Tales Of A Freelancer

Colleen Doran, creator of the popular comic A Distant Soil has some great thoughts about freelance creators and money. In particular, she talks about how self employed people can get caught up in the romance of buying things related to their field and these items being, "tax deductible." Colleen talks in length about the issues a freelance creator can get themselves into, when they splurge on all the latest technology or cool related material just because it is tax deductible against their income. Some creators go so far as to spend too much and always seem "broke." Colleen does a great job in laying out many reasons why spending too much money just because you can write it off is a bad idea, and is one that I can relate to personally.

As a writer about comic books, basically anything I buy comic related is tax deductible, which is great. Comic movies, conventions, comic books, research material, everything is tax deductible for me. This can be a huge slippery slope as whenever I got to a comic shop, my eye wanders over just about every product there. Statues, posters, action figures, games, this can all be deducted. The problem is that this income is much needed to keep my family afloat, especially in these hard times of price increases and inflation. I have to be really careful about how much I spend on my "hobby" so that it doesn't take away from the food I put on the table as the primary source of income.

If you are looking at working for yourself in comics, be sure to check out Colleen's blog. She has a ton of great posts about life as a freelancer, with topics like Healthcare, retirement, and organization...and that's just some recent posts. Each one will give you some great insight into what a smart freelance worker can do to protect themselves for the future.

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