Last updated 3 August 2026
ShelfAbsorbed is a book club tracker. It holds what your club needs to run: who is in it, what you are reading, and what you thought of it. This page says exactly what that means in practice.
The short version. There are no adverts, no analytics or tracking software, and nothing here is sold, rented, or shared for anyone else's marketing. Your club's contents are visible to your club, not to other clubs and not to the public. You can delete your account, and everything tied to it, from inside the app at any time.
ShelfAbsorbed is operated by Nathan Poulson, based in the United States. If you have a question about your information, or you want something corrected or removed, write to support@shelfabsorbed.com.
| What | Why it exists |
|---|---|
| Email address | It is how you sign in. A six-digit code is sent to it, and it is how you are notified about your club. |
| Display name | So the rest of your club knows who nominated a book or wrote a message. |
| Club membership | Which clubs you belong to, your role in each, and when you joined. |
| Book activity | Nominations, votes, poll answers, ratings, and how far through a book you have said you are. |
| Messages | What you write in your club's chat, including replies and mentions, and which messages you have read. |
| Photos | Pictures you attach to a book, plus any club logo or book cover uploaded by your club. |
| Meeting details | The date, place, and address your club has set for its next meeting. Addresses are often somebody's home, so they are only ever shown to that club's members. |
| Device token | If you allow notifications, an identifier for your device so a notification can reach it. It is not linked to anything else about you. |
| Subscription records | Whether a club is paid for, which plan, and reference numbers from Stripe, Apple, or Google. |
There is no analytics or advertising software in ShelfAbsorbed. Nothing you do is tracked across other apps or websites. Your location and your contacts are never requested.
The app asks for two device permissions, each only at the moment you use the feature that needs it. Your photo library, so you can pick a picture to attach to a book, where only the image you choose is read and the rest of your library is never looked at. Writing to your calendar, so it can add your club's next meeting when you tap to add it. Calendar access is write-only; your existing events cannot be read.
Payment card details never reach ShelfAbsorbed's servers. Card numbers are handled entirely by Stripe on the web, or by Apple and Google in the apps. What comes back is a reference number and whether the subscription is active.
A small number of companies process information in order to run the service. They are not permitted to use it for their own purposes.
| Who | What for |
|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Hosting, the database, and photo storage. Everything above lives here. |
| Resend | Delivers sign-in codes and notification emails. |
| Stripe | Subscription payments made on the web. |
| Apple, Google | Subscription payments made inside the apps. |
| Firebase Cloud Messaging | Delivers push notifications to your device. |
Book titles you search for are looked up against Open Library, run by the Internet Archive, and Apple Books. Those lookups carry the search text and nothing about you.
Nothing is sold, and nothing is shared for anyone else's advertising or marketing. Information would only be handed over otherwise if the law required it, or to deal with fraud, abuse, or a threat to someone's safety.
Clubs are private. Messages, photos, ratings, and meeting details are visible only to members of that club. Joining needs an invite code from someone already in it.
Chat about a book is gated on how far through it each reader says they are, so discussion of an ending is not shown to someone who has not reached it. This is a courtesy about spoilers, not a security boundary, and it is not a reason to treat the chat as confidential.
Your club's host moderates it and can remove members and messages. Anything you post can be reported by another member, which sends the message text and your email address to support@shelfabsorbed.com so it can be dealt with.
Open Settings in the app and choose Delete my account. You will be asked to confirm by typing your email address, because it cannot be undone.
That removes your account, your name and email, your ratings and reading progress, your photos, and your membership of every club. Clubs you host are dealt with as part of the same step, so nothing is left stranded without an owner.
One honest caveat: the database keeps a short rolling recovery window, the ordinary safeguard against a crash or a mistake, so a copy of deleted information can persist there for a few weeks before it ages out. It is not reachable from the app and is not used for anything else.
Whatever you are legally entitled to where you live, these are honoured for everyone who uses ShelfAbsorbed:
ShelfAbsorbed does not sell or share personal information as those terms are used in California law, so there is nothing to opt out of. Requests go to support@shelfabsorbed.com and are answered as quickly as I can, and within 45 days at the outside.
Everything travels over HTTPS. Session tokens and sign-in codes are stored as hashes rather than readable values, so the database does not contain anything that would let someone sign in as you. Photos are served only after checking you belong to the club they were posted in, rather than sitting at a public address.
No service can promise perfect security, and this one does not either. If something goes wrong that affects you, you will be told.
ShelfAbsorbed is not aimed at children and is not intended for anyone under 13. No information is knowingly collected from them. If you believe a child has created an account, write to support@shelfabsorbed.com and it will be removed.
Servers are in the United States. If you use ShelfAbsorbed from elsewhere, your information is transferred there and handled as described on this page.
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Anything that materially affects how your information is used will be announced in the app before it takes effect, rather than quietly edited in.