In this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi Member Q&A podcast, host Michael La Ronn discusses whether there are effective alternatives to Amazon and Meta ads for authors who want to reach readers but are reluctant to support those platforms.
Other questions include:
- Is Nielsen’s Enhanced Services an effective marketing tool for authors?
- Has anyone experienced product availability issues with BookVault?
- Do ALLi members get discounts on public liability insurance for book fairs?
- How do legal and tax issues differ for sole traders and limited companies in the US and UK?
- What’s the best place within ALLi to find marketing support for a debut novel?
- Does ALLi offer a standard copyright page template or guidance?
Listen to the Podcast: Exploring Alternatives to Amazon and Meta Ads
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About the Hosts
Michael La Ronn is ALLi’s Outreach Manager. He is the author of over 80 science fiction & fantasy books and self-help books for writers. He writes from the great plains of Iowa and has managed to write while raising a family, working a full-time job, and even attending law school classes in the evenings (now graduated!). You can find his fiction at www.michaellaronn.com and his videos and books for writers at www.authorlevelup.com.
Sacha Black is a bestselling and competition winning author, rebel podcaster, speaker and casual rule breaker. She writes fiction under a secret pen name and other books about the art of writing. She lives in England, with her wife and genius, giant of a son. You can find her on her website, her podcast, and on Instagram.
Read the Transcripts
Michael La Ronn: Hello and welcome to Self-Publishing with ALLi, the Member Q&A podcast. The podcast where we answer your most burning self-publishing questions. I'm Michael La Ronn and I'm joined by Sacha Black. What's up Sacha?
Sacha Black: Hello, how are you?
Michael La Ronn: I am great. How are things with you?
Sacha Black: I'm carrying a little bit of a cold at the moment, but other than that I'm pretty good. My latest Kickstarter will pay out tomorrow, so that's going to be quite exciting.
Michael La Ronn: Oh, that's exciting. Yes, indeed. Is there the opportunity for late pledges, anybody that might be interested?
Sacha Black: No, we're not doing late pledges in that way. We have had a few people come outside of Kickstarter and say, oh, I missed it by a day or whatever and we've let them organize it through the team. But we're over ordering stock, so then we'll sell the stock on the website afterwards,
Michael La Ronn: What's the name of your series so people know if they want to support you?
Sacha Black: This one was the Girl Games series.
Michael La Ronn: Awesome. Congratulations on your success.
That was fun to watch.
Sacha Black: Yeah, it was a wild one. I don't think I expected it to do quite as well as it did.
Michael La Ronn: You are the Kickstarter queen, officially. We were just talking about Kickstarter before we started. So, if anybody has Kickstarter questions, we would be happy to take those.
We're starting to get to the point where we don't have as many questions coming in. So, folks, if you want your questions answered, if you're an ALLi member, please go to your ALLi dashboard. There's a link on your dashboard to submit your question to us.
Is Nielsen's Enhanced Services an effective marketing tool?
Michael La Ronn: So, let's jump into our first question, and that is from Karen.
Karen asks, is Nielsen's Enhanced Services an effective marketing tool?
Have you used that, Sacha?
Sacha Black: I have not. Have you?
Michael La Ronn: I have not either. So, I would recommend, Karen, that you ask that in our ALLi Member Forum. There will be somebody in our forum that has used it and will be able to advise you on whether that is a good tip.
Has anyone experienced product availability issues with Book Vault?
Michael La Ronn: Now, Karen also asks, has anyone ever had issues with product availability regarding Book Vault?
There's no other context to that question, but Sacha, have you had any issues there?
Sacha Black: No. I have never had any issues really with Book Vault in terms of the backend systems and integration.
I'm trying to think why that might have happened. I'm trying to get my brain to troubleshoot some of the reasons. I wonder if they had it on pre-order or, no, because everything is digital so she shouldn't have any issues with availability at all.
The one thing that she may have found is a delay in the product printing and shipping.
I occasionally had a problem with that if they had a busy period, like over Christmas, it was a bit bonkers. Everything got a bit slow over Christmas, but that is the same for any printer. Ingram is the same as well. So, I can't think of another reason. That might be one to contact their customer service team.
Michael La Ronn: Yeah, I would definitely reach out to Book Vault on that if you're having any issues. That's the first I've heard of any product availability issues either.
Are there alternatives to Meta and Amazon Ads?
Michael La Ronn: Okay, next question is from William, and William asks, what are good alternatives to Meta and Amazon ads right now if you are reluctant to support those platforms?
I'm assuming just given all the things that are going on politically right now.
Sacha Black: Yeah, it's such a hard one because I think if you are ads oriented, if you are good with numbers or analytical, then advertising is a great views source. This whole game of publishing is about visibility, and the way that you get visibility is by driving traffic.
The two biggest methods for doing that are either advertising or social media. Social media doesn't necessarily directly sell a book, but it will build the platform and drive the traffic to the platforms that will then sell the books. So, it's tricky. I don't advertise at all. So, I spend a few quid a month on Amazon ads, and that's about it. I don't have personal experience on things like Google Ads or Pinterest ads or anything like that. So, I wouldn't want to give advice on that.
I do know a few authors using Pinterest ads, but I don't know what their success rates are like.
I think it's difficult because the biggest piece of advice that I tend to give at the moment is what works for you. Platforms aside, and the owners of those platforms aside, our readers are in certain places, and there's nothing that we can do about that. You have to go where the readers are. You might not like it, but if you need to sell the books to pay the bills, then there has to be a little bit of eating pie because we have to go and be there and have a presence in that place.
If you don't want to use Meta or Amazon ads, then you could consider converting to social media and trying to build a presence on social media. It's a lot of sweat equity. You do need to have some kind of ability to be on camera or an ability to understand the algorithms and provide content that matches whatever will work on the algorithms.
If you don't want to do that, then I would say you either have a choice to go with the ads or to try some of the smaller advertising options, like Pinterest or Google ads, on the understanding that they may not be as effective as the big ones. \
There are two other things that you could do. You could try BookBub ads.
So, there's two different types of BookBub ad. There is the featured deals, which are the more expensive ones, where you get a big placement in their newsletter. Though I will say that those are run with discounted books, so you would need like a 99-cent deal or a free book in order for that to work.
The other one is at the bottom of those emails; they have the pay per click ads. Again, the thing that works best with those is the discounted books, which does make it quite hard to get a good return on your investment, unless you have extremely high read through rates and a long series.
Then the last one is platform innate advertising. For example, Kobo has their own ads options inside the Kobo Writing Life platform. So, you can look at that and if you don't have access to that email, [email protected] to get access.
Places like Barnes and Noble, they also have their own innate ads, and I believe Draft2Digital have a list as well of things that you can potentially get access to, though I don't know how to do that, but they do. So, you could email their support team to ask how to get involved in that. Very tricky.
Michael La Ronn: I agree. Something you said, Sacha, that I think is the heart of it all, which is we can't control where our readers are, and whether you like Facebook or Amazon or you don't like them you can't deny that they are the place where the readers hang out. So, giving up those ad platforms for whatever reasons, valid or not valid, you are giving up those pools of readers in a way, and I'm just not sure that there is a way to circumvent that unless you follow the advice that Sacha gave around being willing to do social media, for example, or being willing to be on video.
The first thing that came to my mind was TikTok, just because that's where a lot of readers hang out. I don't necessarily know that's a substitute. To me, I think the answer is yes and fight your battles in another way. But again, that's an opinion of mine.
Sacha Black: I'm a huge advocate for TikTok, because obviously it changed my life.
It is difficult. I think you have to approach social media on the understanding that it's a game, and you have to learn the rules of the game and how to play the game, and if you don't like the rules and you don't like the game, don't play the game.
But for me, TikTok has created an enormous business. So, I do think it's a substitute, but I don't think it's a like for like substitute because the work you have to do is totally different.
Michael La Ronn: Yeah, you're going to play a game, it's just a matter of which game you want to play. Do you want to play the Amazon/Facebook ad game, or do you want to play the TikTok game, or do you want to play both?
I think ultimately you have to choose. I think no matter who you choose or which game you choose, there's going to be some level of discomfort about who the players in the game are
let's move to the next question, and this is from Dan.
Do I need Public Liability Insurance for events?
Michael La Ronn: This is, I believe, more of a UK-oriented question, but I think we can answer it from both sides of the pond.
Dan says, I understand I need public liability insurance in the UK to sell books at craft fairs and markets, and I was wondering if there are any deals or discounts available for ALLi members for this type of insurance.
Sacha Black: I don't know, I haven't looked in the dashboard.
Michael La Ronn: As I know, there's not for no insurance.
Sacha Black: They can use Compare the Market or Confused.com and stuff, those websites would probably have comparison insurers, I would've thought.
Michael La Ronn: I'm just curious, is there a requirement to have public liability the UK? Are you required to have insurance to sell at fairs?
Sacha Black: I'm not sure about required. I think it's probably advised, but I don't think public liability is too expensive.
What is expensive is employers’ insurance. So, I am required to have public liability insurance because I have employers’ insurance. So, now that I have a team, I was required to get employers insurance, which was super expensive. They only sell that or give it as a package with public liability; you can't get it on its own. Or I couldn't, anyway, that's what they told me, whether or not there were other companies, I don't know, maybe that was just a facet of what that particular company was, but that's how it was sold to me.
Look, I'm not a lawyer, so I can't give advice. I've definitely sold at fairs in the UK without it, but it might be one of those things that the organizers of the event have said, we want you to have liability insurance, but I would've thought that the organizers of the event were the ones who needed the liability insurance, not the individual authors.
Michael La Ronn: It's possible that the authors could.
When we talk about public liability insurance, in the UK, public liability insurance is what we refer to as general liability insurance in the US, and employee's liability, is that what you call it?
Sacha Black: No, employer's Insurance is when you employ people.
Michael La Ronn: And they get injured. Yeah, that's what we would call workers' compensation, just to make sure both sides of the pond understand what we're saying. I'm an insurance guy; this is what I do on a daily basis.
As far as I know, in the US, you're not required to, unless you sign a contract with a venue that says that you have to have liability insurance, then you're required to have it. But fairs and book signings and stuff, that's just not a huge part of my marketing model. It's been a long time since I've done that, but when I did it, nobody ever gave me a contract that said that I had to have it.
Sacha Black: It's funny because this is so left field, but when I got married, I needed public liability insurance.
Michael La Ronn: Really?
Sacha Black: Yeah.
Michael La Ronn: Why is that?
Sacha Black: I don't know, but the venue was like, no, you need public liability insurance, because we were having like a hundred people or whatever it was in the venue, and it was like a “party” or whatever.
So, they made us get liability insurance.
Michael La Ronn: Yeah, I had to do the same thing when I got married. Over here it's called Wedding Liability Insurance.
The reason they do that, so the organizers have their own liability insurance so if something happens as a result of somebody coming to the event and they fall down and hurt themselves and they sue the event, then the event needs insurance to cover themselves.
But theoretically, say an author is handing out books and they go and they're handing out books and they accidentally trip somebody and they fall and hit their head on a table and they're hurt, it's the author's fault, not the event's fault, then they're probably going to sue the event, but the event is also going to want the author to have insurance so that it mitigates their own liability.
And sometimes authors do some crazy stuff at these events. I've been to events where people dressed up as T-Rex's and thumping around, and they've got props, maybe there are swords. Anything can go wrong, you just use your imagination.
So, that's why it's not a bad idea to have policies for these sorts of things.
You have to pay annually for public liability insurance, I'm sure, at least for general liability insurance you do.
If you wanted to get insurance for just one event, that's not really worth it. Here in the United States, you can purchase what's called homeowner's liability or renter's liability.
Often, not always, because I can't say always, but often that will cover you for any events that you're doing, like a signing or something like that, as long as there are not exclusions on your policy that would prevent that.
So, an example of a homeowner's liability claim. Let's say I'm out golfing, and when I'm golfing, I accidentally hit a golf ball and the golf ball, hits somebody in the head.
You're thinking, Michael, you're not at home, why would homeowner's liability cover that? Homeowner's liability actually covers many activities that you're doing away from the home as well. So, homeowner's liability technically, in theory, could potentially provide you coverage.
You would want to call your insurance agent and talk to them about that. I don't know how things are in the UK; I'm assuming you have something similar.
Sacha Black: We have contents insurance and house insurance. The house insurance is actually called buildings insurance and then we have contents insurance. The contents insurance will insure like laptops and bicycles and things away from the home if you put it on the insurance. So, it's not a standard. You have to actually say, I want this covered away from home.
Not to my awareness are we personally covered away from the house.
Michael La Ronn: Okay, so what insurance do you have if you have a dog and somebody comes to your house and the dog bites somebody. What insurance would cover that?
Sacha Black: I don't think it would. Usually, the dog just gets put down in the UK and they go to hospital.
Michael La Ronn: Okay. In the United States there's a lawsuit.
Sacha Black: But we don't do that here.
Michael La Ronn: Exactly, and in some states, the dog gets the first bite free and then the second bite they get put down and you get sued. Again, it's so interesting how different things are across the pond.
Sacha Black: I could be wrong, but I've not heard of anything.
My friend's dad got bitten by a dog about a year ago, and nothing really happened. He ended up in hospital with a chunk out of his leg, but there wasn't any compensation or anything.
Michael La Ronn: Maybe talk to somebody, maybe there could be some compensation, although, again, things are so different across the pond.
I guess I would encourage people to look at the insurance that you have, whether you're in the US or the UK. Look at what you have and ask questions on whether that could potentially cover it, and that might be your answer, as opposed to going out and buying something that you may not need.
The chances of things happening at these events are extremely rare, that's why they're not going to make you sign a contract 9 times out of 10, but if they do, then maybe they have some recommendations on where you can purchase insurance as well.
Hopefully no one's eyes are bleeding over all this insurance talk.
Although, I love it when people are talking about insurance.
Obviously, I know a lot about this, but I also think that it's a very prudent thing to be thinking about, because if something were to happen to your author business, it happens to you personally, not necessarily your business, because most of us are sole proprietors and sole traders.
So, it behoves you to think about these sorts of things, even if nothing happens.
Sacha Black: By that you mean we don't own a company, whereas I think most of my friends have companies.
Michael La Ronn: Yeah, if you have a limited company, and again, in the UK things are different, but here in the states, most people are sole traders, they're individuals. There's no legal separation between you and your business. So, if you do get sued, if something does happen, then they're going to come after you personally.
Sacha Black: Oh, that's interesting. In the UK, once you hit a certain financial bracket, it's more tax efficient to be a company than it is to be an individual.
Michael La Ronn: What about legally, if you're sued, can they only sue the business or can they sue you personally as well?
Sacha Black: Oh, I don't know, you're asking the wrong person. The company is the owner of the books, not me, I think, because that's what the separation is.
But again, not a lawyer, don't know the details. This is not my area of expertise at all. So, I should probably stop talking because we won't settle it today.
Michael La Ronn: But just remember, and I think this is an important distinction, there is the tax piece of your company and there is the legal piece of your company, and they are not always the same.
So, you have to make sure you understand the differences between the two of those. Just because you might incorporate or have a limited company for tax purposes, the legal stuff is totally different. It has a different set of consequences.
Sacha Black: These are my least favorite topics.
Michael La Ronn: They're not fun, but the good thing is that you can talk them out with a lawyer, figure it out, and usually it's a once and done kind of thing. You figure it out and then at tax time you have a little freak out and then you figure it out, and then life goes on.
We probably shouldn't talk about this when we're recording, but I had to cry at my desk over tax day. But life goes on.
Sacha Black: Oh, trust me, my tax bill this year is more than I used to earn in a whole year in corporate.
Michael La Ronn: Yeah, it's brutal.
Sacha Black: I definitely had some tears.
Michael La Ronn: Some tears and maybe some alcohol
Sacha Black: Some impolite, not safe for work words.
Michael La Ronn: Yeah, definitely. We'll keep it safe for everybody listening.
Does ALLi have marketing and promotion resources for debut authors?
Michael La Ronn: Our next question is from Thomas, and the question is, is there a place at ALLi, where I can locate experienced help with marketing and promotion for my debut novel?
Sacha Black: I would say go into the forum for the first thing and just have a look. I'm sure you can do a search in there and look for like comments. Type in marketing and have a look in there. But there are so many resources. ALLi is absolutely crammed pack full of resources for this specific question.
So, we've got the marketing book. We've released that now, haven't we?
We'll get the title for you in just a second, but of course, we also have the podcast, and you can go into the podcast archives and search the website for all of the ALLi podcasts that have covered marketing topics and questions.
We also have the blog as well where there are quite literally thousands of blog posts on marketing.
I think my biggest bit of advice for you is to narrow down the search because if you just type in marketing, you'll get like a huge variety of things that won't actually necessarily tell you where to start. So, be a bit more specific.
For example, I know we've got a series of three posts on newsletter creation, building and maintenance.
I know that we've got past posts on advertising. I know that we've got past posts on attending in-person events and making the most of that. I know we've got posts on social media, different types of social media.
So, you really have to be a little bit more specific on what kind of marketing you want to research.
I'm happy to talk through what I think the basics are if that would be helpful.
Michael La Ronn: We've talked about that a lot on the show. I would just listen to previous episodes with marketing in the title. This is one of the most common questions we get on the show is marketing basics.
I would I echo everything you said, Sacha. Check the member forum, guidebook, the guidebook is called Sell More Books. It is not out yet, but it is coming soon. So, just stay tuned.
Sacha Black: There are some other podcasts as well. Joanna Penn's podcast is fantastic. That's The Creative Penn, but just in your podcatcher app, just type in book marketing, there are thousands of podcasts on there. But Joanna Penn is an ALLi advisor and has like a literal decade of content for you.
So, that's another place to go.
Michael La Ronn: I agree, and don't forget our partner directory.
It sounds like behind the question that you might want some more guided, advanced help as well. Just be sure to do your due diligence if you hire somebody, that's something we always talk about.
I think it can be done. I think there are good marketing companies out there, but you've just got to be really careful. I would definitely hire a partner member, somebody that ally deems a partner member, or do your homework and really make sure that whoever you hire has a track record.
What website design should I use for my author website?
Michael La Ronn: Next question is from Simon, and that question is, I have a website domain on WordPress, and I want to buy a website design. Does ALLi have any recommendations?
Where would you get a WordPress design?
Sacha Black: When I brought my last one, I think it was Studio Press, I believe that's where I went. It was about a hundred dollars I think, and it was very good, very simple, fairly easy to install.
I am not techie at all, but they had some videos and stuff, so that was pretty good. But I think the other thing that I would ask is, what do you want your website for?
The reason I say this is that I used to have a self-hosted WordPress website for my Ruby Roe books, and I got rid of it, and now I only have a Shopify website. Because I wanted a transactional website, I just mapped the domain to Shopify, and now Shopify are my host.
I would ask, before you go ahead and buy a WordPress overlay, what are you trying to do? Because Shopify is a bit all-encompassing, does it all for you. Whereas, if you do WordPress, you're going to have to have plugins like maybe WooCommerce or Pay Hip, and the integrations are a little bit more technical and difficult, whereas Shopify is very simple and straightforward.
I love them, but that's my personal experience and opinion. I know not everybody has such an easy time with them.
Michael La Ronn: Well, the landscape has changed. So, five years ago we wouldn't have even been talking about Shopify.
Joanna probably would've been, but other than that, we wouldn't have been talking about Shopify. It was WordPress and Squarespace and maybe Wix and Weebly, were the places in town, and you had to have a design based on that. You could hire a designer, or you could purchase a template or something. But now the landscape has changed and honestly, I'm of your opinion, Sacha, that if somebody was starting a website today, I probably would build it on Shopify.
Even if you're not sure if you're going to sell a whole lot of books. I just think it's future proofing, because I think that's where things are going.
But yeah, I think all of the above is true and there's lots, Studio Press has been around for a long time. I think my very first website template was Studio Press, and I switched to Divvy at some point, probably 10 years ago, honestly. It's been a long time, and things just don't change that much in the WordPress world. They just don't change, and I think that's one reason why it wouldn't be a bad idea to shake things up and go with Shopify.
And just the direct sales piece of it. You can still use your site for stuff other than direct sales, right?
Sacha Black: You can have webpages and things.
Michael La Ronn: Yeah, all of that.
Sacha Black: But my Shopify now outsells my Amazon.
Michael La Ronn: Yeah, so unlimited upside.
Sacha Black: Exactly.
Does ALLi have a standard copyright notice we can use in our books?
Michael La Ronn: Okay. Next question is from Michelle, and the question is, does ALLi have a standard legal copyright notice for the copyright page of books?
Sacha Black: I think we did a blog post recently. I'm almost certain that we have at least one post, possibly two on this.
There is no standard, you can make it up, and the way that I first approached it was to look inside a load of other books and look what they've written and write something similar.
But I believe that ALLi updated it somewhat recently, I would say the last 18 months or so.
Michael La Ronn: It was a little bit longer than 18 months, it was 2022.
So, we'll put a link in the show notes. The name of the article is Creative Self-Publishing, Creating Your Copyright Page: A Guide for Indie Authors.
Sacha Black: I actually thought they'd done a newer one that included a statement about AI, but that might be one that we have to look up.
Michael La Ronn: That was the first one that popped up when I searched, so we'll figure it out and we'll throw it in the show notes. So, by the time you're listening, this will be solved.
But what you said, Sacha, I think is honestly the best way to do it, which is just pick authors who are selling very well in your genre, it doesn't even have to be your genre, but authors that are selling really well. Look at their copyright page, take notes, look at five of them, and then what's common to all five, do in yours.
It really is that simple, it'll take you 10 minutes.
What are some print-on-demand alternatives to Amazon KDP?
Michael La Ronn: Next question is from Steven. This is a bit of a long question. This'll be our final question, and we can dig into this a little bit.
Like many authors, I use KDP to promote and sell my books. However, I want to start distancing myself from Amazon. I found other providers for my eBooks, and I'm going wide, but I'm still stuck with selling physical books.
Unlike the United States, readers in the UK and France and Belgium favor physical books to digital ones. As I don't have an agent or publisher, I highly rely on print-on-demand, and Amazon KDP so far is the most convenient solution.
Here's the question, do other platforms offer the same level of print-on-demand as KDP? I've looked at IngramSpark and Barnes and Noble Press, but they don't seem to have a big presence in the EU market. What do you think?
Sacha Black: Ingram Spark is going to do more than KDP, so I always recommend that people use both of them. It's not really one or the other for Ingram, at least, I would say that it's both because Ingram Spark have access to lots and lots of bookstores.
So, if you load your books through IngramSpark, you are going to see the odd sale for, potentially, a bookstore, if someone goes in and tries to order your book, they'll be able to access Ingram Spark Catalog.
My confusion is, are they using KDP to order author copies that they're then selling? Are we inferring that from what they're saying?
Michael La Ronn: I don't see why not.
Sacha Black: Or is what they're saying that on their KDP account, they're selling more paperback than eBook?
Michael La Ronn: I think they're just trying to maximize their distribution. They want to use KDP less and something else more, for whatever reason.
Sacha Black: So, a couple of things. The first one is definitely get your books loaded to Ingram Spark because they have a huge catalog of potential buyers, and it costs you virtually nothing now, I think, to upload your book to Ingram Spark.
All my books go to Ingram. I actually think the quality is better on Ingram. KDP is great for print, but I think IngramSpark, because they focus solely on physical books, it's slightly better.
Also, they will do the wholesale discounts, which means you'll be able to increase your chances of getting into bookstores, but also, they will be able to do author copies for you, and they'll ship them to you and they have printers in the UK.
The other thing that I would say is that if you are considering having your own direct store and/or events, like in-person events, and that's how you are selling physical copies, I would consider a very short but small print run.
Typically, when you work with printers, their minimum print run is 500 books. That's an awful lot if you are not selling tons and tons of print copies. However, I have since found some middle ground printers, and I won't say their names just because I don't know if they're partner members or not, but there are printers in the UK that will do print runs by the hundred.
Now, obviously, the closer you get to 500 or over 500, the greater the discount, but even at a hundred copies, they will be cheaper than print-on-demand. So, I would also look at potentially that.
We've done an interim print run whilst we wait for an overseas shipment to come in. So, that would be another option to look at.
They are cheaper than the print-on-demand pricing, but obviously if you're only doing a hundred, which I think is the lowest that you can do it's not going to be too dissimilar to print-on-demand, but you might get a few pennies off here, there, and everywhere.
In terms of print distribution, that is pretty standard, I would say. I'm not sure that there's anything else that you would need to do. If you want to run your own Shopify account, then I would work with BookVault. BookVault integrate seamlessly with Shopify, and they will do your print-on-demand printing for your Shopify. So, you could think about that as another option as well.
But other than that, I think that's probably the big ones.
Michael La Ronn: Okay. What about the EU specifically, because there was that portion of the question that referred to Belgium and France, and the UK possibly preferring physical books. What are your thoughts on that?
Sacha Black: It's a real pain at the moment because of the GSPR, or whatever it is. It is a nightmare.
Look, I can only speak from what we are doing. What we are doing in my warehouse and distribution center is that anything that is under two kilos can go to Europe, no problems. If somebody orders something that is over two kilos, what we've done is set my store to charge shipping twice because we have to split ship. We cannot ship to Europe over two kilos because if we do, you then have to have much higher levels of registration and so on and so forth.
We are in the process of registering with something called EAS, which will give us the designated person in Europe. It's about £500 a year. Of course, if you're not selling more than £500 a year into Europe, then it's not going to be worth it for you. I am, which is why we're doing it. It really depends on your print volume level and your shipping level.
But we are registering with EAS, which will then give us the paperwork that we need, but then there's another part where you have to register for that in the EU as well, and then you have to pay VAT, and you can do that through the one stop shops and there's different locations that will do it. The Netherlands and Ireland, for example, are two different places that you can register.
It is very complicated at the moment. It has become unnecessarily complicated, I would say, and it is a bit prohibitive, but I'm stubborn and refuse to not ship to any customer who wants it. So, we are having to deal with it. So, that is what I am personally do doing. I can't tell you whether or not that's right, legally, or in the systems or anything, because we are just trying to muddle our way through and understand the regulations as and when these things come up.
Michael La Ronn: Yeah, I got nothing on that one.
Sacha Black: It's hard.
Michael La Ronn: Good luck to my friends in the EU, that's rough.
Every place has their own problems, and that just happens to be the one in the EU, but maybe everybody will figure it out.
Michael La Ronn: All right, we are at the bottom of our questions for this month, Sacha. So, we are going to call this one done. Check the show notes for any resources that we mentioned. Thank you for listening to Self-Publishing with ALLi, Member Q&A podcast. We will be back next month with another Member Q&A. So, be sure to submit your questions on the ALLi dashboard if you are a member and you just might hear it on the show.
Thanks, and take care. Bye.
