Thanks for letting me know that you belong in the group I intended this for. That means a lot. I appreciate it. I love the analogy of jumping the fence or tunneling under it. Nice.

I’ll think about LLCs. I always hesitate to jump into the murky legal waters, since I’m not a lawyer. But let me see what I can come up with, and what my lawyer friends think, and what those who’ve done this already have to say. Thanks for the suggestion.

I just spent the past four days reading back over the Freelancer’s Survival Guide, and I have to say thank you, Kris! Talk about managing expectations. I was one of the people you set out to help by publishing the Guide online. I was downsized (or whatever euphemism they call it these days) last summer and started screwing up my courage to jump blindly into freelancing. I was “saved” at the last minute by a call from a previous employer who wanted me to come back to work, so here I am back in a job I left out of boredom four years ago. As you might guess, I’m not terribly enthusiastic about staying, but after reading the Guide I have a better idea of what to expect – and what kind of questions I need to find answers for – before I jump the fence and hightail it off into the sunset. (Actually I think some planning, goal-setting, and discreet burrowing under the fence over a period of time might be the better way.)

I’m curious about something I haven’t seen mentioned yet in the Guide: do you have any thoughts on a freelance writer forming a corporation, LLC, or other virtual entity? Other businesses can find clear benefits (especially when it comes to liability) by doing so, but I wonder what you and your network of experts think.