Createspace for Self Publishing and Sticky Royalty Payments for Canadian Authors
I’ve got this nagging peeve that I wanted to use my page here to beef about. It has to do with the royalty payment structure Createspace uses with Canadian authors. I find it quite unfair.
The situation is this: When a Canadian author self publishes a paperback version of their book with Createspace, we aren’t given the option for Direct Deposit for royalties accumulated. Our only option is to be paid by cheque…and their is a HUGE drawback. Royalties paid to Direct Deposit accounts are paid soon after royalties accrue past ten dollars, pounds, euros, depending on the currency books were purchased in. If you don’t have a Direct Deposit account, us Canadian authors have to wait until $100 is accrued in royalties in each currency to be paid by cheque.
When I first published with Createspace I wasn’t too thrilled about the lack of option for Canada but I had no choice if I wanted to publish there. When my book Conflicted Hearts came out I had sold some paperback copies through there as I was told it may take a week until the paperback version would be linked to the ebook version on Amazon. After Amazon linked the two versions it was much easier for people to purchase the paperback from Amazon than emailing me for a link where they could buy it elsewhere. Hence, all my paperbacks sold after the initial release of my book, had been sold off Amazon.
I am not one of the author types who checks her sales hourly or even daily on either site and quite frankly, when I visit my Createspace sales page, it just seems to light a fire in me. I had often emailed Createspace asking them why on earth they don’t have a Direct Deposit option for Canada, yet they have one for such countries such as U.K., Netherlands, Portugal, France and a few more. I mean geez, we are part of North America? The same responses came back with the usual, “We are sorry we don’t have that option now.” After awhile I would abandon my frustration and try not to think about it. So maybe once a month I pop by my page there to visit my $78 being held ransom until I hit the $100 mark so I can have my funds.
Today was one of those days I visited again and it pissed me off enough to write about it. I just don’t get it. I don’t think it’s fair and as an author I am trapped at their mercy.
I wanted to post about this, not only to vent (yes, it feels good!) but also to put an awareness out for those who may not be quite aware of how the system works. I have given up emailing Createspace and have learned from this and being that I cannot change their policy, I came up with a little resolution of my own.
There are two ways I can reach this threshold, one is a temporary method, the other will be implemented after my next book comes out. For the time being, I have added a “buy” link to my Conflicted Hearts page here. This will allow anyone who visits that page to purchase it directly from Createspace by the click of a button without having to surf around and look for the link. As soon as I reach that threshold, I will be removing that link and won’t worry about royalties from there any longer.
In the event that I still don’t meet the threshold by this method, I will wait for the release of my new book next month and give the link only to the few family and friends who are awaiting my book’s arrival and then I will only be using the site to order my own copies from…like I should have done in the first place had I not been a first-time author still learning the tricks of the trade.
I think the excitement of being a first-time author made me overlook some details that would bite me down the road with the excitement of incoming emails of those who know me not wanting to wait for a few more days for the paperback to come out on Amazon. Next time I will know better. I will follow my plan, get my royalties and this little aggravation will be over.
Have any of you faced this problem?
