Are you ready to meet your tax preparer?
If you’ve been freelance writing for money or if you are an author with books to sell, you should be collecting receipts for your taxes. What receipts should you keep? Those for expenses, supplies, equipment, etc. related to your writing or publishing business.
File away receipts for that new printer, paper for creating your brochures, new toner or ink for your fax machine, your business mailbox, membership in publishing organizations and writers’ clubs, postage for shipping books and mailing signed contracts, booths at book festivals, advertising, travel expenses to book signings and other speaking gigs, phone interviews, production costs for your book (ISBN, barcode, cover designer, etc.), web hosting fees, Internet service, and so forth.
Keep track of mileage when you travel to a book festival or writer’s conference or when you drive across town to interview someone for an article.
Can you deduct babysitting fees for when you go out and speak, a new outfit for your book signing, teeth veneers? That’s doubtful, but ask your tax preparer.
On the other side of this, you must also log article sales, book sales and any consultation and editing fees collected.
How does one keep track of it all? Ideally, you would log every payment and expense as they occur. Realistically, however, I manage to log payments when they occur, but I simply toss receipts in a file folder to tally up later. And later is here. It is time to start the tally. Are you ready?
I include a chapter on bookkeeping with some examples and pretty explicit instructions for record-keeping in my book The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. Order your copy here: http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html
Are you ready to have your manuscript edited? Learn more about my services here: http://www.patriciafry.com