[aidanf]

I used softcover for writing http://books.aidanf.net/learn-swift

The software is awesome for the purposes of writing the book. The reason I didn't go with softcover as a selling platform is that the new EU VAT rules came in and as a result I had to use someone that supported those new VAT collection rules.

So I ended up using softcover to generate the ebooks and html, but using gumroad (and leanpub) to sell them. So it's totally feasible to use softcover for writing your book but self-host the resulting html and keep control of your sales data etc.

[nickjj]

Does this only effect you if you're collecting income from EU or would it be a problem to even accept payments from people living in EU?

[aidanf]

In theory, if you are selling to customers in the EU you are supposed to collect VAT from your EU customers and make the appropriate VAT return to the VATMOSS authorities. Or else stop selling to EU customers.

In practice, if you're based outside of the EU then you can probably just ignore these regulations (many smaller US sellers seem to be taking this approach). It's hard to imagine the EU tax authorities chasing you down.

[nickjj]

Ok thanks. It sounds like this should be something your payment provider (softcover via proxy through Stripe or whatever they use) would take care of for you.

Other platforms that sell items globally tend to charge EU customers more which probably account for the VAT increase, but in the end gives the author roughly the same amount per sale?

[aidanf]

Yes, a lot of sales platforms now handle EU VAT. I've used Gumroad, Sendowl and Leanpub and they all handle the EU VAT problem. In each case the author sets a price. They then detect if the customer is in an EU country and apply the VAT rate for that country, adding it on to the customers total. So the author gets the same amount for each sale, but the customers pay different amounts depending on which country they are in.