Suppose you’re freelancing, and you want to do things real legal like — with the tax season on your mind.

If only for ease on your taxes, it’s my limited experience and what others have contended that you ought to set up your own business.

It doesn’t come with any liability or branding protection, but a simple sole proprietorship can do you just fine — it has for me for more than a year. As is sometimes the motivation for content here, I was asked enough times by others about what that means and one makes it happen.

To keep track of my income from freelancing, I wanted to funnel all payments I received through a specific bank account for that purpose. To do that, I needed a business. To do that, you work top to bottom.

• First, you file for an Employee Identification Number with the IRS.
• Then, go to your state’s small business administration — you’re not incorporating so the cost is minimal, usually less than $100 — and file your sole proprietorship’s name. In many states, if your business name is nothing more than your name and one or three descriptive words — i.e. Christopher Wink Writing, Editing and Multimedia or Steve Pisauro Pluming and Heating — you don’t need to file (and pay to file) a fictitious name.
• Finally check with your local government to see if there are any county or municipal expenses — Philadelphia, for example, requires a business privilege license. See the steps to file a business in Philly.

With all that done, you get yourself a small business checking account, and try to stuff it.

Because just like news organizations, the niche pays and the general does not.

I’m not writing this from experience, of course, because as a young freelance journalist, it’s nothing I’ve developed. But, in more than a half year, I have at least learned that any freelance writer, journalist, Web developer, grant writer or anyone else who gets their own work independently must develop an area of focus and attention.

I don’t know Jen A. Miller much at all, but the still young though experienced freelance journalist is developing herself as a byline quite synonymous with the Jersey Shore.

She earned herself the niche with her book, the 2008 published The Jersey Shore, Atlantic City to Cape May: Great Destinations: A Complete Guide, and has smartly continued dominating the space with her. She also has herself an editor gig in the South Jersey bureau of beautiful glossy N.J. Monthly. She stays on her hustle elsewhere, too. It’s nothing new for her, but in just the past two weeks, she had big Jersey Shore-based features in the New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer, both big, historic newspapers.

Miller’s told me that she often has to remind editors that she enjoys writing outside of her niche on occasion. Now that, friends, is owning a niche. If you’re an editor and you want a story written about the Jersey Shore, if you don’t hire Miller, you sure better know about her.

It’s a lesson she’s given me, if certainly indirectly.

Below find some required reading in understanding the development of a niche:

• Freelancing in a Niche: 5 Ways to Market Your Services from Freelance Switch
• 6 Reasons Why Freelancers Should Have a Niche Blog from Freelance Switch
• 67 Freelance Niche Writing Markets You May Have Never Considered from Freelance Parent
• Making Freelance Writing Niche Types Fit from Roxanne Writes
• Developing a Niche for Freelance Writers from Suite 101
• Profitable Niche Writing Markets for Freelancers from Freelance Writing Success (more links)

First, the reasons I love freelancing. Pros:

• No alarm clocks
• No commute
• Make your own schedule
• Choose your assignments
• Writing off part of rent, utilities and other expenses
• Learn to challenge and motive oneself
• Develop a richer collection of sources
• The value of developing small-business skills
• Working for various publications
• Work on side projects
• I always look forward to the next day

Below, see some of the reasons I’ve found someone might not want to freelance.

Cons:

• No regular salary
• No regular salary
• No editor challenging you to improve your writing
• No regular salary
• No traditional access to health benefits
• Investigative or otherwise involved, longer-form pieces can become cost-prohibitive
• Learning basic tax code, statuses and such
• Having to keep organized business records
• No regular salary
• Marketing yourself, directing yourself, motivating yourself
• No 5 p.m. whistle; where does the work day stop?
• Cabin fever
• A personal e-mail and cell phone doesn’t always carry a sense of authenticity
• Lonely office
• No regular salary

This list helps make me certain this is where I want to be, hope they help you.

What am I missing, though? What makes you like it, or keep you from doing it? I want this list to grow.

Graphic from CDC.gov.