Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
Maybe that's it. Note that when I was dealing with BookBaby they had no direct sales as part to their offering (and what they have now is not quite the same thing either, AFAICT). So they only acted as an intermediary for distribution. Although why (re)distribution of digital products should be treated as merchandise while retail sales of the same thing should be a service (if that's what is happening) remains an odd technicality - and suggests than anyone can sidestep the law in this case by simply having one company to act as the distributor and the other to act as the retail outlet.
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I wouldn't be surprised if their sidestepping gets brought up short at some point. This is one of those "not fully tested" areas where not everything has caught up, but it seems that they are getting by on questionable technicalities, especially that what they are actually doing is actually
content licensing distribution.
Something else to consider and that some new authors using Bookbaby might run into - even though BB isn't reporting, they make all payments through Paypal. Paypal now (as of last year) reports payments and issues 1099K's to account holders receiving payments (gross, of all types) over certain thresholds (200 transactions & $20K or more). Though few authors are likely to hit the threshold, I believe after a certain amount (I've heard it's around $500 but that could be incorrect), Paypal will request a SSN or other TIN (EIN, ITIN, etc) and will freeze the account if they don't get it.