U.K customers
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Is there any way j-novel can set up a payment option in £ as well as $ i want to become a premium member but having to pay in dollars adds an extra 40% to the price for me once my bank has taken an exchange fee
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@nuthead09 Get a free Revolut virtual visa card, a physical card costs £5. It converts from Dollar to Sterling at the live interbank rate with no additional fees.
Use it myself to convert to Euro due to bank fees.
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@nuthead09 Which bank is that??? I am used to exchange fees, but they usually do not go above 2% of the actual sum, unless you have to pay a fixed amount on top which is considered usury and forbidden within the EU...
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There’s also Monzo which has a debit card and Halifax Clarity credit card that doesn’t charge fees for foreign currency purchases. This guide on Money Saving Expert has both debit and credit card options, some of which don’t require that great of a credit score.
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@caramelwithoutthesalt said in U.K customers:
I just purchase the ebooks on Amazon instead of faffing about with all that malarkey.
You miss out on the premium edition bonus content that way: https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/305/premium-e-book-bonus-contents-list/247
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The price difference between what amazon sells the ebooks for an what a premium membership costs is about $2-3 US (seems like amazon sells the ebooks for $8 and premium membership is $10-11), so if you don't specifically care about pre-pubs, forums or the bonuses, you're better off without membership if you're buying JNC's ebooks at a rate of 1 per month or less. As soon as you start going above that, it may actually make more sense to get membership since a premium member gets the free monthly credit and purchasing extra credits is $6 US. Not sure how those prices compare to what everything costs once it's converted into the pound, but it can be cost effective to be a member depending on your volume of average monthly purchases even without any additional benefits.
That said, I'm interested in how the OP's bank is getting a 40% premium on the exchange rate. That sounds illegal, and most banks and credit cards charge 2%-3% above the exchange if not better.
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@jpwong At the moment it is about £5.75 to buy an JNC ebook from amazon if you preorder. Premium member ship is £8.26 without any conversion charges.
I suspect that the OP's bank charges a fixed fee plus a percentage on currency conversion. So for example £3 plus 2% on each currency conversion.
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@jpwong Actually, if you don't mess with the pre-pub stuff, you have to buy about 48 books a year to not lose money on the the deal over buying from sites like Kobo or Amazon. The price per book on those other sites is $6.99, whereas if you buy the premium membership for $120 a year and get a premium credit a month, that's $10 a book. Meaning that it costs you roughly $3.01 extra per book for those 12 books, resulting in it costing you an extra $36.01 per year (with the exact amount depending on taxes). Each premium credit that you buy beyond that is only $6 apiece, so you're saving approximately $.99 per book after that, but that means that you have to buy roughly another 36 books to break even. So, while the premium membership may be worth it for the extra short stories and images and whatnot that you get in the premium editions, unless you buy a lot of books from JNC over the course of the year, you're losing money on the deal. The pricing really only makes sense if you're actually interested in the pre-pub stuff.
Of course, buying premium credits during a sale like on Black Friday can help reduce the number of books that you have to buy to break even, and if you only pay for the premium subscription for one month, buy up a bunch of credits, and then cancel your subscription, then you can also cut down on how much it costs you to break even, but it's more of a pain to use your premium credits at that point, since the system is set up to assume that no one who isn't currently subscribed will be trying to use credits (there are direct links that you can use to get around the problem, and you can e-mail JNC staff to get them to apply your credits for you, but it's obviously more of a pain than when you're actually subscribed).
And of course, issues with foreign transaction fees and whatnot don't help the situation (though 40% seems pretty insane), but ultimately, while getting a premium subscription may make sense if you want the extra content in the premium editions or if you read the pre-pub stuff, for most of the people who just want to buy the e-books, the premium subscription means paying more for the books, not less. If the prices on the British versions of Amazon or Kobo differ for reasons other than the exchange rate, then the equation may change somewhat, but I'd be very surprised if it resulted in the premium subscription saving anyone money without them buying a lot of books.
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Yea, that's why I stay regular member, since I mainly read the pre-pubs, and buy premium ebooks every once in a while for my favorite series or ones I missed during pre-pubs. I definitely don't buy 36 books a year, but I do read that many, if not more, in prepubs.
