Amazon KDP Tips

If you are a Kindle publisher, you might be facing a problem in not being able to receive direct deposit worldwide, while “check” is the only alternative to receive royalties from international sales of your eBooks.

We will sort that issue for you in this blog post!

Amazon provides 13 marketplaces worldwide, as you know, that comprises of US, India, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, AND Australia.

 

However, we certainly don’t have bank accounts in all the 13 countries across several continents, unless you excessively travel across the globe and have a place to stay everywhere!

So, now comes the genuine problem of how do we get paid Kindle eBook Royalties from all the countries where Amazon operates?

Amazon currently offers 3 options:

1. Direct deposit, also known as EFT or electronic funds transfer,
2. Wire transfer, and
3. Check/cheque – all options are based on the location of your bank.

Minimum Threshold Factor:

The benefit of direct deposit into your bank is that there is no minimum threshold. For check and wire payments, there is a “minimum threshold” in each marketplace after deducting the applicable taxes. That’s why, you can go ahead and update your bank account details – be it State bank, Axis bank, ICICI bank, or any local bank you have an account in your country.

Please note that although Amazon calls it “Wire transfers” sometimes they refer to “ACH transfers” and there is a difference between the two. Let’s now compare and contrast between these 2 options – ACH and Wire transfers to understand it better.

Difference between ACH and Wire Transfer

Wire transfers move funds from one bank to another in one business day, and the funds can even be made available within that day; sometimes when you receive a wire transfer, you won’t see the funds immediately. If you receive a genuine wire transfer, you can be confident that the funds were sent, as they cannot be reversed. Wire transfers almost always come with a fee tag.

Whereas, ACH transfers often take two to three business days to complete. Banks process ACH payments in batches – they’re all done together instead of being handled individually. On the other hand, ACH transfers are quite safe too, except that they can be reversed in situations of fraud or a mistake of overpayment. However, ACH transfers are almost always free, especially if you’re receiving funds into your own account.

So which option is best?

As you would have observed by now, “Direct deposit” is the best way to receive royalties from Amazon. It’s also the fastest, most secure and environmentally friendly way to receive your royalty payments.

Wire transfers or ACH transfers are the second best options, but only if Amazon has allowed this mode of payment. The 3rd one – check payment is the last option which even Amazon feels it an overhead – a note of caution here that Amazon is planning to phase it out, that is…discontinue it by the end of 2017 for some marketplaces.

How to enable Direct Deposit for all the 13 Marketplaces where Amazon operates?

Let’s now see how to update bank accounts for all the marketplaces so you can get an EFT from worldwide sales. To do this, we will use a Payoneer account (opens in a new tab) which helps in establishing a virtual bank account that acts as a local bank account but can help receive funds in international currencies.

Signing up is a simple 4 step process where you will give your details to create your account with Payoneer. Once done, and to receive funds into the Payoneer account from Amazon, we need to update our PAN number (Permanent Account Number – applicable for indie publishers in India) as well.

Here is our new Payoneer account welcome page.

 

Now, this is the secret sauce of this entire setup. Please read and follow these settings carefully.

Click on the ‘Global Payment Service‘ icon as given in the screenshot below.

Click on EUR and get all the bank details here that are created just for you.

Enter these bank details into your KDP account page and you will be just fine, so hereafter you need not wait until a payment threshold is met because, with EFT, there is no minimum threshold.

After the above update is done, whenever there are royalty earnings in Euro, Great Britain Pound, or other currencies that you choose to update through Payoneer, they will get directly deposited into your Payoneer account.

You can, later on, move your earnings from Payoneer to your local bank account. In case of Indian customers, this process is automated and the funds are usually transferred to the bank account within a couple of days after receipt of international royalties.

Watch this blog post in video format here:

If you have any questions or comments, please let me know in the comments section below.