A little while ago I wrote a blog post about Getting the Most Out of Your Royalties, in which I discussed the Big Thing I had just discovered.
As an Australian author, I had been waiting two months for Amazon to tot up my royalties and send out a cheque for the amount, then taking it to the bank and having to wait another 4-8 weeks for it to drop into my account. Not to mention paying $21 for the privilege–and having to haggle over the exchange rate. What with tot-up time, postage time, and banking time, it was a long and exhausting procedure. I didn’t see the royalties I earned until roughly six months after I earned them.
Then I read about another way that had just opened for Australian authors: the ability to select WIRE instead of CHEQUE in the payment methods for each country.
Supposedly, it would cost only $10 for my bank to accept a Wired transfer of funds from Amazon. I said “Heck yes!” and selected it, with the proviso that I’d come back and tell all you other fantastic Aussie authors whether or not there were any hidden charges.
So here I am.
AND THERE AREN’T ANY.
AND I GET THE ACTUAL EXCHANGE RATE WITHOUT HAVING TO HAGGLE.
So instead of paying $21, I’m paying $10. And instead of a haggled exchange rate, I’m getting the actual (very, very sweet) exchange rate. And on top of all that, I’M GETTING THE MONEY STRAIGHT AWAY.
Aussie authors. DO IT. As far as I have seen, there is literally NO downside to this.
(Although do check with your bank to see what they charge for accepting Wired transfers. I’m with Commbank and with them it’s $10, but I don’t know about everyone else’s bank. YMMV.)