🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <753@etive.ed.ac.uk> nick@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Nick Rothwell) writes:
>[...] I've got copies of bits of shareware marked
>"... $20 drawn on a US bank account payable to ..." or somesuch. So it
>ISN'T just a case of writing a cheque and popping it in the post.
>   I'm inclined to just work out the equivalent in pounds sterling, write
>a British cheque for this, and send this instead. How would this go down?
>Would a US bank like it?
>
>Nick Rothwell,	Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh.
>		nick@lfcs.ed.ac.uk    <Atlantic Ocean>!mcvax!ukc!lfcs!nick

I made no such specification in my shareware product, since I naively never
even considered that my efforts would be seen outside the U.S.  Since then
I've learned that it costs US$5.00 (five bucks American) to get a bank to
convert foreign cash or checks drawn on foreign banks, regardless of the
amount being converted.  Since my shareware price is only US$10, it's almost
not worth my while.  (I now have $14 Australian cash as a souvenir, and
I'm hoping enough more will arrive someday to make it worth converting!)

On the good side: in France there is an organization (I don't have my files
handy, so I can't name it - sorry!) which maintains a bulletin board of
shareware products, accepts payments from its subscribers on behalf of the
shareware authors, converts the payments to the author's native currency in
a lump, and mails the author an American Express money order for the total,
along with a list of names and addresses of the subscribers. Speaking as an
author, I think this is *marvelous*. The authors get their money and mailing
lists, the subscribers don't have to hassle money conversions *and* they
get a receipt - something most shareware purveyors (myself included) don't
provide. I don't know how these folks finance their operation; I just know
that I got paid in full, in American bucks, with a nice cover letter to boot.

Without such an organization, there's no clean answer. It costs us American
authors a significant fraction of the product price (for most products,
anyway) to convert foreign payments. I'm sure foreign subscribers have the
same problem when they try to pay up in foreign currency.  Anyone got any
suggestions?

(By the way, Mr. Rothwell -- thanks for asking!  $-)

==========================================================================
Rick Holzgrafe              |    {sun,voder,nsc,mtxinu,dual}!apple!rmh
Software Engineer           | AppleLink HOLZGRAFE1          rmh@apple.com
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