Once upon a time you could win a big cash journalism award and you could keep it all. But that changed long ago, ScienceWriters financial columnist Julian Block explains in Forbes: "Prior law carved out an exception for writers and scientists, among others. It exempted them from paying taxes on awards that are bestowed primarily in recognition of their past achievements in literature and research, among other cultural and academic endeavors."
Your business
How much impact does a New York Times book review have on book sales? Not as much as you'd think, according to this Publisher's Weekly analysis. The industry trade paper tracked before-and-after sales of six "lower-profile" books featured on the front covers of two May issues of the Sunday book review and "found that the Gray Lady still has influence in the minds of readers, though not nearly on a big enough scale to seriously alter a book’s fortunes."
Sure you know about LinkedIn and Storify, but have you heard of Intersect or Timetoast? Steve Buttry discusses those and more than a dozen other sites that job-seekers should know about. They include Clippings.me ("a place to organize and display your best stories"), Intersect ("a storytelling tool that uses a timeline and map to show where time and place intersect"), and Timetoast ("a storytelling timeline tool that you can use to tell the story of your career").
When tax time rolls around, most filers receive refunds. Just because you receive one for tax year 2011, doesn’t mean your return passed muster and you can forget about an audit. All it means is that IRS computers checked arithmetic and other basic items. From the Spring 2012 ScienceWriters.
NASW member Christie Aschwanden explains on Last Word on Nothing: "Since becoming an official LWON contributor last June, I’ve written almost 30 posts, about one every 12 days. For this work, I’ve received exactly zero dollars, zero prizes and zero resume-worthy rewards ... And I can honestly say that LWON is the best thing that’s happened in my writing life during the past year ... I can follow my follies and explore ideas that no one else cares about."
First, skip the Powerpoint, Jeremy Caplan writes in this Poynter post. Instead, produce a short video for prospective funders. (Caplan gives good and bad examples.) Second, for face-to-face conversations, hone your message to the basics — a brief value proposition, a brief founding story — and save the details for later: "Whether you’re pitching a new journalism project to a friend or to a financier, you often have to pack your message into a few fleeting moments."
Freelancers take note: "Have you checked your local zoning code to see what it says about running a business out of your home? You might surprised by what you learn," Robert Niles writes in an Online Journalism Review post. "Even if all you do in running your business is to type on your home computer, the fact that you're earning income that's not coming from an employer is enough in some jurisdictions to cover you under local home-business zoning and tax rules."
Non-profit news organizations may be the coming thing in journalism but they're having trouble convincing the Internal Revenue Service that they deserve tax-exempt status, Justin Ellis writes on the Nieman Journalism Lab site. One reason: Their applications often describe them as journalism organizations. "That’s a problem, because the IRS doesn’t recognize journalism as one of the defined categories eligible for non-profit status. But what is eligible? Education."
Setting up a business, writing contracts, bringing investors on board — for each of these, there are multiple free sources of legal advice, Jeremy Caplan writes in this post from the Poynter Institute web site. Included are sources of pro bono advice, common contract forms, and choosing a business structure. Plus, Erin Siegal at the Columbia Journalism Review has tips for representing yourself in Freedom of Information and other legal actions.
Joe Konrath pulls no punches in his post about the inevitability of Amazon: "If you don't like apex predators, get the hell out of the food chain. Here's the thing, all you whiners. You had your shot. And you blew it." Amazon's dominance, he says, will benefit both authors and readers while harming bookstores, agents, and distributors. The Scholarly Kitchen site discusses Konrath's post along with other essays on the changing book business.