Privacy Policy

The short version

If you use one of our free tools or ask us to call you, we keep your name, email address and phone number so we can actually get back to you. We use that information to contact you about publishing your book. We do not sell it. You can ask us to delete it at any time by emailing [email protected], and we will.

What we collect

Information you give us

• Contact details — your name, email address and phone number. Our free tools require a phone number before showing a result, because our follow-up is a phone call rather than an email sequence.
• What you type into a tool — for example the description of your book, sample pages of a manuscript, or the text of a publishing contract you want explained. This is stored with your enquiry so that whoever calls you has read it before they dial.
• What you tell us on a call — notes and, where a call is recorded, the recording and a transcript. See Phone calls below.

Information collected automatically

• Which pages you viewed, the site or advert you arrived from, and your browser's user-agent string.
• Campaign tags in the link you clicked — utm_source and similar, plus Google and Meta click identifiers where an advert sent you here.

Our own cookies

These three are set by this site:

• zeal_vid — a random visitor identifier, so a form you submit later can be matched to the page you first arrived on.
• zeal_attr — where you came from on that first visit.
• zeal_ref — a referral code, if someone referred you. Expires after 30 days.

Google's cookies

We use Google's tag (Google Analytics, and Google Ads when an advert sent you here) to count visits and to measure which pages and adverts lead to enquiries. Google sets its own cookies for this, such as _ga and _gcl_au. We tell Google when an enquiry form is sent or the phone number is tapped, but never what you typed. You can opt out with Google's browser add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

You can clear or block all of these in your browser. Nothing on the site stops working without them; we simply lose track of where an enquiry came from.

Why we use it

• To reply to you, and to prepare for that conversation.
• To produce the result a tool promised you.
• To send you publishing-related email you asked for. Every marketing email has an unsubscribe link, and it works immediately.
• To understand which pages and channels bring in real enquiries.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with anyone for their own marketing.

Artificial intelligence

Several tools on this site produce their result using a third-party AI model (Groq). What you type into those tools is sent to that provider to generate the response. Please do not paste anything you would not want processed by an outside service — in particular, unpublished manuscripts you have no backup of, or documents containing other people's personal information.

AI output on this site is generated text. It is a starting point for a human conversation, not professional advice, and it can be wrong.

Live chat

The chat on this site is answered first by an AI assistant. A member of our team may join the chat and read the conversation so far. While they are in it, the chat shows their first name and "Zeal team", and the AI assistant stops answering until they leave. Your messages are sent to our AI provider (Groq, or Google Gemini when Groq is busy), which processes them on our instructions to write each reply.

We store the conversation, the page you started it on, where you came from (as for our forms, above) and a scrambled form of your IP address that we use only to stop abuse. If you leave your name and number in the chat, they become an enquiry like any other on this site, and the publishing consultant who contacts you reads the conversation first. Conversations that don't lead to an enquiry are deleted after 90 days.

Please don't type payment details, passwords or other people's personal information into the chat. To have a conversation deleted sooner, email [email protected] and tell us roughly when you chatted and on which page.

Talking to the assistant. If you choose Talk to our assistant, your microphone records only while the chat shows it is listening (at most 30 seconds at a time). The recording is sent to Google (Gemini) to turn it into text, and the assistant's replies are turned into speech by Google too. We don't keep the recordings or the spoken replies: we keep the text of what you said, as part of the chat above. Everything the assistant says is also shown on screen, and your details reach us only when you press Send in the chat's form yourself.

Phone calls

We call the number you give us. Calls are made by people on our team, and calls may be recorded for quality and for our own notes.

If you are called and do not want the call recorded, or do not want to be called again, say so on the call or email [email protected]. We honour do-not-call requests, and a number we have been asked to stop calling is suppressed rather than merely marked.

Who else processes your information

We use these providers to run the service. They process data on our instructions:

• Railway — hosting and the database your enquiry is stored in.
• Groq — the AI model behind the free tools and the live chat.
• Google (Gemini) — the voice of the live chat (turning what you say into text, and the assistant's replies into speech), and the backup AI model for the chat.
• Brevo — sending email.
• Google Analytics and Google Ads — visit statistics, and which adverts lead to enquiries (see Cookies above).
• Google Search Console — aggregate search statistics. This shows us search terms and page-level totals, not individual people.

We may also disclose information where the law requires it.

How long we keep it

Enquiries are kept while there is a realistic prospect of working together, and for our records afterwards. If you ask us to delete your information we do so, except where we are required to retain something — for example a record of a payment.

Your choices

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

• tell you what we hold about you,
• correct it,
• delete it,
• stop emailing you, or stop calling you.

Email [email protected] and say which. We do not require you to create an account to ask, and we will not treat you differently for asking.

California residents have specific rights under the CCPA/CPRA, including the right to know, to delete, to correct, and to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined. Visitors in the UK and EU may also ask us to restrict or object to processing, or to receive their information in a portable form.

Security

The site is served over HTTPS and access to the database behind it is restricted to the people who operate it. No system is perfect, and we would rather say that plainly than promise otherwise.

Children

This service is for adults. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has submitted information, email us and we will remove it.

Changes

If this policy changes materially we will update the date at the top of this page.

Contact

Zeal Publishers
581 Turtle Hollow Dr, Freehold Township, NJ 07728, United States
[email protected]
+1 (609) 493-4557