Legal question for those forming publishing companies

Luckily, most cities don't require authors working at home to have a business license, though occasionally we hear horror stories about this.

My city, like most, does require consultants, editors and others with home-based businesses to have a business license even if they seldon, if ever, have clients in their homes; my wife and I have one for certain aspects of our work. (This doesn't include what I earn from standard freelance writing or from my books because I submit work under my name and not our company name.)

Have those of you who have started publishing companies that you run out of your houses--with no bricks and mortar storefront--been required to get businesses licenses?

My concern here: if I start a publishing company ostesibly to publish my own books, then the business license requirement would (in most cities) require not only a yearly fee, but a percentage of the income to be sent to the muncipality. This could mean that profits that are not taxed at the city level now (an author's royalties from another publisher) would become taxable via the business license under my own publishing company.

How are you guys handling this? (Or are you staying under the radar?) Do the fees involved cut into your profit so that you're actually earning less than you would with a mainstream publishing contract?

Malcolm
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Malcolm R. Campbell
I invite you to stop by my Writer's Notebook blog at http://jockstewart.typepad.com/writers_notebook/ and say cool stuff about writing and visit me on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/mythrider

Most of the small publishers I know have examined the situation and elected to form an LLC for protection and to be kosher.
I am not expert on this by any means, being a lifelong "under the radar" lurker... but I'll tell you who is.

This guy is a major authority on the subject and sells pdf "kits" that tell you everything you need to know about forming LLC entities in every state of the USA. You can evalutate rom his site:

http://www.stephenlnelson.com/default.htm
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Cool info, Lin. Thanks!

Malcolm
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Malcolm R. Campbell
I invite you to stop by my Writer's Notebook blog at http://jockstewart.typepad.com/writers_notebook/ and say cool stuff about writing and visit me on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/mythrider

Great link, thank you lin!
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Zada Connaway
Mother's Journals: parts 1, 2 and 3 ISBN # 1-4241-6969-0

http://www.zadaconnaway.com/

Tell Steve he owes me :-)
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My publisher is an LLC (E-Book Time, LLC). I'm not sure what the actual percentage is, but a great many small and POD publishers I've seen are LLCs.