Death and Taxes

As a writer, I'm an independent contractor. That's true whether I'm writing fiction or non-fiction. Whether I'm writing books for my own publication or writing web-content for other people's marketing campaigns. No matter what I'm writing, I am my own boss, and when I work for someone else, it's a business-to-business relationship, not employer-employee relationship. There's a lot of good points to that, but one of the big problems with it is that no one is withholding taxes for me, so at the end of the year I better have enough saved up to pay Uncle Sam. There's also no one conducting a group insurance plan for me for medical or life insurance. For some writers, that's okay. They have a spouse that works in the "real world" who has those things. But for others, it is a real hardship. It's not impossible to get insurance though. You have to find a contractor liability insurance company that can help you get the coverage you need. Of course, that won't help much with taxes.