I only know it because I've been self employed for more than 20 years, and when my son was in college he didn't file one year when he made less than $600.
To sum it up - - Research your local DBA, Licensing and Self Employment (and other legal) regulations and policies for your writing career, especially if you write under a pen name - If someone earns less then some and such under a name or pen name, (400 dollars to 600 dollars and up, but check your local laws) it's probably not necessary to file out a DBA or similiar right away (selling ebooks, etc.) - Make sure all legal information is set up properly, up to date and ready to go (license, ssn number, tax id numer, etc.) - Check with the publisher, ebook retailer and any other applicable third party for specific questions (Paypal? The website to one's bank?) - Be ready to disclose your legal name and information to publishers and retailers, and ask if anonymity is available (and as stated above, also ask them if a DBA or research on DBAs or similiar is recommended) - Pen names are already common. DBA's in most cases might not be necessary for beginners I think that's most of what I got from the thread. Anything else am I missing? Sorry If it seems like I'm skipping over a lot of other sutff. Mortages and different types of income and all this business and finiancial talk is sort of intimidating to my feeble night-time, sleep starved brain.
Just a minor correction: These are federal tax laws, not "local" laws unless by local you mean the country you live in. You don't need a DBA to report self-employment income. You may need a DBA to be able to deposit checks in a bank made out to your business name. (A pen name is only a business name if someone is writing checks to your pen name.)
Ah, thanks for the clarification. : ) -------------------- On an unrelated note, I got information back from a Support guy on one ebook retailer specifically, Smashwords. Plus, you can have both a Pen Name and confidential Payee information on Smashwords, so both Paypal, Smashwords and the Bank SHOULD know who's making money and what Pen Name their assigned too.