The very nature of our business meant we could truly classify ourselves as international from the very first moment of the company’s existence. After all – one of us lives in New Zealand and I live in the United Kingdom. Until they actual start getting space habitats up and running I don’t think we could be physically further apart. Just to further complicate matters are editing staff are predominantly domiciled in the US.
All of our work is done electronically so the physical distances aren’t a problem, although the time differences can induce frustration, but it’s something we can generally work around.
Of course from the eBook point of view we don’t have any issues either –the web transcends distance in ways no other system can, and we deal with retailers on a worldwide basis. In fact, since many of our retailers and distributors have overseas subsidiaries it can be convoluted to keep track of who is selling our eBooks where.
It took us a while to find an accounting package that dealt neatly enough with our, often three-cornered, currency movements, but we have now and that’s up and working. (We bill in US dollars for eBooks, and many of our suppliers bill us in US dollars, which are paid from a Sterling account and recompensed in New Zealand dollars. In fact one particular supplier bills us for some transactions in sterling and some in US dollars just to complicate matters.)
The thorn in our side though, remains print shipments. We print books in either the US or the UK, depending on which location is the most economic. This is where things get very complicated and very frustrating very quickly.
(Yes I know you shouldn’t repeat a word like I did in the last sentence – but I did it for emphasis!)
For example – if I ship a book by post in this country, it costs the same, whichever part of the country I’m shipping it to. (Courier is different of course, but post costs the same). In the US the size of the country dictates different charges for different states. If I have books printed in the US and shipped to Canada we incur customs duty, despite it being the longest land border in the world, and they even speak the same (well almost) language. If I ship the books from the UK – no customs duty but the extra freight cost more than makes up for it.
If I need to ship books to New Zealand, it’s more economic to do this from the UK, but if the order exceeds NZ$ 500 then it will incur customs duty. Bear in mind the printing company and the courier are billing us in sterling at least a week before the shipment arrives and in the meantime the currency rate can fluctuate which might push a shipment over the limit.
These are just two examples, there are many others. No wonder I get a headache some days...
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