writer – Page 2 – Random Thoughts

This Business of Writing: Accounting Methods

Today, Dear Reader, we continue the series on the business of writing and welcome back Brigitte A. Thompson as she shares her professional advice as an accountant and author.

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A business can be operated under one of three methods of accounting; cash, accrual, or hybrid. The IRS will be automatically informed of your choice when you file your first business tax return. If you decide you would like to change your accounting method, you will need to get approval from the IRS using Form 3115, Application for Change in Accounting Method which is available on their web site IRS.gov. Continue reading “This Business of Writing: Accounting Methods”

This Business of Writing: Legal Organization

Today, Dear Readers, we begin a series of posts by accounting professional and author Brigitte A. Thompson of Datamaster Accounting Service LLC. Please make her welcome as she shares her expertise with us all.

Writers work in all different genres and write for a variety of media outlets. Some of us are business writers, others create romance novels and many write articles for magazines or copy for web sites. Putting words into print is our profession, but dealing with the financial aspects of our writing business can be challenging. This series of blog posts can help!

Legal Organization for Writers

There are several forms of legal organization to choose from when establishing your business. The most common form for a writer is a sole proprietorship, but there are other options. You should understand the choices and speak to a lawyer, accountant, or tax preparer to find out which option is the best for you. Continue reading “This Business of Writing: Legal Organization”

This Business of Writing: Setting Up Accounts

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This is the second in my series of articles on the business side of being a writer. Originally I planned to use this series as part of a book on this topic, until I discussed the book with a CPA/Registered Investment Counselor/Author. He thought the book was a needful thing, for many authors seem under-prepared to deal with the financial side of their chosen career, but he suggested that I market the book as a sleep aid. Bookkeeping just isn’t exciting (unless you’re writing fiction about a bookkeeper who is a sex-addicted, vampire/zombie, who goes around murdering people. That, people might buy.) To see if he was right I decided to try out a series of articles here on my blog and judge your reaction to them.

As I was preparing this series I was contacted by Brigitte A. Thompson, President of
Datamaster Accounting Service, LLC and author of Bookkeeping Basics for Freelance Writers. Brigitte offered me a series of posts on accounting for authors in exchange for the opportunity to promote her book. Since she is an accounting professional and an author, her advice would be more accurate and probably more valuable than mine. So, starting with my regular post on Monday we’ll launch into Brigitte’s series on bookkeeping for authors. But first, I’m going to slide (most of) the post I had written for Monday in here today because I think it has some things to say that some of you may need to hear and don’t seem to be covered in detail in the upcoming series. Brigitte’s series starts on Monday. Continue reading “This Business of Writing: Setting Up Accounts”