Background: When the GDPR law came into being in 2018, we were delighted to discover that P'kaboo has been treating our customers' and authors' data privacy in alignment with those principles from the outset. We did not have to make any adjustments, but we did have to formulate our policy into a document, as set out below.
P'kaboo does not use own tracking or other cookies. This means the site will not break even if your browser blocks all cookies.
Social Media Cookies: The site however does have buttons with which you can "like" or mention us on Facebook and Twitter; these social media sites do use cookies. If you set your browser to blocking all cookies and trackers, you will not be able to "like" and "tweet".
Paypal: In the bookshop, the common payment system is by Paypal. While it is a higly secure payment system (meaning we never need to see your banking data), Paypal may bring in functional cookies as it redirects you from the bookshop to the Paypal page during checkout, verifies you etc. This is the process you will find from any site when using Paypal checkout.
Note: To make purchases without using the Paypal system, simply email us. We are happy to provide alternatives.
1. Your Right to be "forgotten".
You can request at any time all your data to be deleted from our records. We respond as quickly as is humanly possible.
You can also tell us which parts of your personal data we ought to delete.
2. Your Right to know where your data is kept and who has access.
Private Personal Data: Name, surname, physical address, and other identifyers.
If we have any private personal data on you at all, it's kept on a secure computer; only our in-house team has access, and on a need-to-know basis only. The exception to this are email addresses you provided. See below:
Where your emails are kept:
Your emails are kept on our email server, and the addresses in the email-client (Thunderbird) address book. If you request to be "forgotten", the addresses will be deleted from the address book; for legal reasons, we will delete as much of the email trail as is possible without contravening another law. Contractual content of emails may need to be kept longer, in compliance with contractual law.
Past Customer:
Every purchase is a unique event (though we love to think we're retaining you as a reader). We don't store your personal data after the purchased item has been delivered. For legal and tax reasons we do need to keep the financial transaction record though.
If you didn't give us any, we don't have data on you.
3. You can limit our usage of your data.
But we don't do anything with your data anyway, other than complete the business transaction you requested.
4. To get any communication not directly relating to the topic at hand, you need to opt in.
Launches, new titles etc are usually announced on our Facebook page and P'kaboo Book Club, as well as on the P'kaboo Blog, which you can subscribe to if you like. Presently we don't keep a mailing list from our site.
5. Anonymity and pseudonymity
Customers: You don't need to supply the name on your birth certificate to buy a book - just give us a "username" for you. We might need your real delivery address though.
Authors, agents, reviewers: See below.
We are likely to have:
1. Your name. - Anonymity and Pseudonymity demands that you can deal with us anonymously or under a pseudonym. Where it comes to signing contracts though, we would like to know whom we are dealing with.
If you feel strongly about protecting your legal name from all including the people you sign contracts with, read this:
2. Your email address. We need this to communicate with you.
3. A place to pay your royalties to. This could be banking or Paypal details.
4. Possibly a shipping address. Logically, for sending you copies and other materials.
5. Public links to your social media for promotional purposes.
Please note:
Any information you have given in form of your short (1 paragraph) Author Bio, which is part of what gets published with your book and promoted, is not considered private personal information but, from the point of publication forward, published personal information. Please make sure that no sensitive data are included in your author bio.
1. Your "username" or any pseudonym, acronym, name or number you choose to deal with us by.
2. Your email address if you ordered something by email, or something - for instance an ebook directly from our site - that was delivered by email.
3. A shipping address if you ordered something that was shipped to you.
4. Your banking / Paypal details only if you received a refund.
That's it! Feel free to ask questions, either in the comments of our blog, or by contacting us directly via our contact page.
P'kaboo is an independent publishing company started in 2009 by a handful of authors, graphic designers and artists. Having started small, P'kaboo is steadily picking up more titles and authors.
We started in August 2009 with a launch... of a paperback book, "The Mystery of the Solar Wind", at the Lynnwood Library, Pretoria. The launch was also the launch of our company.
Since then, we have hosted a fair number of launches and promotions. We have grown from two authors to several, added music books, audio CDs and multimedia to our selection, and learned how to create ebooks. We teamed up with a literary agency in Scotland who represents us in the UK; and our books are sold in many diverse shops and stocked by various libraries and school libraries on both hemispheres. Two of our authors are listed in The South African Journal of Commonwealth Literature. Many of our titles are available on Amazon, both in kindle book and paperback. Our genres have grown from one (YA) to several.
In 2017 we relocated to Ireland. An associate remains in South Africa and runs our South African side from Durban. Both sides are steadily picking up speed.
Our history is still quite young. Join us while it's still the early days. Be an original P'kaboo author.
Read more on the P'kaboo Blog.
Reading, art and music build creative thinking, problem solving abilities and a questioning mind. We are envisioning a young generation that finds joy again in reading fresh new stories with real content that gives food for thought. For this reason our highest priority is to find compellingly written stories with excellent storylines.
To find you that unique book you would not easily find elsewhere.
Our authors have fresh, entertaining styles, uncomplicated and not edited to death. During professional editing, we work closely with the authors so that the story retains all of its character and original voice. When you read a P'kaboo title, you hear it straight from the author.
We provide the reader with lots of fresh crispy reads, available as ebooks for your pocket, convenience and technological tastes, and also as paperbacks for that genuine old-fashioned reading feel. In today's world of fast-paced computer games and films there is little that feeds a young imagination as effectively as a genuine book does. Imaginative young people are tomorrow's leaders.
We provide a launch platform for fresh crispy authors, artists and composers. Contact us to find out more.
We are here to help you.
P'kaboo Publishers is not a self-publishing site. We promote your work and pay you royalties on sales. However, authors are expected to get very involved in the process on all levels. Look at our Submissions page to find out more, or visit our blog.
To be a young designer or visual artist in today's world is tough. There is a lot of competition; you need to be the best. And often it is not easy to get a foot in the door.
We can help you. Contact us!
We love musicians: Our founders are all musicians.
We have a music section, and are actively marketing our musical material. Submit, submit!
