I am going to blatantly promote the blog on my new store (don't look at my books/promotion is not for me). LOL  That is all.

https://payhip.com/LavenderCottageBookShop/blog/lavender-cottage-blog

ETA:  The blog feature is one reason I went back to Payhip.  I can duplicate the website blog so more readers see it.

I believe Shopify tracks state sales tax thresholds (never looked into it that carefully) but there is a lot of information out there if anyone wants to look more carefully into what's available and where.

Tracking isn't necessarily the issue.  You can do that with an accounting program or even a spreadsheet.  The problem is filing with all forty-something states and keeping track of how often you need to file and remit.  In my state, you file based on sales volume.  Most businesses will have to file monthly but, if you only have a small number of sales (I don't remember the threshold off-hand), then you only need to file twice a year.  In either event, you file whether you have sales or not.  I don't know the requirements of the other states.

So, even if tracking the sales isn't terribly difficult, if you had to file monthly with forty-something states, even if you don't have sales in certain states in that period, well, that's just a major loss of time.  Even twice a year would be over 80 reports to do each year.

Several states are changing from the 200 sales threshold to the dollar amount.  If all of them do this, it would make things much easier.

I wonder what Kansas will do.  Last I saw, you have to register, file, collect and remit sales tax if you reach a $1 threshold of sales in the state.  My thinking at present is that I'll just leave Kansas off the list of states I will sell to.  It's one thing to have to go through all the filing and collecting and stuff if you have thousands of dollars of sales in a state, but $1?  Um, no.  Easier to be like, you know, if you're in Kansas and want to buy my stuff, find a friend in Oklahoma or Nebraska or another neighboring state and have them buy it for you.

I don't want to lose customers or exclude people, but I'm not becoming a tax collector for $1 in sales.

Does Payhip serve as the merchant of record or do you need to handle filing and paying all the sales tax (U.S.) and VAT (EU) stuff yourself?

Well...the experiment is over.  For a variety of reasons, I decided to go back to Payhip. 

I think this might work for some people, but I missed the extras I could do with the Payhip themes.  And I'm still not sure what to do with that newsletter.  So having people sign up with the free ebook option wasn't that big a deal for now.

Instead, I added a couple of newsletter sign up areas in Payhip.  Just in case I decide what I do want to do with the newsletter.  I have a few ideas, but I'm focusing on the blog for spring.

If I sold a lot more books through the website, I'd probably try Lemon Squeezy...and they still might be a possibility for the future as they add more options. 
But for now, I'm going to stay with Payhip. 

Quote from: Bill Hiatt on April 08, 2024, 11:39:11 PM

I think maybe I'm trying to push something on her she doesn't really want, anyway. She has a lot of subscribers on Substack, and I think the paperback was intended for existing fans on the platform to have all the stories in one place.

PDF may be an option for her.  I know people with Kindles and other eBook readers complain about PDFs but, outside of Kindle/eBook/author forums, I find that a lot of people are fine with a PDF.

I actually did suggest that. Much depends on what your objective is. PDF is much easier since that must be what her paperback interior file is. And it's fixed by definition. But distribution options are more limited. If she's really trying to increase sales on Amazon, that won't do it. But if she uses it as another reward for paid subscribers, that could be made to work.