If you're selling books direct through your Bookshelf website and store, there are several small transaction fees that occur with each purchase to help keep The Bookshelf operating as your full Merchant of Record.
If you'd like to learn more about everything a Merchant of Record does to support your direct sales, check out this article.
Transactional Fees
Rather than collecting a royalty on every item that's part of a transaction made through your Bookshelf store, our platform charges a flat 5% Merchant of Record fee on the total purchase amount of every transaction. This 5% fee is calculated based solely on the total cost of the products in the transaction prior to any sales tax or shipping costs. It is also always rounded down to the nearest cent so it can never be higher than 5%.
There is also a standard 2.9% credit card processing fee for those transactions made by credit card in addition to the Merchant of Record fee. This credit card fee may vary slightly based on the type of credit card used by the buyer or where the buyer is located, but 2.9% is the most standard across most transactions, even foreign transactions. Credit card transaction fees are calculated in relations to the cumulative purchase price, sales tax, and shipping cost pertaining to the transaction.
Shipping Costs
Authors selling direct through their Bookshelf store are not responsible for any shipping or delivery fees on physical products purchased by customers. Customers select their preferred shipping type from a pre-set list of options based on the printer fulfilling the order, and where the customer is located. The cost to ship is then added to their total transaction amount to pay.
How Fees are Collected
You will never receive an invoice for any direct sales fees owed to The Bookshelf; any such cumulative fees are calculated and collected from your gross earnings prior to each monthly direct sales payout that is processed and paid to the bank account you set up to receive your direct sales payments.