I often receive questions about setting up your business to meet legal requirements and to have best advantage at tax time. These topics require information far beyond what I can provide in a single article, especially since laws vary across cities, states, and countries.
Your business operations can range from solo narration in your booth to casting, producing, and publishing full cast audiobooks, multimedia, films, etc. In the US, you can do any of those things with a business entity of sole proprietor who files a Schedule C on your 1040, an LLC, a partnership, or sub-S corp.
Therefore, questions about your business structure are best discussed with a tax professional who can review your income, goals, and risks with you and offer you advice that is specific to your situation.
Similarly, your choices for software to track income, expenses, invoices, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), etc. are all personal decisions. Each person has their own way of viewing and interacting with their data. You will need to do your own research and test products to find things that work for you. Here’s my Evernote list of apps and subscriptions I use in my business.
For instance, narrators must consistently market ourselves to obtain work, and a good CRM process is key.
While many people use software such as Notion, Cloze, or Act, I have been using Evernote to do CRM and many other tasks in my business. Other people may use Airtable, Excel, or Google Sheets.
In any case, you will want to have a separate bank account for your business and keep meticulous records. For what it’s worth, I never share my SSN with clients and instead use an EIN for business purposes.
Other resources on this topic:
- The Welcome Center page includes many resources related to running your business:
- My recommended business and marketing books
- Contract templates
- The Taxes section also links to my Google Sheets workbook to track income and expenses
- Time-Saving Services
- Utilities
- The US Small Business Administration offers free business mentoring, templates, and more resources at this site.
- Members can watch the 10-module video course on Evernote to see how I use it for CRM.
- I’ve written several articles that you may find useful in establishing and maintaining your business:
- How I Get Stuff Done which includes 9 concrete actions and loads of linked resources to improve time management
- Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan
- Putting The “I” in Organized
- Year-end Organization
- If you want to start a publishing company, many of your questions are addressed in Jessica Kaye’s book The Guide to Publishing Audiobooks: How to Produce and Sell an Audiobook, as featured on the home page. Jessica is an IP attorney, longtime audiobook distributor, and Grammy-winning audiobook director who has been active in audiobooks for decades.
- If you’re interested in licensing audiobook rights, I hosted a 1.5-hour webinar with Jessica Kaye about acquiring audiobook rights. The recording, transcript, and sample contract are available on my site.