International sales
Like a few other non-US customers I’ve recently received my book and I was very happy with the quality but then went on to set my profit margin for selling my book online only to find that this option isn’t available outside the US. I have to confess to feeling a little cheated by this. I spent days designing my book and I spent cash on ordering a copy all with the intention of selling my book online. But now I can’t. If I’d known about this limitation from the start I wouldn’t have wasted my time and money. I like your product very much and the price is great too (excepting the postage). But without an option for non-US citizens to sell online your whole service isn’t much use. I was considering using your service for a wedding book as well but I’ll spend some time looking at the alternatives like Viovio and Lulu instead. And before you suggest it – I won’t be ordering a bulk lot of my book and selling it directly. I’ve no interest in the time and expense involved in that. John
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John,
Thank you expressing everything that needs to change. Then why would you move?
Keith
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Im not sure I understand the question. As I said, I like the product and the prices. Only the fact that I can’t sell my books online for a profit is stopping me from publishing my book online with Blurb today. John
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John…we are actively sorting through the tax and compensation requirements per country. We look forward to the day where we can extend this program to more countries but I want to make sure we do so in accordance with each country’s tax authority and we do not create additional user problems in the process.
There have been a handful of posts on this subject to date so we know you are not alone.
http://forums.blurb.com/forums/3/topics/304
http://forums.blurb.com/forums/3/topics/294
http://forums.blurb.com/forums/3/topics/116
http://forums.blurb.com/forums/1/topics/83
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John I fully agree with you as I’m from the UK too. I am just in the process of putting a 13×11 together to see what it is like. I rather like the idea of the large format for weddings as the largest Lulu book doesn’t look so impressive for weddings but they don’t have the international restrictions. Let’s hope that Blurb get it together sooner rather than later! Louis
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I think you’re making this more complicated than it is. It’s not like having to charge sales tax across borders. There aren’t, as far as I know, any international treaties covering income tax across borders. If you pay me some money it’s totally my responsibility to declare that income on my tax return. This would even be true if you were a UK based company. The only circumstance where you would have to collect tax or even account for tax on your outgoing payments would be if I was an employee of your company. There are loads of companies offering revenue payments across international borders (stock photo agencies, for example). None of those has ever asked me for tax references. All most of them require is a paypal email address or bank account details. I’d suggest the paypal route so that you can pay in dollars – keeps things really simple for you. I believe that if you were to put in place a system of paying people using Paypal there would be no reason why you couldn’t start offering revenue payments to international customers immediately. I don’t know about other countries but I’m very certain there would be no tax implications for doing so to european countries. John
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This is the key statement: "I don’t know about other countries…" And this is the very area I am addressing. Unfortunately there is an existing precedent where US companies are requiring tax information for royalty payments outside the US. Do know that we are actively reviewing our options with both legal council and our accounting firm in the EU.
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Ok you’re clearly looking at it and I thank you for your replies I’ve done a lot of research on other book printing companies since I posted the first message in this thread and all I’ve done is convince myself that Blurb is, in many respects, ahead of the game. I will now, I think, be ordering my current wedding book through Blurb. Shame I can’t publish my podcast book as well, though. Sorry if we’re being hard on you guys about this. It’s only because we like the product so much that we want Blurb to be everything it can be. We want to use Blurb even more. That’s why we’re pressuring you. John
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Thanks John….and we appreciate the high standard the community holds us to. Best of luck with your wedding book and let us know how it turns out.
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for what its worth, the US and Canada have a tax treaty, and it is zero rated. So there should be no problem to just issue cheques/PayPal deposits on that front. I’m pretty sure the EU has a similat tax treaty with similar provisions.
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Indeed. Otherwise how would all the other companies doing this be able to do it. I have a variety of USA based companies paying me for various royalty schemes. I’m disappointed that this issue still hasn’t been addressed. Speed it up Blurb or someone will catch up and overtake you. Your product is good but you’re not capitalising quickly enough.
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Bump. Still holding my breath for this to get sorted out but getting quite blue in the face here and looking around for alternatives.
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Double bump! This topic has been hanging around for many months Blurb, it can’t be that complicated. Yet Another Impatient European
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I have to give you guys credit for being persistent, but you do have to realize we’re not sitting around on our hands here at Blurb HQ. The most recent news we can give you regarding our international Set Your Price is from none other than our CEO, Eileen: Please stay tuned. This is a big initiative for us this year and we are working hard to start rolling out support for Set Your Price in countries other than the United States as soon as possible. She posted this comment to her blog post earlier this week. And folks, that’s the news from the top. Thanks for your patience. We think it’ll be worth the wait. – Kathy
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Be fair – I left you alone for 3 months before I came back and bugged you again. ;-) Good to hear this is still on Blurb’s agenda. I’ll certainly check out Eileen’s blog regularly from now on. John
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Floyduk is right – we like your product, but are offended by having to give you our books for you to sell and we didn’t even get so much as a Christmas Card from you! I looked at Amazon and they have their program set up for foreign authors. (They issue cheques. Though I feel PayPal is the better option.) The starter’s bell has rung, and Blurb’s horse isn’t in the gate yet. You must be aware of this, so I wonder what it is that’s delaying you - a good tax accountant?
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yeah agree with all your posts. Not being able to sell your book after the hours u put in sucks! Just let us sell it and let paypal worry about changing the dollar for UK pounds/Euro’s etc…. Come on people keep up the pressure! ;o)
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I really am hoping there will be a roll out for international use this year. I have played with the Blurb software and love it to pieces, it’s GREAT, and I’ve seen an example of a hardcover bound book so I know what to expect (stellar compared to other wellknown companies). At the moment it’s not a huge deal as I’m still in the creation process (both my art and the book) but I’ve got lots of people wanting something soonish.. I understand it’s an important issue where one has to tread carefully and get all the information, but if I can make money from my Cafepress and DeviantART accounts with my art (both are US companies), then I really don’t understand just exactly what is so hard about setting it up for blurb. I’ll wait with bated breath, as usual though it was over a year ago that I asked the first time around…
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I have to agree with Eringuest … I have made money (I’m Danish) with CafePress and Ka-Blam (both US POD-companies) ... so I don’t get what the problem is?! You guys don’t have to invent the wheel … it’s already been made!!! Looking forward to start making books with a profit !!! :-)
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Another unhappy camper who can’t sell with a profit because not living in the States. Even though I do have american residency and am only temporary in UK.
Not fair at all!
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they clearly have time to roll out BLURBNATION. I think it would be more accurate to term it "BLURBUSAI" aka "INTERNATIONAL AUTHORS NEED NOT APPLY"
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Hi folks, Trust me, we hear you. We have said all along that we’ll be opening up this program to our international customers as soon as we can. Now that the holiday rush is firmly behind us, we’ve been able to move on to our next wave of priorities, of which International Set Your Price, is one. The plan is for a Q1 roll-out. We’ll post updates when we have them. Thanks for your patience. – Kathy
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Great to hear Q1 roll out for it. Im am looking forward to using it myself aswell. Cheers from London
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To be honest, while I’m looking forward to a positive resolution to this much-anticipated feature, I think the most important thing that needs to be fixed is the delivery prices using an insurable/trackable option, especially seeing as Blurb themselves warn that you’re on your own with no support whatsoever if anything bad happens to your book using SwissPost.
I wouldn’t even dare to consider offering my book to customers with the current UPS pricing – I’d get laughed out of my own photoblog…
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Ok – im on the bandwagon too ! Im Australian, MAY I SUGGEST FOR THE TIME BEING, put the note of “not available for overseas blurbarians” BEFORE I PUBLISH A BOOK – thats something called “baiting”... i too was under the impression that i could publish it immediately.. im about to order 20+ books for people that have contributed to our book, only because at least 2/3rds of them are a little weary handing over a large amount of cash to someone that they dont know…thats the reason that i ended up going HERE !
eagerly await updates
FROM SYDNEY in WET OZ !
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Yes it’ particularly hard to take when you’ve spent days working on a book only to find at the END of the process that you can’t sell it online as you’d always intended. Perhaps that’s a large part of what’s behind the very VOCAL calls for this feature. Maybe you could have headed off much of the complaint with a more up-front and visible statement about non-USA resident authors. Even so, I’m very encouraged by talk of a Q1 launch. I’ll be first in line, I assure you.
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I just wanted to finish off this thread with a grateful THANK YOU and a big sloppy kiss to all at Blurb for launching the intenational sales programme. You are officially now ready to take on the WORLD at this book printing game. Look out Lulu!
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Excellent news! Thank you Blurb for making this available internationally!
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