Novella keeps track of what you read so it can recommend what to read next. Your diary is private. Photos you show Nell are used to read the titles and are not saved. We do not sell your data.

Your account. Sign-in is handled by Auth0. We store the account id it gives us, your email, your name, your profile picture, and the username you choose.

Your library. The books you add, their status, your star ratings for print, audio and narrators, mood and personal tags, reading dates, and which books you mark hidden.

Your diary. The notes you write about a book. These are private: they are never shown on your profile, to friends, or used to recommend books to anyone but you.

Your taste questionnaire. Genres, themes, moods, favourite books, narration styles, plus two free-text answers, "things to avoid" and "anything else". The two free-text answers are private in the same way your diary is.

Derived taste data. From the above we build a written "reader portrait" and a numeric taste profile, used only for your own recommendations.

Recommendation feedback. When you dismiss a recommendation and why, or add one to your library.

Library cards. The public libraries you pick for Libby availability and the formats you want. We never ask for or store library card numbers or PINs.

Social activity. Friend requests and friendships, discussion posts, reading lists, book clubs and their memberships, and reports you file.

When you take or upload a photo in Nell, it is shrunk on your device (in your browser or in the Novella app), which also removes camera metadata such as location, and then sent to our server and on to Google's Gemini service to read the book titles in it. The photo is not written to storage or logs, and it is discarded as soon as the titles are read.

Novella never has live access to your camera or your photo library. Your phone shows its own camera or picker, and we receive only the single image you choose. On iOS, the camera and photo permissions you grant are used only for this.

If you save a scan, only the list of titles and Nell's verdicts are kept, never the image. You can delete saved scans at any time.

Your profile shows your name, username, picture, and the books you have not hidden, with their status and star rating. It also shows your questionnaire genres, themes, moods and favourite books.

Never shown to anyone: your diary, mood and personal tags, narrator ratings, hidden books, your "things to avoid" and "anything else" answers, your reader portrait, your recommendation feedback, your library cards, and your scans.

Private profiles are visible only to accepted friends. When a friend asks Nell for a gift for you, it uses only what your profile already shows them.

Discussion posts and public reading lists are visible to other Novella members.

Auth0 signs you in and holds your password. We never see it.

Google Gemini generates recommendations, reads Nell photos, and powers Nell's answers. To do that it receives your questionnaire, your library titles, statuses and ratings, your diary text, and your Nell photos and questions. Under Google's paid API terms this data is not used to train Google's models.

Jina AI performs web searches on the recommender's behalf. It receives search terms about books and tastes, not your identity.

Book data. Google Books, OpenLibrary, the New York Times Books API, the Audible catalog and Spotify supply covers, descriptions and audiobook details. They receive book titles and authors, not who is asking.

OverDrive (Libby). To check availability we query the catalog of the libraries you selected with the title and author. Your library account is never involved.

Bookshop.org. Buy links are affiliate links. If you buy through one, Novella may earn a commission, and Bookshop sets a cookie to credit it.

Amazon. Buy links are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Novella earns from qualifying purchases. Amazon receives the click and credits it to us; it is not told who you are.

Your browser or the Novella app keeps local copies of recent recommendations, dismissed books, your Nell conversation, and display preferences so pages load instantly. These stay on your device. Auth0 keeps a session so you stay signed in; on iOS that session is stored in the device keychain. The iOS app contains no analytics or advertising SDKs and does not track you across other apps or websites.

We keep your data while you have an account. You can remove any book, note, list or post yourself. To delete your account and everything attached to it, email help@trynovella.io and we will do so within 30 days. Nell conversations expire from our servers after 30 minutes of inactivity.

Novella is for readers 13 and older. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone younger.

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will say so in the app. Questions go to help@trynovella.io or the support form at /support.