Privacy & reader safety
A safe place for
good questions.
This website is designed for readers, families, teachers, librarians, and people interested in The Very Bad Plan. The Story Desk lets grown-ups contact the book team without creating an account or joining a marketing list.
What the Story Desk stores
When someone starts a conversation, we store the message, the selected reason for writing, the sender type, an optional first name or nickname, timestamps, and replies from the book team. We also store a one-way technical fingerprint of the network address to limit abuse. The application does not keep the readable network address in the conversation record.
Young readers
A reader under 16 should ask a parent, guardian, teacher, or librarian to send the message with them. Do not include a child’s surname, school name, address, phone number, photograph, precise location, health information, or other identifying details. The Story Desk does not accept uploads.
Analytics and purchase signals
Privacy-focused Vercel Web Analytics provides aggregate page views, referrers, device categories, and general location without third-party advertising cookies. The site also counts public page arrivals, sample views, opening the full sample or printed pages, reaching its ending, edition views, and clicks to Amazon. Counters are grouped by day, edition, selected country, marketplace, and campaign label. Seeing the ending does not prove that someone read it. Campaign labels and once-per-session flags may stay in this tab’s session storage, without a visitor identifier. The chosen Amazon country may remain in local storage. These purchase counters do not store a name, email address, readable network address, or cross-site user ID. An Amazon click shows interest, not a completed order. Aggregate purchase counters expire after 25 months.
Your private conversation code
The browser stores a private code so the conversation can be reopened without an account. A sender may copy that code to another device. Anyone who receives the complete code can read and continue the conversation, so it should not be posted publicly or shared with someone who should not have access.
Retention and deletion
A conversation is scheduled for automatic deletion after 12 months without activity. The sender can also open the privacy controls inside the Story Desk and delete the conversation from the active system immediately. Service-provider backups, where they exist, follow the provider’s limited backup-retention cycle.
Creative submissions are closed
The Story Desk does not currently accept story ideas, plots, character concepts, scripts, artwork, or manuscripts. Please use it for questions about the book, schools and libraries, rights, press, or partnerships. Unrequested creative material may be removed without review.
Service providers and security
Vercel delivers the website and provides aggregate Web Analytics. MongoDB Atlas stores Story Desk records and anonymous, aggregated purchase counters on our behalf. Reasonable access controls, private admin sessions, message limits, and automatic expiry are used to reduce risk. No internet service can promise absolute security, so messages should not contain confidential or sensitive information.
Questions, access, or removal
Parents, guardians, and other senders can ask about a message or request help with access, correction, or removal at parents@theverybadplan.com. Publishing, licensing, adaptation, animation, education, and media enquiries can be sent to rights@theverybadplan.com.