Privacy policy.

Why is your privacy important to me?

Because I care. No, really. I do care. I could pack this website full of ads to the point that you couldn’t read anything or visit it without being inundated with things you didn’t want to see. And that would help me make money. But I don’t. The reason I don’t is, quite simply, because I care about your privacy and I care about your experience when you’re here.

When you visit my site, I don’t want you to worry about the following things happening:

  • Getting video pop-up ads,

  • Being bombarded with links to other websites, services, articles, or products,

  • Seeing ads for articles about “boosting your [anything] by trying this one weird hack” or some other nonsense like that,

  • Getting spam emails from me simply for clicking around my site. If you don’t sign up for a newsletter, you won’t receive a single “This [item you were looking at] is almost sold out” nonsense.

  • And, if you do sign up for a newsletter, you’ll get them, at most twice per week - and that’s only if it’s something really, genuinely urgent (like a Kickstarter closing or me being at an event, so I’m sending a reminder not to miss out). I won’t send you a newsletter every day. I won’t send you multiple newsletters a day.

Honestly, I don’t want your information. And I don’t want to bother you with nonsense you don’t want to see. When I make decisions for my site and brand, whether it’s on social media, Discord, my site, my books, or Twitch, I am always thinking about how my decisions affect you and whether that’s the experience I want you to have or that I would want to have. In making these decisions, I often choose less optimal ways to operate my business. In other words, I give up the opportunity to make more sales and to have my products in more peoples hands, to grow my brand, because I care about your privacy and your experience. I appreciate you supporting my brand despite this effort.

What am I collecting, why am I collecting it, and how does it affect you?

Put simply, I do collect some of your data when you’re browsing my site. When you’re on YouTube, Twitch, or some other social platform, those platforms are also collecting information about you and send me summaries of the types of people who like to engage with my content. This data is used to help me make decisions about the types of content I produce in the future. Basically, it lets me know what you like and don’t like. That’s how I use it. Here’s a breakdown of that:

  • Site browsing data tells me which pages you enjoyed and how long it took you to get to the pages where you spent the most time or had the most interactions with. This helps me make sure that my pages are labeled and arranged in ways that make sense to you. It helps me make my site easier for you to navigate, search, and use. My goal with this data is to help you save time getting to what you want to see and do.

  • Some of that site browsing data goes to Google Ads to show you the things you looked at the most on my site, just in case you were still interested in coming back. If you don’t return to my site after about a week and you don’t click on them, these ads typically stop being shown within a month (usually sooner depending on your browsing habits). This is my least favorite type of cookie usage that I use to communicate with you.
    However, I see the value in them because, as someone who does almost 100% of my shopping online, I cannot tell you how many times I was reminded of a gift I’d wanted to purchase for someone from one of those ads that came up when I was reading articles on Anime News Network. I hated that it worked. (I still hate that it works.) But, I was happy the site used those ads to remind me of that present. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have returned to the site to buy a Christmas gift for a loved one. I’m ok with my data being used that way. After I made the purchase, I paid close attention to the ads when they showed up on other sites. Some were showing me adjacent products. But I really only wanted that one gift from that site. I would likely never visit again (and haven’t since). (And that’s ok!) The ads stopped being shown to me after about 2 weeks, and I haven’t seen one since. I appreciate you being understanding with why I see value in this type of data usage and Google Ads.

  • There’s also data that I solicit from you, store, and use to inform my brand decisions. I don’t sell this information or share it with anyone. It comes to me in the form of emails from you, private messages, forms and surveys you complete, and purchasing data. I don’t store your credit card or other payment information. Here are some examples of how that data might be used:

    • Help me decide whether to make a specific type of product or products featuring a certain character;

    • Help me figure out what you want to see the most on Patreon, Discord, Twitch, YouTube, etc.;

    • Help me know which cities I should prioritize visiting when I go to conventions and, when I’m there, what types of products I should bring so that my store is stocked to the brim with things you actually want;

    • Help me understand if my communications are clear, fun, and engaging;

    • Help me understand what social media site you’re on so that I can hang out there too;

    • Help me understand your likes and interests so we can have something to chat about because I truly do care about your experience.

    • Help me understand what products you liked and which ones are commonly purchased together so that I can offer “bundles”, which saves you money.

  • Data I get from other sites primarily includes social media, Twitch, YouTube, etc. I don’t go to data warehousing and analytics sites and purchase information from them about you. Social media sites will often tell me generic demographical and geolocational information that you’ve shared with them (or that they paid to get from some other company because of a privacy policy you consented to on another site). They also provide me information about follower numbers, subscriber numbers, where people who follow me or engage with my content are located, about how old people are, how my ads on their social media sites are performing with different groups of people (based on interests, location, age, etc.), and how my pages are trending, in general. These sites don’t tell me a lot about any one specific person. I only use this information to improve your experience with my brand on those sites. If you don’t like an ad I ran, I don’t want to bother you with it again. I’d rather show you something you think is fun and exciting!

  • Data I get from my social media and newsletter scheduling and posting platform(s). My current plan is to use MailChimp for scheduling my social media posts and sending my newsletters. MailChimp is owned by Intuit and they have their own privacy policy, data collection policy, etc. I strongly encourage you to check them out so that you can understand how any data they get about you is collected. I chose them because they are, generally speaking, more progressive in their data privacy policies, offer an affordable rate for me to use them, have good site support, and make it easy for me to schedule and monitor my social media sites. Social media scheduling tools enable me to make content and share content when it’s convenient for me but also so that you’re not receiving this content at like 4:00 a.m. Instead, you’re receiving it around your lunch break when you can actually enjoy it. The analytics I get from MailChimp and any other scheduling and monitoring platforms helps me understand who opens emails, whether or not links are being clicked, how many emails get opened, how many posts get seen, and how quickly all of this happens. It also helps me track how you engage with my newsletters and social pages over time. This helps me understand whether I’m meeting your needs. For example, maybe I made a new product and posted some reels on Instagram of people using it, but you hate the design. Over the course of that week, I can use those tools to see that most of my fans in Atlanta might have had a similar experience. Good to know! If you’re in Atlanta and you hated that product enough to stop engaging with my socials during the week I ran the reels, I definitely don’t want to bring that gear to Atlanta for a convention! I’d rather bring something else that you enjoyed instead.

I do not purchase or sell your data.

I don’t purchase your data and I don’t sell your data to other companies. If you sign up for my newsletter, I’m not sending your email to a company so that I can get paid for it. When you shop with me, I’m not sending that information to another company. However, I cannot control the privacy and data policies of third-party sites and companies. Certain information gets shared with them during the course of a transaction. I encourage you to check out the sites that I do business with (I’m pretty transparent about that) and, if you are concerned with their policies, I welcome you to share them with me by contacting me through my contact form. If there is something concerning happening with my ads, socials, streaming sites, or website, please let me know. On my end, I’m not sharing your data and I’m not selling it. You aren’t for purchase.