Book report: Working For Yourself

After doing some research on small businesses, I decided that I needed a book specifically on the legal aspects of consulting, including the issue of sole-proprietorship versus incorporating. I ordered Working for Yourself: Law & Taxes for Independent Contractors, Freelancers & Consultants (7th edition, 2008) by attorney Stephen Fishman. The book is not as boring as the title would imply, though it's not the kind of book that is easy to just sit down and read. The chapters are ordered quite logically, but it's also easy to skip chapters that don't apply to your situation or to only read the chapters related to the information you need right now.

I appreciate the fact that this book is for consultants and others in the service sector, not for retailers or manufacturers. He starts with the very basics, so if there is a chapter that I already knew something about, like copyrights and intellectual property, then the early material in the chapter was just a review for me. However, even in the chapter on copyrights, I still learned something. Therefore, in the chapters about tax laws for small businesses (something I knew almost nothing about), everything I read was something new to me.

Mr. Fishman also gives very practical advice. For example, he gives several tips on how to find the right financial adviser for your small business. For some, this may seem simple, but for me, this was extremely welcome advice. I think that one reason I've been putting off talking to a financial adviser is that I didn't know where to start or exactly what I needed. Now I know.

I like this book, and I think it's going to be a good reference in the next few years. Though I don't have any hard evidence yet, I think this book will save me hundreds of dollars in legal fees and accountant fees (now that I know what I'm looking for and asking for, their billable hours will be fewer) and probably thousands of dollars in taxes over the years.