Rules for Homingway authors

A.Homingway author rules

What you take on when you write from your post office.

1. A1

   A1. One author, one post office, one language. At the start, each post office has one author. You write in one language: you choose it once for your post office, and once Quelper approves your post office it does not change.

2. A2

   A2. Your post office. It is in the USA, Canada, Europe, Japan or Australia, and Quelper approves it by hand before it is yours. You are 18 or older and live close enough to post from it every month. Before Quelper approves your post office, you tell us the country where you live, and you tell us at once if it changes: B10 and C8(e) go by that country, not by your post office’s. If you live in the United States, Australia, Monaco, San Marino or Vatican City, read B10: for now, readers in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland cannot subscribe to you.

3. A3

   A3. One paper letter a month. Every month you send one paper letter to every subscriber, posted between the 1st and the 7th of the month from your own post office. The first letters go out in December 2026.

4. A4

   A4. Only paper. A letter and, if you like, a postcard. No goods, gifts or other things in the envelope.

5. A5

   A5. Nothing asked of readers. No advertising. Don’t ask readers for money, for their contacts or to meet.

6. A6

   A6. Your words, your signature. You write every letter personally. All your subscribers get the same letter and you may print it, but you sign every copy by hand.

7. A7

   A7. Pausing or skipping a month. The rules for this come later. We will publish them here before they apply.

8. A8

   A8. Breaking the rules. Quelper may restrict, suspend or end your place in Homingway only for the reasons in C9 of these rules and in sections A12 and C8 of our Terms of Use. We always tell you why, by email.

9. A9

   A9. Getting paid. Payouts go through Stripe Connect. Until you have a Stripe account that can receive payouts, your share reaches Quelper first, and Quelper pays it to you as section C4 of our Terms of Use says.

10. A10

    A10. Your name. Your Homingway page may show a pen name. Subscribers see your legal name, or your trading name, when they subscribe, because you are the seller of your letters and you receive their address (B1). Before subscriptions to your letters open, you give Quelper that name and your postal address, and you keep them up to date.

11. A11

    A11. Up to 100 subscribers. You have at most 100 subscribers. You may have more only if you ask, Quelper approves it and you first accept these conditions for a large list: (a) you print only on your own printer; (b) you have a shredder and shred every spoiled copy with it the same day; (c) wherever you live, Quelper keeps back as a reserve 20% of your share of each Homingway subscription payment for 180 days; this replaces the 10% for 90 days in C8(e), and the rest of C8(e) (when each part is released and what the reserve covers) applies to it, without the €300 limit; (d) you acknowledge that the amounts in Part C are counted per subscriber (C5, C8(b)), so the more subscribers you have, the more you may owe. Quelper may refuse, and tells you why. Your waitlist has no limit: when subscriptions open, and whenever a place becomes free, Quelper offers the places to the readers on your waitlist in the order they joined.

B.Subscribers’ personal data

To post your letters, you need your subscribers’ names and postal addresses. Quelper collects them and, each month, puts them into your print file. From the moment you download that file, the copy is yours: you decide how you keep it safe, within these conditions, and you answer for it under data protection law. Quelper makes it available to you only on the conditions below.

1. B1

   B1. Who is responsible for what. Each subscriber buys your letters from you: the subscription is a contract between the subscriber and you, and you are named as the seller when they subscribe (A10). Quelper runs Homingway and collects the payment for you as your agent, as it does for physical products (Terms of Use, A2): once a subscriber has paid through Quelper, they have paid you. Quelper is responsible, as a controller, for collecting subscribers’ details, keeping them, making your print file and making it available to you. From the moment you download a print file, or otherwise receive subscribers’ details from Quelper, you are a controller of that copy under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and any other data protection law that applies to you. You decide how you print, keep, post and destroy it, within these conditions, and you answer for it. You write and sell Homingway letters as part of a trade, business or profession, and you are not a consumer in your contract with Quelper (Terms of Use, C1).

2. B2

   B2. Only to post that month’s letter. “Subscriber data” means the name on the envelope, the postal address, the copy number and the author code of each subscriber. You use it only to address, sign and post your Homingway letters to that subscriber. In particular you do not: (a) contact a subscriber outside Homingway in any way, visit them or look them up; (b) add them to any list, mailing or database, postal or email, including for your own later letters or products; (c) combine their details with anything else you know or find about them, or use them for advertising; (d) keep their details after the letter is posted.

3. B3

   B3. Never passed on, never published. You do not disclose subscriber data to anyone. Only you, the helpers B6 allows and the postal service, which sees the envelope, may see it. This means: (a) you do not send the print file by email, messenger or file transfer, not even to yourself; (b) you do not upload it to a cloud, to a folder that syncs to a cloud or to an online print service, and you do not print it at a copy shop, at a self-service print kiosk or through any other business; (c) you make no address list, label file, spreadsheet or other extract from it; (d) no photo, video, scan or screenshot may show a subscriber’s name or address, whether on an envelope, a stack of letters or a screen. Photograph the backs of the envelopes, or cover the addresses completely before you take the picture.

4. B4

   B4. Keeping it safe. You keep subscriber data secure, with measures appropriate to the risk, so that no one else can read, copy or take it between download and destruction. As a minimum: (a) you download and print only from a device you control that has a screen lock and storage encryption switched on, to a printer you control; (b) if the print file is protected by a password, you never keep the password with the file or send it to anyone; (c) until you post them, you keep printed letters in a closed envelope, folder or drawer, not where visitors can see them. Before your first download you tell Quelper which measures you use: Quelper asks you before your first print file. The guide after these rules shows one way that meets this rule; you may use another way that protects the data at least as well. Your declared measures form part of Annex II.

5. B5

   B5. Destroy what you no longer need. You delete the print file from every device, including downloads and the bin, as soon as all copies are printed, and no later than the last day of the posting window (A3). On the day you notice them, you shred spoiled copies, spare pages and envelopes you will not post. If a letter comes back undelivered, you shred it and tell Quelper, so that the subscriber can correct their address. After the letters are posted you keep no subscriber data at all.

6. B6

   B6. Helpers. Someone who helps you fold, envelope or post your letters, such as a member of your family who takes them to the post office, may see the addresses only for that, only while you supervise, and only if they follow these rules. You answer for them as for yourself, and they never receive the print file.

7. B7

   B7. If something goes wrong. (a) You tell Quelper at privacy@quelper.com within 24 hours of learning that subscriber data has been lost, stolen, sent or shown to the wrong person, published or put in the wrong envelope, or that a device or account holding it has been lost, stolen or broken into. Tell us even if you are not sure. Say what happened and when, which month’s file, how many subscribers may be affected, what you have done and how to reach you, and send updates as you learn more. (b) You do what you reasonably can to limit the harm, such as deleting a post or asking for letters back, and you cooperate with Quelper to contain it. Your own duties as a controller stay yours. (c) Where the law or the clauses in B10 require you to notify a data protection authority (for an author bound by those clauses, the Spanish AEPD), you authorise Quelper to file that notification for you, together with Quelper’s own statement of its part, and you give us what we need for it within the 72 hours. (d) Where Article 34 GDPR, Clause 8.5 of the clauses in B10 or your own law requires subscribers to be told, or where you agree, Quelper informs them for you. For that, Quelper acts as your agent: only to send that notice, using only the subscribers’ contact details it already holds, keeping it confidential and deleting nothing it must keep. You reimburse Quelper’s reasonable costs of doing so, whether or not you were at fault (Spanish Civil Code, arts. 1728 and 1729). You give the authority in (c) and (d) also in the interest of Quelper and of subscribers, as part of these rules, and you cannot withdraw it while Parts B and C apply to you (C12). (e) Before you contact subscribers or make a public statement about the incident, you tell Quelper, so that we can coordinate. You can always do what the law requires of you. (f) In all of this Quelper passes on messages and files for you. It is not your representative under Article 27 GDPR or any similar law.

8. B8

   B8. Subscribers’ requests and authorities. Subscribers can contact you through Quelper, at s.alekhin@quelper.com. If a subscriber asks you about the copy you hold, for example to see, correct or delete it, you answer within one month and send Quelper a copy of your answer. You forward to Quelper at s.alekhin@quelper.com within 5 days any other request about subscriber data, and any request, question or order about it from an authority, unless the law forbids you to tell us. A subscriber who wants to stop receiving letters cancels the subscription with Quelper, and you never keep their details to write to them again.

9. B9

   B9. The law where you are. You comply with the data protection law that applies to you and to your copy. That is the GDPR if you are in the European Economic Area, or where it applies to you because you sell to people in Europe. It is the UK GDPR in the United Kingdom and the Federal Act on Data Protection in Switzerland. Elsewhere it is your own country’s law: in Japan, for example, the APPI and the Supplementary Rules for personal data received from the EU, which forbid passing the data on; in Canada, PIPEDA. Quelper is not your representative under Article 27 GDPR or any similar law. Templates Quelper gives you, such as a record of processing or a breach notice, are yours to use or not, and using them does not make Quelper responsible for your handling of subscriber data.

10. B10

    B10. Authors outside the European Economic Area. Quelper is established in the EU, so making subscriber data available to an author outside the European Economic Area (EEA) is a transfer of personal data out of Europe, whoever the subscriber is. (a) If you live in a country that the European Commission recognises as protecting personal data adequately (for Homingway: the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Andorra, Canada, for authors covered by PIPEDA, and Japan, for authors covered by the APPI and the Supplementary Rules), that decision covers the transfer. (b) If you live in the United States, Australia, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City or another country without such a decision, readers who live in the EEA, the United Kingdom or Switzerland cannot subscribe to your letters for now, because no transfer tool yet fits an author in such a country who sells to people in Europe; readers who live elsewhere can. For all subscriber data you receive, the EU standard contractual clauses for transfers between controllers (Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/914, Module 1) then form part of these rules, with you as data importer and Quelper LLC as data exporter. In them, the optional docking clause (Clause 7) and the optional wording in Clause 11 are not used; the competent supervisory authority (Clause 13) is the Spanish AEPD; the clauses are governed by Spanish law (Clause 17) and disputes go to the courts of Madrid, Spain (Clause 18); and the Annex at the end of these rules completes their Annexes I and II. To the extent an authority or a court decides that you handle subscriber data on Quelper’s behalf, Module 2 of the same clauses applies instead, for that handling. (c) The same clauses also apply to data about subscribers in Switzerland if you live in a country that Switzerland does not recognise as protecting personal data adequately; for that data, references to the GDPR include the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection, and the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner is also a competent authority. (d) Where the clauses apply, you tell Quelper at once if a law or an authority in your country could prevent you from following these rules or the clauses, or if an authority asks you for subscriber data (Clauses 14 and 15). If the clauses conflict with anything else in these rules, the clauses prevail. Part C supplements Clause 12 of the clauses, as their Clause 2(a) permits, and does not limit them or the rights they give subscribers. (e) Before readers in Europe can subscribe to authors under (b), Quelper changes these rules with the notice C9(f) gives.

11. B11

    B11. Showing that you comply. For each month’s file, you confirm to Quelper, in your workspace or by email when Quelper asks, that you have posted the letters, deleted the file and shredded spare copies. If Quelper asks you in writing how you handled a particular print file, you answer within 10 days. You keep the records the clauses in B10 or your law require, and you show them to a data protection authority if it asks. Quelper may also subscribe to your letters itself, under a name it chooses and at an address it controls (a control address), and pays for that subscription like any reader. Mail other than your Homingway letter that arrives at a control address with your author code is evidence that subscriber data from your file was used for something else (C8(a)).

12. B12

    B12. When you leave. When you stop writing for Homingway, or Quelper ends your place, you delete and destroy every copy of subscriber data you still have, on paper or digital, within 7 days, and you confirm it to Quelper in writing.

13. B13

    B13. Only if our roles are judged differently. This section does not describe how we work. It only says who does what if a data protection authority or a court decides that our roles are different from those in B1. (a) If it decides that you and Quelper jointly control a step, such as making the print file available to you, then for that step Quelper gives subscribers the information they need, is their point of contact, answers their requests and keeps the platform and the print file secure until you download it; you download it only to your own device, under your own account, and handle your copy as these rules say. Each of us bears the cost of its own part, and Part C applies between us. (b) If it decides that you handle any subscriber data on Quelper’s behalf, then for that handling these rules are Quelper’s documented instructions and the contract required by Article 28(3) GDPR: you handle the data only to post that month’s letters, as B2 to B8 and B10 say; you keep it confidential and involve helpers only as B6 allows; you keep it secure as B4 says; you help Quelper answer subscribers’ requests and meet its duties on security, breaches and impact assessments; you delete it as B5 says; you give Quelper the information it needs to show compliance and allow reasonable checks, including inspections, on reasonable notice; and you tell Quelper if you think an instruction breaks the law. Any use outside these instructions makes you the controller of that use (Article 28(10) GDPR).

C.Responsibility for subscribers’ data

Who answers for subscribers’ names and addresses once they are in your hands, and how a loss is settled between you and Quelper.

1. C1

   C1. You answer for your copy. From the moment you download subscriber data until you have destroyed it, you are responsible for it, toward subscribers, authorities and Quelper. You are also responsible for anyone you let help you, as if they were you.

2. C2

   C2. What you compensate. If you, or anyone you let help you, break Part B or data protection law in handling subscriber data, you compensate Quelper LLC for the following loss this causes it. Each item stands alone: if one is found invalid, the others still apply. (a) Compensation, damages, interest and costs Quelper pays to subscribers or other people under a court judgment, an authority’s decision or a settlement that binds you under C6. (b) The cost of dealing with the incident: investigating it, informing subscribers and authorities, getting posts removed or letters back, and printing and posting letters again, including Quelper’s own staff time at €40 an hour, shown by a time record. (c) Refunds a subscriber was entitled to, by law or under the terms of their subscription, because of your breach, and refunds Quelper made to settle a complaint as C6 allows. (d) Quelper’s fees on Homingway subscriptions that the subscribers concerned cancel within 60 days of being told of the incident, for up to 6 months of each subscription, unless you show that a subscriber cancelled for another reason. (e) Reasonable fees of lawyers, translators and other advisers, and court and procedural costs, in claims, complaints, inquiries or proceedings that subscribers, authorities or others bring against Quelper because of it. Amounts Quelper recovers from anyone else for the same loss are credited to you.

3. C2A

   C2A. Fines. If a data protection authority fines Quelper, and its decision gives as a reason that you reported an incident to us later than B7 requires, or gave us false information about it, you compensate Quelper for that fine to the extent the decision rests on those facts. C3 does not reduce this amount merely because the authority found Quelper itself in breach; it reduces it only to the extent that Quelper’s own failings, other than relying on your report, caused the fine. If this clause is found invalid, the rest of Part C still applies.

4. C3

   C3. Not for our own fault. You do not compensate loss to the extent that Quelper caused it by its own breach of the law or of these rules, except as C2A says. Where we both contributed, each of us bears the share it caused.

5. C4

   C4. Intentional misuse. If you intentionally sell, publish or pass on subscriber data, or use it for anything other than posting your Homingway letters, you compensate all the loss that results, foreseeable or not, and Quelper may end your place at once (C9). It counts as intentional if you publish or pass on subscriber data knowing it is visible or included, or if, within 24 hours after Quelper asks you, you do not do what is in your power to remove it or get it back, such as deleting your post or asking the person who has it to return or destroy it, or if you refuse to.

6. C5

   C5. Agreed amount for intentional misuse. For each subscriber whose data you misuse as C4 describes, you pay Quelper €100 as an agreed estimate of the compensation subscribers may claim from Quelper for a loss of control over their data and of Quelper’s costs of handling it, unless you show that Quelper’s loss was lower. Quelper may claim more if it proves more. This clause does not apply if you are found to be a consumer. If it is found invalid, the rest of Part C still applies.

7. C6

   C6. How a claim is handled. (a) Quelper tells you promptly by email about any claim, complaint or inquiry for which it may ask you for compensation, with the facts it has. If Quelper tells you late, that reduces what you owe only to the extent the delay harmed your position. (b) You may take part in the defence at your own cost, give evidence and propose a settlement, and you help Quelper establish what happened. You do not admit anything on Quelper’s behalf. (c) Quelper defends with reasonable care and raises the defences open to it, including that it is not responsible for the event that caused the damage (Article 82(3) GDPR). (d) A settlement binds you if you agreed to it or did not object with reasons within 10 days of receiving it; if you objected, it binds you to the extent Quelper shows that the settlement was reasonable given the claim, the evidence and the cost of defending it, and if we disagree about that, a court decides (C15).

8. C7

   C7. Deducting from your payouts. (a) When an amount you owe under this part or under B7(d) is due, because Quelper has paid, spent or lost it or because C5 applies, Quelper sends you, to your account email, a statement of the amount with the documents showing it. You have 30 days to object. (b) Quelper deducts only amounts that you agreed, did not object to within those 30 days, or that a court or authority has decided. It deducts them from your shares of any later payment for anything you sell on Quelper, Homingway or not, before you receive them, and from any amount Quelper pays you itself (Terms of Use, C4). Quelper shows each deduction to you as a separate line, “deduction under the Homingway author rules”, and never as a fee. (c) While you are an active author, a deduction takes at most 50% of each share, unless the misuse was intentional (C4) or you have left Homingway. (d) If you object, Quelper may keep back the disputed amount only if it starts the out-of-court settlement step (Ley Orgánica 1/2025) within 30 days and, if that fails, court proceedings within 90 days after it. Otherwise it releases the amount. Quelper pays legal interest on anything it kept back that turns out not to be owed. (e) A deduction does not stop you from contesting the amount in court. Any amount that deductions do not cover remains a debt you owe. Quelper does not change your Stripe account’s settings or reverse past transfers for this.

9. C8

   C8. Holding back while an incident is checked, and reserves. (a) Quelper may keep back part of your shares of any later payment for anything you sell on Quelper, Homingway or not, while it checks an incident if: you reported one under B7; an image or post shows subscriber data from your file; a complaint, or mail to a control address (B11), carries your author code; a device or account holding subscriber data was lost or stolen; or an authority asks about your handling of subscriber data. (b) It keeps back no more than the number of subscribers in the affected file multiplied by €150, plus third-party costs already incurred and documented. (c) Quelper tells you by email, at the same time, the facts, this rule, the amount and the end date. It releases what turns out not to be needed, and in any case after 90 days, unless it has started proceedings as C7(d) says. (d) If you leave Homingway, or Quelper ends your place, while a claim under this part is open, Quelper may keep back your shares up to the amount claimed until it is settled, for at most 180 days, or longer only while proceedings it started under C7(d) are pending. (e) If you live outside the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, Quelper keeps back 10% of your share of each Homingway subscription payment for 90 days as a reserve, up to €300 in total. It releases each part when its 90 days end, unless by then Quelper has told you of an incident under C8(c) or sent you a statement under C7(a); it then keeps that part, up to the amount concerned, for as long as C8(c) and C7(d) allow. The reserve covers amounts you owe under this part or under B7(d).

10. C9

    C9. Restricting, suspending or ending your place. (a) Quelper may stop making print files available to you, pause new subscriptions to your letters, keep back payouts as C8 says, suspend you, or end your place in Homingway, for any of these reasons: (1) subscriber data in your hands is lost, stolen, published or misused; (2) you break Part B, including by not reporting under B7 or not confirming deletion under B11 or B12; (3) an authority orders it; (4) the reasons in sections A12 and C8 of our Terms of Use. (b) Quelper sends you an email at the moment the measure takes effect, with the facts (for example “your report of [date, time]”), the rule concerned, the measure, how to lift it (such as recovering or wiping a device, or resetting two-step sign-in) and where to reply. (c) After you report an incident, Quelper pauses your print file only while the risk continues: an account or device may be in someone else’s hands, or the file’s whereabouts are unknown. A single letter put in the wrong envelope is not a reason to pause. Reporting under B7 is never on its own a reason to end your place. (d) Ending your place completely takes effect 30 days after that email. It takes effect at once if the law requires it, for an imperative reason under the law that applies, such as intentional misuse of subscriber data or a risk to subscribers’ safety, or if you have broken these rules repeatedly. (e) You can reply with your explanation, and if Quelper finds it was wrong, it undoes the measure without delay. Refunds that follow a pause count under C2(c) only if this section justified the pause. (f) Quelper may change the security measures in Part B at once only where it must address an unforeseen and imminent danger from fraud, malware, spam, a data breach or another cybersecurity risk, and it tells you by email at once, explaining the danger. Other changes to these rules take effect after 15 days’ notice by email, and you may leave before they do (Terms of Use, C9).

11. C10

    C10. Subscribers’ rights are not affected. This part divides responsibility between you and Quelper. It does not limit any right a subscriber has under the law or under the clauses in B10. That includes the right to complain to a data protection authority and to claim compensation from Quelper, from you or from both of us, in the courts where the subscriber lives. Subscribers may also enforce B2 to B8 and B12 against you directly.

12. C11

    C11. Quelper’s liability to you. Quelper’s liability to you as an author is limited as section A13 of our Terms of Use says for business users: in any 12 months, to the fees Quelper kept from your sales in those 12 months, or €100 if that is more, and Quelper is not liable for lost profits or indirect loss. This limit does not apply to loss Quelper causes intentionally or by gross negligence, to death or personal injury, to money Quelper owes you under section C4 of the Terms or under C7(d), to liability under Clause 12 of the clauses in B10, or to any liability the law does not allow to be limited. Quelper compensates you for your direct loss, not lost profits or your own time, caused by Quelper’s breach of the law or of these rules in collecting, keeping or making available the print file, up to €2,000 or the fees Quelper kept from your sales in the last 12 months, whichever is more; C3 and C6 apply to it with our roles reversed.

13. C12

    C12. How long Parts B and C apply. Parts B and C and the Annex continue after you stop writing for Homingway or close your account. They apply for as long as a claim about subscriber data you received can be brought, and at least five years after your last print file (Spanish Civil Code, art. 1964.2). Quelper keeps the record of what you accepted and the log of your print-file downloads for the periods its Privacy Policy gives (sections 2.12 and 2.20(f)).

14. C13

    C13. Law and courts. These rules are governed by Spanish law. Disputes between you and Quelper go to the courts of Madrid, Spain, and before going to court we each first try to settle the dispute in writing. If you live outside the European Union and the states party to the Lugano Convention, Quelper may also bring a claim against you under this part for a breach of Part B in the courts of the place where you live (a claim under the clauses in B10 goes only to the courts of Madrid); if this sentence is held invalid, the rest of this section still applies. If a court finds that you are a consumer, you keep the protection of the mandatory law of the country where you live and can bring a claim in its courts, and Quelper can bring a claim against you only in the courts of the country where you live. The clauses in B10 are governed by Spanish law and their disputes go to the courts of Madrid. A subscriber may also bring a claim against either of us in the courts of the country where they live (Clause 18).

15. C14

    C14. How these rules fit with the Terms. For subscriber data and amounts owed under this part or under B7(d), Parts B and C add to sections A12 (restricting accounts), A13 (compensation), C4 (payouts) and C8 (restricting and payouts) of our Terms of Use and apply where they differ. In particular, your share under section C4 of any payment for anything you sell on Quelper, Homingway or not, is your share less any amount deducted or kept back under C7 and C8. The standard contractual clauses in B10 prevail over everything else.

16. C15

    C15. Quelper’s decisions are provisional. Quelper’s decisions under this part are provisional. If we disagree about whether you broke these rules, or about what they mean, a court decides (C13). Until then, C7 and C8 apply.

Annex: the disclosure and the standard contractual clauses

This annex describes how subscriber data is made available to every Homingway author. For authors under B10(b) and (c), it also completes Annexes I and II of the EU standard contractual clauses that B10 makes part of these rules.

Keeping addresses safe: a guide

Not part of the rules: one way that meets B4. Before your first print file, Quelper asks you which measures you use.

1. Device. A phone or tablet with a screen lock (they encrypt storage by default), or a computer with FileVault (Mac), BitLocker or Windows device encryption switched on.
2. Printing. Open the file straight from your workspace and print it on your own printer at home or in your office, by cable or on your own Wi‑Fi. Not at a copy shop or a kiosk, and not through a print app that uploads files.
3. Password. If the file asks for a password, type it in when it asks. Don’t write it down next to the file.
4. After printing. Delete the file from Downloads and empty the bin. Shred spoiled pages the same day.
5. Until posting. Keep the letters in a closed folder or envelope.
6. Photos. Only the backs of the envelopes, or cover the addresses completely.