Almost every ecommerce platform gives you a number or tools to configure even a very sophisticated system of tax calculation.Say, X-Cart eCommerce platform has 3 free addons that enable the necessary functionality: “Sales Tax” for the US, “Canadian Taxes” ( that charges GST/PST) and VAT ( for the UK and contries with the akin tax system).However they all imply that the merchant configures everything manually before the launch. Many merchants do so – it’s kinda difficult, but it’s mainly a one-time job.
But if you do not want to dig into it, you should take a closer look at Avalara, they offer AvaTax service, the cloud-based tax-automation service on the subscription basis. It simplifies the tax compliance process and reduces the sales tax audit risk for merchants in the United States, Canada and Europe.Avalara determines the tax rates automatically based on 100,000+ taxability rules in 11,000+ taxing jurisdictions. It easily accomodates changes in the taxing system, so you can be sure you are up-to-date with the most recent tax rates and rules at all times. Address validation service is included, so you always get the most accurate tax calculation results.Avatax integrates with X-Cart too, the module is free, the only one you pay to is Avalara itself (“pay as you go”, based on the number of queries sent to their servers to request the most accurate and correct tax:By the way, X-Cart is a very good solution to create an online bookstore, sad to see it’s not listed in the article above – there are very beautiful showcases that do generate sales. I am part of a non-profit organisation which looks after historical documents. We have thousands of scans of documents, proceedings (all organised in books and publications) and would like to make them available free to the public. Do you know of any display solution to achieve it?
Basically it is just like selling the books but with no selling. We would like to show the titles, authors, keywords, pdf but no selling. Google Books is a great solution but it does not work for my country. Very interesting article and some very informative replies.I have published romance novels using the Amazon Kindle program.I didn’t like it for a number of reasons but mainly because I didn’t know who was buying my books.
Amazon Kindle keeps all that information.I felt out of control and insecure with Amazon Kindle. The Amazon Kindle / Self Publisher relationship is very unequal. Hey Pat!How did ditching your blog and email letter work for you in terms of your well being, happiness and in the end – sales?I’m struggling with finding a reason for writing my blog, I’m getting really tired of not being able to write an experience or whatever in it’s full form, it’s like I can’t tell the whole story because I have to “get it out there” fast, and that means it will lose quality.Look forward to your reply if you’re still here!Your method sounds more fulfilling.Best regards,Joerund. While I think creating a permission-based email list is the bare minimum, it is also pretty important to give readers an opportunity to engage with each other at least and ideally with the author or his/her proxies. You can do this through facebook or google+, but then I think you’re subject to the extraneous noise that those services bring along with a certain lack of control.I wound up rolling my own, so to speak, and recently opened it up to others.
You can check out it out at lithive.com. It lets me easily set up a beautiful microsite with promotional pages for each publication, handles one-time and subscription sales and lets me manage my reader list.
It also lets me create promotions and coupons. (It does a bunch of other stuff to, but these are the features relevant to this conversation). I’ve been building out shopping carts for authors using a “Store Front” type of shopping cart. It’s independant of the website. This is a great alternative rather than relying on plugins to keep up-to-date with your website.It allows for physical books as well as eBook downloads. The downloads are done over a secure connection. You can limit number of download attempts, and number of days the download link is active.
These can also be reset if your customer missed out on their deadline.You can also have your shopping cart appear on a Facebook page.Some authors also sell other items such as Consulting Services, Images, Health & Fitness Products, and CD’s to coincide with their books.Here are a few examples:Here is a link to the web store for getting the shopping cart. Scroll down the home page and you will see the E-Commerce Solutions link next to the Merchant Services link.The annual cost for the shopping cart is about $299. This includes an SSL Certificate. You can use Merchant Services, PayPal, or both to receive payments.If you want assistance in setting up this type of shopping cart, send me a message from. I’d be glad to help out or guide you in the right direction. Something to consider depending on how many items you have for sale, how many sales per year.
Add up your Paypal percentages and see what that comes to. I reallzed that paying the Shopify fee at a yearly rate, with Shopify payments for no transaction fee credit card payments along with Paypal, gave me a better deal than relying solely on Paypal. More customers are opting for credit cards over Paypal too.
Those Paypal fees add up along with the loss to overall built in services which I don’t have to spend so much time maintaining any longer. That frees me up to do publishing instead of site maintenance. Just to add to the discussion, I’ve been selling ebooks, training programs, and other downloadable content from my site for some time. I use PayPal and e-junkie, which is a very inexpensive basic shopping cart service that integrates with Paypal. So instead of just looking at it as a “paypal button” there’s far more that you can do with these “buttons.” As an example, the entire BookDesignTemplates.com site runs entirely off PayPal through the e-junkie shopping cart.However, I don’t—and won’t—sell physical products like books, for all the reasons Michael N. Marcus outlined in his comment.
Now look at how much you profit if you sell on Amazon — I do have one ebook on the platform, so I’m speaking from first-hand experience. If you price your ebook between $2.99- $9.99, you earn 70 percent royalties. If you price below $2.99, you earn only 35 percent royalties.
Bearing in mind that as a little publisher, I’m up to 19 titles so this made sense for me: I started with Paypal, moved to Ecwid, ditched Ecwid when they dropped all SEO functions and finally opted for a Shopify storefront which just went live this week. Shopify now offers credit card processing at no additional fee. There is a transaction fee of 2.9% for the overall service and a monthly fee (I opted for the yearly fee at a 10% discount).
It all sounds like a lot but once the storefront was done, I don’t have to worry about it. All the features are there, it’s secure, SEO, fulfillment if I need it, RSS, blogs, etc. Between Shopify basic fee and minor app fees, the storefront will cost me just under $325 per year to keep open, not counting individual 2.9% transaction fees which are really pretty minimal. Fortunately I only have a 3% of PayPal customers report problems when buying directly from my websites.
It appears over half of those are from foreign countries where the PayPal redirect to the download page doesn’t work right. China is a frequent example. Having detailed instructions next to the Buy Now buttons helps a lot as in “PayPal will automatically redirect you to the download page after purchase.”Another shopping cart application that’s good and free is Ecwid.A smart option is having the retailer’s icons for alternatives on the book store page. Here’s an example of selling with PayPal buttons but also having those cons handy for shoppers who prefer a certain retailer –.