Privacy

This page explains what personal information colewinters.com collects, why it is used, and the choices you have. It was last updated on 27 September 2026.

Who we are

Cole Winters publishes The Last Latitude and runs colewinters.com. For privacy law, Cole Winters is the controller of personal information collected through this site.

The published address is 27 Old Gloucester Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AX. Write to hello@colewinters.com for a privacy question. Order mail comes from orders@colewinters.com.

There is no shop account, no loyalty scheme, and no requirement to register before you buy. Retailers such as Amazon, Waterstones, Hatchards, and Barnes & Noble have their own privacy notices. This page covers colewinters.com, including a copy bought here.

What we collect

What we hold depends on what you do.

If you buy a copy here: your name, email, shipping address, the format and country of the order, and any optional note you write. Card numbers are entered on Stripe's payment page. They are not stored on this site.
If you join the newsletter: your email address, and whether you confirmed it.
If you write in: your name, email, and the message.
If you only browse: technical information such as the country the connection appears to come from, the pages you open, and which buttons you use. That is used to see whether the site is working and which editions to show.

We do not ask for special category information, and we do not knowingly collect information from children.

Orders

A direct copy is printed and sent by the printer. It is unsigned. A signed copy is packed and posted from London. Your shipping address is used only to fulfil the order. It is not sold, and it is not added to a marketing list.

The optional note is so the book can travel with a few words from you: a word from the question on the order form, a name, or anything else you want known. If you leave it blank, the order still goes through.

Payment is taken by Stripe, in the currency of the country the offer is shown for. Stripe's own privacy notice covers the card payment. A receipt comes from Stripe. A separate confirmation comes from orders@colewinters.com when payment succeeds. If payment does not succeed, nothing is charged, and you can use the link in that note to pay again.

Damaged copies are replaced. Write to hello@colewinters.com with the order email and what arrived wrong.

The lawful reason for using order information is the contract to supply the book, and the records we have to keep for tax and payment disputes.

The newsletter is occasional news about the book. We send it only if you ask for it and confirm the email. You can unsubscribe from any letter. The link in the footer of the email does it, or you can write to hello@colewinters.com.

The lawful reason is your consent. Withdrawing it does not affect an order you have already placed.

Messages

If you use the contact form, or email hello@colewinters.com, we keep the message for long enough to reply and, if needed, to follow up. We do not pass the contents to a mailing list.

Advance reader requests, when that round is open, use the name, email, and shipping details you give so a copy can be sent. The current round is closed. Older requests are kept only as long as they are needed for that correspondence.

The website

The site is hosted on Cloudflare. Cloudflare may see the IP address of a visit in order to deliver the page and to resist abuse. We use the country of the connection to decide which buy buttons to show. If that country is unknown, the direct-from-the-author option stays hidden.

We count ordinary site events, such as a click on a retailer or on the direct offer. Those counts are for understanding the site. They are not sold.

Cookies and similar tools on the public pages include:

What the host needs to serve the page.
A Meta (Facebook and Instagram) pixel and a TikTok pixel, used to measure visits that come from those ads and to understand which buttons are used. Those companies receive a technical identifier for the browser. Their own policies describe what they do with it.
Stripe's cookies, only when you are on the payment page.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser. Some measurement will then be missing. The book can still be bought.

The lawful reason for this site information is a legitimate interest in running, securing, and understanding a small author website, and in measuring advertising we have paid for. That interest is limited to those purposes.

Information is not sold. It is shared only where someone else has to help complete what you asked for:

Stripe, to take payment.
The printer and the carrier, so a direct copy can be produced and delivered. The address is for that delivery.
The email service that sends order confirmations and the newsletter.
Cloudflare, which hosts the site.
Meta and TikTok, to the extent their pixels are present, as described above.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it.

Some of those services store data outside the United Kingdom. Where they do, they are expected to protect it to a standard comparable to UK law, usually through their own contractual terms.

How long we keep it

Order records, including the address and any note, are kept for as long as needed to fulfil the order, replace a damaged copy, and meet tax and accounting duties. Newsletter details are kept until you unsubscribe, and then removed or suppressed so the letter is not sent again. Messages are kept while the correspondence is live, and for a short time after, in case you write back.

Access to order and message records is limited to what is needed to run the site and post the books.

Your rights

If you are in the United Kingdom, you can ask for:

a copy of the personal information we hold about you
a correction, if something is wrong
deletion, where we no longer need it and no legal duty says otherwise
a limit on how it is used, while a question about it is unresolved
a copy in a portable form, where the law gives that right
an objection, where we rely on legitimate interests

You can withdraw newsletter consent at any time. We do not use your information for automated decisions that produce legal effects.

Write to hello@colewinters.com. We may ask you to confirm you are the person the records belong to. We aim to answer within one month.

Complaints

If something about this page or about your information is wrong, write to hello@colewinters.com first. If you are in the UK and remain unhappy, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, or by post to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

If this policy changes in a way that matters, the date at the top of the page will change with it.