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JOURNAL
31 May, 2009
So, the State of California has finally lowered the boom and taken away my seller's permit. It must be a truly sad, sad state of affairs in the great State of California when it costs more for them to process my paperwork than the five-or-so bucks I give them every year, which is kind-of sad in-and-or itself. After all, I only actually draw in about two bucks in sales tax, but because of the way I actually have to calculate everything, rounding up to the nearest dollar and all, I wind-up owning five bucks. Sucks, I know, but there it is. And, really rather beside the point at the moment. California is in a bind and closing all of its state parks and can't afford to collect my—limited—sales tax each year. Bummer.
It's not as big a deal as it sounds, really. First, because nobody ever really buys any of my books. And, second, because it just means I cannot sell books directly to people in the State of California.
Really, it just means people—if they were actually so inclined—just have to get my books through Amazon, Cafepress or Lulu. Or, somehow manage to convince the local bookstore that the book really isn't out of print. Really, it's not. Doesn't matter what that big bad chain bookstore's computer search contraption says.
If you went to the real books-in-print, the work is very much still in print. See, the thing with all of these big bad chain bookstores is that they only want to deal with the suppliers they feel like dealing with, and if that particular supplier doesn't happen to feel like stocking my book, then they will quite inaccurately claim that the book is out-of-print even when it isn't.
Shocking, I know.
And, it's not just the State of California that must be hurting. Lulu has suddenly decided that they want to sell my books through Amazon, too. Up until this point, if I wanted Lulu's help selling books through Amazon, I would have to pay Lulu an extra ninety-nine bucks per year. Now? They are going to do it because they are just that kind of nice forward thinking people. Oh, that, and the fact they are going to raise the cover price on their copy of the book at Amazon, which is actually really funny if you stop to think about it.
Lulu won't let me set different prices for the same work, going so far to say how unfair it is to have one price for purchase directly through Lulu and a separate price for purchase through a store such as Amazon. So, I can't do it. I cannot say the book is twelve bucks at Lulu but the same edition is twenty at Amazon. Oh, no, I cannot, but if Lulu feels like doing the exact same thing, then that is all fine and dandy.
Oh, yes, fine and dandy.
What I find even more amusing about the whole thing is Lulu did tell me that if I really didn't like the idea, I could very well tell them to stop, but I don't see why. I mean, Lulu is going to charge even more than I am to buy the book from Amazon so why in the world would people pay the extra monkeyshines for that Lulu copy over my copy of the very exact same book, right?
Right.
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