Privacy Policy

Cara Hollis — carahollis.com

Last updated: 7/30/2026

The short version

I run a small author website and a reader newsletter. Here is the whole thing in plain English:

If you join my newsletter, I collect your email address (and your first name, if you give it) so I can send you books, news, and the occasional bonus scene. Nothing else.
I do not sell your information. Not to anyone, ever. There is no version of this business where that happens.
I use a handful of ordinary services to run the site and the list — an email platform, a book delivery service, a web host. They process your data on my behalf and nothing more.
You can leave the list at any time using the unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email, and you can ask me to delete your information entirely by writing to author-cara@carahollis.com.

Everything below is the longer, more precise version of those four points, because some of you live in places where the law requires me to be specific — and because you deserve to know exactly what happens with your information.

1. Who I am

Cara Hollis is the pen name of an independent romance author, and Cara Hollis is the party responsible for the personal information collected through this website and newsletter.

You can reach me at:

author-cara@carahollis.com

Cara Hollis PO BOX 17664 Wichita, KS 67217

The website address is https://carahollis.com.

This site is intended for adults. My books are dark romance written for readers aged 18 and over. I do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has given me their information, email me and I will delete it.

2. What I collect, and why

Newsletter subscribers

When you sign up for my newsletter, I collect:

Your email address (required)
Your first name, if you choose to give it
The date and time you subscribed, and the IP address you subscribed from — this is stored automatically as a record of your consent, which anti-spam law requires me to keep
Engagement data — whether you opened an email and whether you clicked a link inside it

I use this to send you the newsletter you asked for: new release announcements, cover reveals, bonus content, and the free prequel novella you signed up to receive. Engagement data tells me which emails are worth sending and helps me clear out addresses that have gone dead.

Legal basis (GDPR): your consent, which you gave at signup and can withdraw at any time.

My email platform is EmailOctopus, which stores subscriber data on my behalf. Their privacy policy: https://emailoctopus.com/legal/privacy

Free book delivery

The free prequel novella is delivered through BookFunnel, a service that gets ebooks onto your device. When you claim a book, BookFunnel collects your email address and basic technical information about the device or app you are sending the book to, so their help desk can assist if the download goes wrong.

BookFunnel’s privacy policy: https://bookfunnel.com/privacy/

Email sent to me

If you email me at author-cara@carahollis.com, I keep your message and address so I can reply and so I have a record of the conversation if it matters later. I do not add anyone to my newsletter list because they emailed me. Joining the list is something you have to do yourself.

Comments

Comments are disabled on this site. I do not collect comment data of any kind.

Automatic technical data

Like every website, mine sits on a server that keeps standard access logs — IP address, browser type, pages requested, timestamps. My host is IONOS, and these logs exist for security, troubleshooting, and keeping the site online. IONOS’s privacy policy: https://www.ionos.com/terms-gtc/privacy-policy/

Analytics

I use Google Analytics to understand which pages readers visit, how they found the site, and roughly where in the world they are. Google Analytics sets cookies and collects your IP address, device and browser type, and the pages you view here.

This is aggregate information about traffic patterns. I am not tracking you as an individual, I do not use it to build a profile of you, and I have not connected it to any advertising personalization features. Google processes this data on my behalf, and their privacy policy is at https://policies.google.com/privacy. You can opt out of Google Analytics across all websites using Google’s browser add-on: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Advertising

I do not currently run advertising pixels or retargeting trackers on this site. If that changes, I will update this policy before the tracking goes live.

3. Cookies

Cookies are small files a site stores in your browser. Here is what this one uses:

Essential cookies — required for the site to function. If you have a login on this site (which almost nobody does; it is mainly me), WordPress sets cookies to keep you signed in and remember display preferences.
Analytics cookies — Google Analytics sets cookies that let it recognize a returning browser and work out how many separate people visited rather than how many page loads happened. These are not required for the site to work, and blocking them will not break anything.
Affiliate referral cookies — when you click a link to Amazon or Apple Books from this site, that retailer may set a cookie recording that you arrived through my link, so any purchase you make is credited to me. The cookie is set by the retailer, not by me, and it is governed by their privacy policy.

If you are visiting from the UK or the EU, you will be asked to consent before any non-essential cookies are set, and you can change or withdraw that choice at any time through the cookie settings link on this site.

You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Blocking essential cookies may break parts of the site.

4. Embedded content and outbound links

Pages on this site may include embedded content from elsewhere — a video, a book widget, a social media post. Embedded content behaves exactly as if you had visited that other website directly. Those sites may collect data about you, set their own cookies, and monitor how you interact with the embedded item, particularly if you are logged in to them.

This site also links out to retailers (Amazon, Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and others), to Goodreads and BookBub, and to my social media profiles. Once you follow one of those links, you are on their turf and their privacy policy applies, not mine.

Affiliate disclosure: Some retailer links on this site are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy through them, at no additional cost to you whatsoever. The price you pay is the same either way. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I also participate in the Apple Services Performance Partners program for Apple Books. When you click one of these links, the retailer sets a cookie recording that you came from my site so the referral can be credited; that cookie belongs to them and is covered by their privacy policy, not mine.

5. Who your information is shared with

I do not sell, rent, trade, or otherwise hand over your personal information to anyone for their own use.

Your information is processed by a small set of service providers who work on my behalf and are contractually limited to that purpose:

Service	What it handles
EmailOctopus	Newsletter list, sending, engagement tracking
BookFunnel	Free book delivery
IONOS	Website hosting and server logs
Google Analytics	Site traffic measurement

I may also disclose information if I am legally required to — a court order, a lawful request from authorities, or to protect someone’s safety or my legal rights. If that ever happens, it will be because I have no choice.

International transfers: I am based in the United States, and most of these providers process data on servers in the United States. If you are in the UK, the EU, or another region with data transfer rules, this means your information is transferred outside your home jurisdiction. My providers use standard contractual clauses or equivalent safeguards for these transfers.

6. How long I keep things

Newsletter data — for as long as you stay subscribed. If you unsubscribe, EmailOctopus keeps a suppression record of your address so I do not accidentally email you again; that is a legal requirement, not a mailing list. If you ask for full deletion, I will delete you entirely, which means a future signup would be treated as brand new.
Inactive subscribers — I periodically remove addresses that have not opened an email in roughly [12–24] months. It keeps the list healthy and it is polite.
Email correspondence — kept as long as it is useful for the conversation or my records, typically no more than a few years.
Server logs — retained by my host on their standard schedule, typically a matter of weeks or months.

7. Your rights

Wherever you live, you can always unsubscribe from my newsletter using the link at the bottom of every email, and you can email me at author-cara@carahollis.com to ask what I hold about you or to have it deleted.

If you are in the UK or European Economic Area, the GDPR gives you the right to: access the personal data I hold about you; correct it if it is wrong; have it erased; restrict or object to how it is processed; receive it in a portable format; and withdraw consent at any time. You also have the right to complain to your national data protection authority — in the UK, that is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk).

If you are in California, the CCPA and CPRA give you the right to know what personal information is collected and how it is used, to request deletion, to correct inaccurate information, and to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information. As stated above, I do not sell or share personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of. I will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.

If you are elsewhere — Canada, Australia, Brazil, or a US state with its own privacy statute — write to me and I will handle your request under the same standard. Honestly, it is a small list and I would rather just do the right thing than argue about which statute applies.

I will respond to any request within 30 days. I may need to verify that the request is really coming from you, usually by replying to the email address on file.

8. Security

I use reasonable measures to protect your information: an SSL certificate on the site, reputable providers with their own security practices, and strong authentication on my accounts. No website or email list is perfectly secure, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. If a breach ever occurs that puts your information at risk, I will notify affected subscribers and the relevant authorities as the law requires.

9. Changes to this policy

If I change how I handle your information, I will update this page and change the date at the top. If the change is significant — a new category of data, a new purpose, a new processor handling something meaningful — I will tell subscribers by email rather than quietly editing the page and hoping nobody notices.

10. Contact

Questions about this policy, or about anything I hold on you:

author-cara@carahollis.com

Cara Hollis PO Box 17664 Wichita, KS 67217

I read every message.

Dangerous men. Darker devotion.