Black Horse Extra tells the Archive the BHW ebook is now listed on Amazon! The Extra will be running this news item as a "Hoofprint" in its next quarterly edition, due out mid-February:
At last! The first bundle of BHWs to appear as an ebook showed up at Amazon on the last day in January. At the same time, pressure was mounting on the Conservative-led UK government to scrap an onerous 20% VAT (a sales tax) on ebooks to put them on equal footing with printed books, which are exempt, and with ebooks from elsewhere. Glasgow Labour MP Tom Harris pointed out that ebooks in some other jurisdictions were not subject to similar taxes and therefore enjoyed a huge competitive advantage in a growing industry which should be supported and encouraged within the UK. Harris said he had acted after being approached by an epublisher in Glasgow and could not see why an industry of the future had been singled out for discrimination in the UK. BHW readers and writers had understood one good reason for issuing BHWs as ebooks was to make them more widely available internationally at a lower cost. The effect of VAT on Black Horse Westerns Collection No. 1 was as follows: Amazon US price reduced from publisher's digital price of $13.90 to $9.99: "You save $3.91 (28%)." Amazon UK price reduced from publisher's digital price of £9.99 to £7.99: "You save £2.00 (20%)." The US bottom-line figure of $9.99 converts roughly to £6.29 depending on the currency exchange rate of the day. Thus the Amazon customer who goes to the UK site pays an extra £1.70, as Amazon carries out its duties to the British taxman. Amazon customers who choose the UK site as their seller over the US are told, "Unlike print books, digital books are subject to VAT."
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