When I sell a book through Amazon, it never occurs to me what the book price includes. Someone else takes care of all these things.
As I arrange things through PayPal to sell some of my books, there are so many things I need to consider. It is so much easier to sell books directly.
Setting a Book Price
“The Pumpkin Project” was almost sold out. Originally I printed it myself on my laser printer, but can’t during the summer due to heat. So, I had a local printer print some. The printer is no longer there.
I turned to IngramSpark. My picture books were printed through them. Why not this one? The cost per book was comparable to the printed one. The price they want to set on it is definitely not comparable to what I was charging.
Kindle too wants a much higher price on a book than the printing cost. Why? To cover extra fees, give discounts to booksellers etc.
Getting Books From Here to There
Mailing a book is not free. Packaging is not free.
Now, I can create my own box from old ones. Newspaper can serve to protect the book inside the box. It is a nuisance to do this and never looks as neat as buying a padded envelope.
As I recently found out, mailing a book overseas or to another country is prohibitively expensive. Such sales must be strictly digital.
Converting costs from one currency to another is one more item on the list to deal with for sales outside of the U.S. Keeping up with the current rates of exchange is not a task I want to do. I hope PayPal does this.
Those Pesky Taxes
I do understand why the state wants to collect sales taxes. Although I hear many people complain about taxes, they do support schools and other services we need.
I hope PayPal will worry about the taxes to charge.
What a Book Price Includes
There is a choice here. I either sell books strictly by direct means: book signings, Farmers Market etc. All of these take time and travel plus having an inventory of books. And I must pay postage etc. to get my inventory.
Or I set up to sell online. Selling online means charging postage, taxes, fees etc. And, like it or not, these end up added to the price of the book.
