Help. How not to lose value of USD$cheques ???

Question

I would be so grateful for any advice on how to avoid losing the value of US dollar cheques/checks sent to me here in the UK.

I am planning to enter into an arrangement with a US bookseller which only forwards proceeds (from book sales) in the form of a monthly cheque ("check") in US dollars.

Preliminary enquiries here in the UK reveal that a monthly cheque/check worth less than 200GBP will cost roughly 4GBP to lodge with a UK bank!

Because US booksellers take about 70% (all substractions considered) from the sale of each book I don't expect that my item is likely to be that rare thing that will sell like "hot cakes", so I will be lucky if the monthly cheque is even worth the 4GBP or 5GBP that UK banks will charge me on accepting it!

A friend suggested I look into "dollar accounts". But preliminary investigation of them reveals that their exchange rates and interest rates are poor.

Is there a way round this . . . other than writing a best-seller!

Thanks.

Ellie.

Tumbleweed · Accepted Answer

You are being optimistic, it might be a tenner so you could end up owing the bank for th evalues you mention below :-)

Can you get them to use paypal or similar?

Or a yearly check?

If they are insistent on monthly checks and its really only a few dollars a month then go with your friends suggestion.

Ellie Bentley · Answer

"Smile" have told me they charge ?4 if the US cheque is worth less than ?200. A friend tells me HSBC charged him ?5 for a US cheque worth about ?100.

No, US booksellers, rather like UK booksellers (the big ones anyway), are ruthless. Checks or nothing.

This I could put to them, though I suspect they won't accommodate me, based on the attitudes they've expressed so far.

Thanks. Will going for a "dollar account" then simply be a matter of accepting the poor exchange rate? I mean, they don't charge at all for accepting the cheque from a US-based bank? Is it likely that I'll be able to electronically transfer the dollars out of that account into my UK bank when I like without being charged/penalized?

Thanks.

Ellie.

mogga · Answer

the fee is presumably deductable against tax - so just add it into your accounts.

Jonathan Bryce · Answer

Citibank seems to be the best for $ accounts.  Pay the "checks" into something like that, and transfer them out when there is enough money to make it worth your while.

Tumbleweed · Answer

Just remembered, there was a programme on the radio today about 'lulu'

formatting link

(just looked it up) maybe thats an alternative? I see they do paypal (see the help section)

according to the guy (who worked for them, might have been the guy that set it up I'm not sure) its aimed at lowish volume authors but they still have some fairly big sales, so might be worth the OP "checking" it out!

Help. How not to lose value of USD$cheques ???

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