Paypal doesn't charge for currency conversions. It records balances in different currencies, but you can convert amounts between them freely.

What you can then do is to link a UK bank account to your Paypal account, and then via the Paypal interface you can withdraw amounts to that account and access the cash (though it takes a couple of weeks to clear through). (EDIT: And your personal bank will probably let you set up a no 2 account with minimal hassle, which you can use to keep your publishing transactions separate. That's how I do it.)

It really is a pretty painless way of working.

Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk

If you try and cash a cheque written in American dollars, your bank WILL charge you for this piffling service. Charges vary from one bank to the next, but I've heard figures as high as £10 quoted before now.

I think there may be a small conversion fee if you extract American dollars from your Paypal account to a bank account, though I'm not too certain about this. However I don't think it's anuwhere near as steep as bank charges and you can always leave the cash on your Paypal account and spend it from there, in which case no conversion fees apply at all.

Ash

I concur with Tim. Paypal is the most painless way of doing it. Whatever they charge you, it's almost certainly less than a bank will. There's no charge to transfer your currency into whatever currency you want, but do this in the currency manager before withdrawing. You get charged something like 25p if you withdraw less than £50 in one go to your bank, but that's hardly a lot.

Most banks will charge you for cashing US cheques.

I definitely second Tim's suggestion of getting a separate business bank account as it makes tracking stuff easier (these will charge for all sorts of stuff too, but remember that's a cost of doing business, so can go on your Tax return)

-Matt

Realms Publishing

I'm not knowledgable enough to comment specifically, but something to be generally aware of with commission freee currency exchange is sometimes the exchange rates are assmaster and that's where baddie money lenders make their dollars. Just something to bear in mind!

I think with paypal there's about 3 pence difference, at least doing a quick comparison of today's exchange rate with paypal's rate ...

Paypal £1 = $2.06
Exchange rate £1 = $2.09

... which may be a big deal, might not.

Well, 3 cents, which is 1.5p approximately. I've always found Paypal's conversion fees to be pretty accurate, and I've checked them on a number of occasions. It's only really a bad idea to Paypal if you're talking massive amounts, say £500+, because of that 3%-4% fee. For the sale of books through Lulu it's never likely to cause a problem.

Ash

I mean you can if you really think you need it, but you will get charged (by the vast majority of providers) for all cheques and deposits. I just use a no 2 *personal* account for this stuff.

Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk

As regards a business account, I probably will: it'll be an Abbey National one. Free business banking.

Graham