test-reader website.

This website is operated by LifeJourner Press and provides visitors with limited access to the first four chapters of Make Life Better Now, along with information about the book and a means of contacting the author.

By using this website, you acknowledge the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

1. Information We Collect

The information collected depends on how you interact with the website.

Information You Provide

You may voluntarily provide personal information when you:

Use the Contact page or submit a contact form
Request information about the book or test-reader opportunity
Submit comments, questions, corrections, or test-reader feedback
Communicate with the author by email
Consent to the use of certain cookies or website technologies

The information you provide may include:

Your name
Your email address
The subject and content of your message
Feedback, observations, or comments you choose to submit
Any other information you voluntarily include in your communication

Please do not submit sensitive personal information that is not necessary for your message or participation as a test reader.

Information Collected Automatically

When you access the website, limited technical information may be collected automatically by the website, hosting provider, security services, or other essential technologies.

This information may include:

Internet Protocol address
Browser type and version
Device type and operating system
Date and time of access
Pages visited
Referring website or source
General geographic region derived from an Internet Protocol address
Error logs, security events, and diagnostic information
Cookie preferences and consent records

This information is generally used to operate, protect, troubleshoot, and understand the basic use of the website.

2. How We Use Information

Information may be used to:

Operate and maintain the website
Provide access to the test-reader material
Respond to inquiries and messages
Receive and evaluate test-reader feedback
Revise, improve, edit, publish, or promote Make Life Better Now
Understand whether the website and reading experience function properly
Remember cookie and privacy preferences
Detect spam, abuse, unauthorized access, or security threats
Diagnose technical problems
Enforce the website’s Terms of Service
Protect the manuscript, website, author, visitors, and intellectual property
Comply with legal obligations
Establish, exercise, or defend legal rights

Personal information will not be used for materially unrelated purposes without an appropriate reason or additional notice.

3. Legal Bases for Processing

Where the General Data Protection Regulation, United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation, or similar privacy laws apply, personal information may be processed under one or more of the following legal bases:

Consent

Consent may be used when you:

Choose optional cookie categories
Voluntarily submit information
Request a response
Agree to receive a communication that is not necessary to fulfill your original request

Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal does not affect processing that occurred before consent was withdrawn.

Legitimate Interests

Information may be processed when reasonably necessary for legitimate interests such as:

Operating a secure and functional website
Communicating with readers
Administering the test-reader process
Receiving and evaluating manuscript feedback
Protecting the unpublished manuscript
Preventing fraud, spam, misuse, or unauthorized access
Understanding basic website performance
Establishing or defending legal claims

These interests are considered in relation to the privacy rights and reasonable expectations of visitors.

Contractual Necessity

Information may be processed when necessary to provide requested access, respond to a request, or administer your participation under the website’s Terms of Service.

Legal Obligation

Information may be processed when required to comply with applicable laws, regulations, court orders, legal proceedings, or lawful government requests.

4. Test-Reader Feedback

Any feedback you voluntarily submit may be reviewed, stored, organized, and used in connection with the development of Make Life Better Now and related material.

Feedback may include:

General reader reactions
Suggested corrections
Editorial observations
Comments about clarity, tone, pacing, or usefulness
Questions raised by the manuscript
Suggestions for improving the book

Your feedback may be retained as part of the book’s editorial and development records.

The treatment of intellectual-property rights associated with submitted feedback is addressed in the website’s Terms of Service.

Your name, photograph, personal details, or feedback presented as a public testimonial will not be published for promotional purposes without your permission, unless you have already made that information publicly available in connection with the book.

5. Contact Forms and Communications

When you use the Contact page or communicate by email, the information you submit is used primarily to:

Receive your message
Respond to your inquiry
Maintain an appropriate record of the communication
Address questions concerning manuscript access, privacy, or website use
Prevent spam, abuse, or fraudulent submissions

Messages may be processed by the website’s form provider, hosting provider, email provider, spam-prevention service, or security service as necessary to deliver and protect the communication.

Submitting a contact form does not automatically subscribe you to a marketing email list.

6. Cookies and Similar Technologies

The website may use cookies, local storage, pixels, scripts, or similar technologies.

These technologies may be used to:

Keep the website functioning
Maintain security
Remember cookie preferences
Store consent choices
prevent spam or abuse
Support website forms
Measure basic website performance
Enable optional third-party features

Necessary Cookies

Necessary cookies support essential functions such as security, privacy preferences, form operation, and website stability. Some necessary cookies may be used without optional consent where permitted by law.

Optional Cookies

Analytics, marketing, embedded-media, or other nonessential technologies will be handled according to the consent options presented through the website’s cookie banner.

Where prior consent is required, optional technologies should not be activated until you make the relevant selection.

You may change or withdraw optional cookie consent through the website’s cookie-preference controls.

For more information about specific cookies and services detected on the website, please review the separate Cookie Policy.

7. Cookie Consent Management

The website may use Complianz or a similar consent-management tool to:

Display the cookie notice
Record consent choices
Block certain nonessential technologies before consent
Allow visitors to change their preferences
Generate or maintain information about cookies used by the website

Consent records may include technical information necessary to demonstrate and preserve the choices you made.

8. Embedded Content and External Services

Pages on this website may include content or functionality supplied by third parties, such as:

Videos
Images
Fonts
Social-media features
Security tools
Spam-prevention services
Website analytics
External links
Contact-form services

Embedded content may behave as though you visited the third party’s website directly. Depending on the service and your consent choices, the third party may collect technical information, use cookies, or record your interaction with its content.

The website will attempt to block nonessential embedded services before consent where required and technically supported.

External websites and services maintain their own privacy practices. This Privacy Policy does not control how independent third parties handle information after you leave this website or interact directly with their services.

9. Hosting, Security, and Technical Providers

The website relies on service providers to perform functions necessary for its operation.

These providers may include:

Web-hosting companies
Domain and network providers
Content-delivery or caching services
Website security and firewall services
Backup providers
Form-processing services
Email providers
Spam-prevention services
Cookie-consent services
Website analytics providers, where enabled

These providers may process limited personal or technical information while performing their services.

Information is shared only as reasonably necessary to operate, secure, maintain, or support the website, comply with legal obligations, or protect legitimate rights.

10. Analytics

The website may use limited analytics to understand general visitor activity and determine whether the site is functioning effectively.

Analytics information may include:

Page views
Approximate traffic sources
General device or browser information
Approximate geographic region
Time spent on pages
Website errors or performance information

Where analytics requiring consent are used, they will be controlled through the website’s consent-management system.

The website does not intentionally use analytics to make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects concerning individual visitors.

11. How Information Is Shared

Personal information is not sold or rented.

Information may be disclosed only in circumstances such as:

To service providers performing necessary website functions
At your direction or with your permission
To investigate spam, fraud, security incidents, or misuse
To enforce the Terms of Service
To protect the unpublished manuscript or other intellectual property
To protect the rights, safety, or property of the author, website visitors, or others
To comply with a subpoena, court order, legal process, or lawful government request
In connection with a legitimate business reorganization, transfer, or succession, subject to appropriate privacy protections

Information is not shared with advertisers for behavioral advertising unless such activity is clearly disclosed and any legally required consent or opt-out mechanism is provided.

12. Sale or Sharing of Personal Information

The website does not knowingly sell personal information for monetary compensation.

The website also does not knowingly disclose personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.

Should these practices change, this Privacy Policy and any required consent or opt-out mechanisms will be updated before the new practices are implemented.

13. Data Retention

Personal information is retained only as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, including legitimate operational, editorial, security, recordkeeping, and legal purposes.

Typical retention considerations include:

Contact messages may be retained while the inquiry remains relevant and for a reasonable recordkeeping period afterward
Test-reader feedback may be retained as part of the permanent editorial history of the book
Consent records may be retained as necessary to document privacy choices
Security and server logs may be retained temporarily for troubleshooting, fraud prevention, and website protection
Backup copies may remain for a limited period until replaced through normal backup cycles
Information relevant to a legal dispute or violation may be retained until the matter is resolved and any applicable limitation period has expired

Information that is no longer reasonably needed may be deleted, anonymized, or securely disposed of.

14. Data Security

Reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards are used to protect personal information against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, destruction, loss, or misuse.

These safeguards may include:

Secure website connections
Account-access controls
Website and server security tools
Software updates
Spam and abuse prevention
Backups
Restricted administrative access
Security monitoring

No website, storage system, or transmission method can be guaranteed completely secure. Visitors should avoid sending highly sensitive information through ordinary website forms or email.

15. International Data Processing

The website is operated from the United States.

If you access the website from another country, your information may be transferred to, stored in, or processed in the United States or another country where a service provider operates.

Privacy and data-protection laws in those locations may differ from the laws in your country.

Where required, reasonable safeguards will be used for international transfers of personal information.

16. Your Privacy Rights

Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have the right to:

Ask whether personal information about you is being processed
Request access to personal information held about you
Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information
Request deletion of certain information
Request restriction of certain processing
Object to certain processing
Withdraw consent where processing is based on consent
Request a portable copy of certain information
Opt out of certain sales, sharing, targeted advertising, or profiling practices
Lodge a complaint with an appropriate privacy or data-protection authority
Receive equal service without unlawful discrimination for exercising your privacy rights

These rights are not absolute. A request may be limited where information must be retained for legal, security, recordkeeping, intellectual-property protection, or other lawful purposes.

17. Exercising Your Rights

To submit a privacy request, use the website’s Contact page and clearly state that your message concerns a privacy request.

You may be asked to provide enough information to:

Identify the information involved
Locate relevant records
Verify that the request concerns your own information
Protect information from unauthorized disclosure

Only information reasonably necessary to process and verify the request will be requested.

An authorized agent may submit a request where permitted by law, but additional verification or proof of authority may be required.

18. Do Not Track and Browser Privacy Signals

Some browsers allow users to send “Do Not Track” signals. Because there is not one universally implemented standard governing all such signals, the website may not respond to every Do Not Track setting in the same way.

Where applicable law requires recognition of a supported universal opt-out signal, the website will make reasonable efforts to honor that signal for the activities to which it legally applies.

Cookie choices may also be managed through the website’s consent controls and your browser settings.

19. Children’s Privacy

This website and the test-reader opportunity are intended for a general adult audience and are not directed to children under 13 years of age.

The website does not knowingly collect personal information online from children under 13.

If you believe a child under 13 has submitted personal information through this website, please use the Contact page so the information can be reviewed and deleted where appropriate.

20. Links to Other Websites

The website may contain links to external websites.

Following an external link may allow another website to collect information according to its own terms and privacy policy. LifeJourner Press is not responsible for the privacy, security, availability, or content practices of independent websites.

Visitors should review the privacy notices of external sites before submitting personal information.

21. Changes to This Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy may be updated periodically to reflect changes in:

Website functionality
Plugins or service providers
Data practices
The test-reader program
Applicable laws or regulatory guidance
Security or operational requirements

The current version will be posted on this page with a revised effective date.

Material changes will apply prospectively unless applicable law permits or requires otherwise.

22. Contact

Questions, concerns, or requests concerning this Privacy Policy or the handling of personal information may be submitted through the website’s Contact page.

Please include “Privacy Request” in the subject or opening line of your message when possible.