Bobbleheads Agree! Our New Paperbacks are Awesome!

Our new paperbacks came in the mail the other day, and I couldn’t wait to share them with our resident statesmen. Reminder: the books are out April 30, 2019, and you can pre-order them here.

People always ask what the books are about. Here’s the deal: 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence, 39 signed the U.S. Constitution. Our books offer pithy, often-hilarious mini-biographies about every single one of the men, from the famous ones to the most obscure.

Other cool factoids:

* So much of what people know about the Declaration Signers is based on folklore, exacerbated by the Internet about how much they suffered for our freedom. The truth is far more complex. (Example: None of the signers lost his life because he signed the Declaration of Independence.)

* The Signers of both documents are a hilarious mix of great men and scoundrels. A lot of the Signers ended up broke from bad land investments. Two signers of the constitution were outright embezzlers. One was such a crook Congress tried to arrest him—but he skipped town. So their stories are relevant today because they touch on subjects such as political corruption, sex scandals, or being “upside-down” on loans.

* The Signers were fallible men, like our politicians today. Rather than insist on revering them, it’s probably wiser to accept that "imperfect men created a more perfect union.” It is easier to relate to people who had real issues, real faults, and made real mistakes, yet were still part of an incredible moment in history.

* The documents we revere today grew out of debate and compromise. The Signers fought and argued constantly. The Constitution we regard as sacrosanct was viewed as suspect by many Americans in 1787, the year of its presentation to the American public. Modern Americans think that once the Revolutionary War was over, so were our troubles. Not true. The US was a fragile, brand-new country, with serious deficiencies that only a strong constitutional document could resolve.

* Most people can name about five famous signers for each document. For every Adams, Franklin, or Hancock, there’s a Hart, Morton, or Morris that most people have never heard of. History is often made by so many more people than those highlighted in the history books.

I know: The books sound awesome to buy, don’t they? Head on over to this page to pre-order online, or call my local bookstore for autographed copies.

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Yes, I am trying to post here more often. Thank you for noticing. If you want to sign up for my newsletter and claim your free ebook, go here. Thanks — Joseph D’Agnese

The Stark Truth

Several years ago I heard that the University of Chicago was reprinting some of Donald Westlake’s old Richard Stark novels, both in print and as ebooks. I snapped up one of the ebooks during a heavily promoted “event” where they were offering one of the titles at the low, low price of free.

I’ve been trying to read more ebooks to reduce the amount of clutter in my home. I also like that when I’m on vacation or on the road, I can carry hundreds of books with me on one device.  I was looking forward to enjoying the Stark novel. That series, featuring master thief Parker, is known as the quintessential heist series in the crime fiction world.

But I was shocked by the number of typos I found in that Kindle edition. This happens whenever a publisher scans an old book that has never been digitized, and then uses OCR (optical character recognition) software to convert that image into text. You really have to proofread the resulting text very carefully because even good software will read the original text incorrectly. I went through this on a minor level when I recently scanned one of my old manuscripts—a pre-MS Word manuscript—and found that every instance of the letters “rn” as in “horn” was converted to the single letter “m.” If you squint real hard at the letters “rn,” you can kinda, sorta see how that might happen.

Anyway, the problems I spotted in the Stark novel were so bad and pervasive that I was actually moved to write the hallowed University of Chicago Press. To my surprise, they wrote me back. Here is our exchange. I’ve redacted the contact’s name and email.

From: Joe


Sent: Monday, October 31, 2011 7:40 AM


To: [Publicity, U of Chicago Press]


Subject: Richard Stark novels (problems)



Hi:



I have never written a letter like this.


I recently downloaded a Kindle edition of one of your Richard Stark novels, and was amazed by the number of typos I found in the text. Westlake was a fine writer, and I'm delighted that U. of Chicago Press is reprinting these old books. But someone has to proof them before they go out the door. I’m an author/editor myself, so I am especially aware of these sorts of problems. But still: they were unavoidable and frequent. 

Some of these problems looked like scanning errors. The word “I’ll” showed up several times as “111,” as if the text of an original paperback was scanned improperly into your system but not caught by a live editor. Other times, I’d find words such as “we’ll” written as “well,” and often the first word of sentences was uncapitalized.

This pretty basic stuff, but I don't feel comfortable buying more of the books until I know for sure that this problem has been corrected across the board. I’m told that a lot of Westlake’s older paperback originals had typos but that isn't an excuse. I can’t imagine that U. of Chicago Press is trying to reproduce the texts of these books exactly as they once appeared. That’s ludicrous. It seems more likely that someone was rushing to meet a deadline and didn't proof the Kindle editions. I notice a few other comments on Amazon’s websites that lead me to believe that this is pervasive throughout the series. I wouldn’t consider buying the print versions either, for the same reason.

 Can you let me know when/if the problem is fixed? I plan to buy them all. Just not yet.

 — Joe

On Oct 31, 2011, at 11:09 AM, they wrote back:


Dear Joe, 


Thank you for emailing to bring this issue to our attention. We do very much care about the quality of our print and e-books and I appreciate that you have made us aware of the problems you found. The older titles are more difficult to convert than the newer titles for which we have live files and editors freshly familiar with the text, so it does not surprise me that the conversion process caused errors, but it does concern me that they were not caught. 

I agree with you that the kinds of errors you are describing seem to be the sort that come from the conversion process. I’d like to look into this issue further. Could you tell me the title of the book that you purchased so I can have it reviewed? Once we have looked at the book you emailed about, we will check some of the others to which may have similar errors that were missed.

Sincerely, 
[redacted]

So I wrote back:

 The one I downloaded was “The Score.”

 But by poking around online, I found some other references to typos in at least two other titles. There’s this link, where someone writes:

“After reading another post like this, I reported 7 or 8 typos in “Butcher’s Moon” by Richard Stark. I also mentioned I would not be averse to a store credit for my efforts.”

 I found this comment at this link:

Letting Amazon know about typos/errors in Kindle books works. I pointed out 26 typos in a book and Amazon removed it indefinitely until the publisher fixes it. And they gave me 5$. : kindle

 And then, on Amazon, I found this review of the Stark book entitled “The Seventh”:

 4.0 out of 5 stars Who edited the Kindle edition?!  September 10, 2011

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Seventh (Parker Novels) (Kindle Edition)

So many typos. I feel like I’m reading German “die” for “the” and often “w” for “v”. Great novel, but—if we are going to pay $10 for an electronic copy—please take the time to make it readable.

Again, I’m really sorry to contact you about this. I hope you will get this sorted out. I know this is a big effort, re-releasing these old books. I know a lot of fans are watching them closely.

 All best, Joe

That was was all from my end. My last note from the publisher was this:

Dear Joe,

Thanks so much—especially for sending the other comments as well!

 As a warning, it may be a couple months before this is sorted out since we have to work around the schedule of our new books. And, once again, thank you for taking the time to let us know about these.

Best wishes,

[redacted]

There you have it. I should note that I’m a terrible copy editor and proofreader of my own work. (Go ahead and look. I’m sure there are typos in this very post.) And I have been as long as I’ve been working in publishing, which is knocking on three decades at this point. That’s why I hire editors to review my books before I self-pub them. But here’s something people don’t like to admit: Even my traditionally published books have typos.

I once visited the offices of a friend who happened to be a literary agent. He was aggravated that week by a disaster that had happened with one of the books he repped and sold to a Big Five publisher. It was a nonfiction book about rock music. He flipped to a page and held up the volume. Near the bottom of the page, where there was supposed to be a photo and caption, there was nothing but a caption and a thin border where the photo was supposed to be.

“How did that happen?” I said.

He shook his head. “But they’re pubbing thousands of books a year and they apparently can’t bother to give a sh*t.”

Humans miss stuff all the time, even the experts. When people point out those typos to me, I try to have them fixed. It’s easier in the case of my self-pubbed books, trickier in the case of books pubbed by major publishers.

But here’s a highly touted line of books put out by the people who invented the freaking Chicago Manual of Style that appears not to have been proofread very well across the board. If there are shocking errors in three Kindle editions, as suggested by the notes above, they’re probably pervasive throughout the series.

In the long-running and by now uninteresting debate of traditional pub vs. self-pub, indie authors have been urged to be as professional as possible. Have someone edit your work, they’re told. Get a professional cover done. Have the book professionally formatted. And so on. Some of them do, some of them don’t.

I gotta say: I continue to be impressed by the work of authors whose books I’m proud to recommend to friends and even buy for family members.

Based on the Stark incident and a few others I’ve encountered in traditional publishing, I’m now convinced that a conscientious indie author can produce a better product than publishing professionals, who are routinely “swamped” and not personally invested in the final product.

It’s been seven years. I wonder if they’ve gotten the typos sorted out by now. I’ve been meaning to circle back and read those, but there’s always other books to read.

What do you think?

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* This post first appeared in slightly different form on my old blog, November 16, 2011.

Yes, I am trying to post here more often. Thank you for noticing. If you want to sign up for my newsletter and claim your free ebook, go here. Thanks — Joseph D’Agnese

5 Things Billy Wilder's "The Apartment" Taught Me About the Freelance Life

The other night I watched Billy Wilder’s subversive 1960 film, The Apartment, and it got me—a freelancer—thinking about the trade-offs we all make in the business world. The movie tells the story of a devoted organization man played by Jack Lemmon, who loans his Manhattan apartment to a group of men of power and wealth, who use his pad for their liaisons with various mistresses.

Lemmon’s character doesn’t admire their dalliances but goes along with the charade because he believes it will advance his career. He is a man accustomed to disappointment; his job is crushingly dull, and he could easily waste his life as a spiritless drone in the corporate machine.

So he sets his sights on bigger things, but his bosses’ promises to him are about as the good as the promises they make to the women they squire.

Shirley Maclaine is one of them. A slick Fred MacMurray strings her along with promises to someday divorce his wife. Despairing, she swallows pills to off herself, only to be rescued by Lemmon. Director Billy Wilder pulls all of this together as a brilliant piece of black comedy. Forty-eight years later, the film offers fine lessons for the employed and self-employed alike:

• Accept that life is all about trade-offs. It’s easy to mock the corporate world. Cliches abound: For 11 holidays a year and a poorly managed 401k, it sucks your soul dry. Ah, but the freelance life has its trade-offs, too. In exchange for your freedom, you’ve got to got to make your peace with the beast of insecurity gnawing at your guts.

• Be aware that freelancer can also be manipulated and used. Clients who want something for nothing, who crave ceaseless hand-holding, and who never know when the project is over feast on your soul just as much as the bosses on the 27th floor.

• Be prepared to confront your morality every day. Just how far are you willing to go for a client? What will you, or won’t you, do? The Apartment dances around the issue of sex, but I’m talking about business ethics. Your code. What you stand for. Consider: the 2008 housing crash happened in part because far too many people—realtors, bankers, mortgage brokers, appraisers, and yes, buyers and sellers—routinely gamed a system that was bound to fail. When they should have acted honorably, they looked the other way. Learn to say no. Say it early and often.

• Know that redemption comes at a price. Call quits on the game, and you risk loss of work, respect, and whatever power you may have seized for yourself. But if you can accept the consequences of your actions, you will always be free.

• Remember that some things are worth more than the gig. If you don’t have work now, and you turn down a potential client because you know working for him or her will be more trouble than it’s worth, resist the impulse to look at the experience negatively. Yes, you may have lost a paycheck. But you have gained peace of mind and perhaps the knowledge that you were right. Try pricing those out sometime.

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* This post first appeared in slightly different form on my old blog, Feb. 13, 2008.

Yes, I am trying to post here more often. Thank you for noticing. If you want to sign up for my newsletter and claim your free ebook, go here. Thanks — Joseph D’Agnese

Remembering Puppeteer Richard Hunt

“I like puppets a lot. I call myself puppet crazy.” So wrote a goofball by the name of Joe D’Agnese, back when he was in elementary school. I can’t actually remember how long that particular obsession lasted, but I know that for a while there every birthday or Christmas meant the addition of a new puppet to my collection—hand puppets and marionettes mostly, culminating with a ventriloquist dummy. (I still have the marionettes. The dummy was probably buried in the Meadowlands by one of my brothers because it kept him awake at night.)

I know I’ve lost most of you but I hasten to point out that puppetry is an ancient performance art that is a honest-to-god career path for many people, even to this day. I learned that to my delight when I was only in second grade, thanks to a man who is no longer with us.

His name was Richard Hunt, and he would have been only about 20 years old when he first visited our classroom in the 1970s to introduce us to his puppets and tell us about his cool new job working for Muppets creator Jim Henson. I can’t recall how Hunt transported his puppets to our school in New Jersey, but I can still picture him sitting on a table against the front windows of our classroom. His hands disappeared for a second into a bag, carrying case, or trunk, and when they emerged they had been transformed into a living breathing character with a personality. We were enthralled.

To us Hunt was a genuine local hero. Unless I’ve got the facts of his background wrong, he’d grown up largely in our hometown. He’d gone to our very own school. He was friends with our teacher, Mrs. Stampa, and I still wonder if she’d been one of his teachers when he was growing up. All of this added up a potent role model. Richard Hunt was a hometown kid like us. He loved puppets! And he had the coolest job ever!

Hunt, via Muppet.fandom.com

I have racked my brains over the years trying to recall exactly which puppets he brought to our class. I feel like one was called Hairy or Harry, but I can’t know for sure. (I do know that it was a Muppet. The character had that cuddly fabric look all us kids knew from watching Sesame Street in the early ‘70s.) What is less hazy in my memory is how Hunt made each of those characters come to life with a few simple gestures—head shakes, hand movements, a certain twist of the mouth, and Hunt’s own voice. It was magic of the highest order.

The next time I met Hunt he was performing at a friend’s birthday party in our town. Apparently he’d earned money for years doing kid’s parties. And then, one day, while on a visit to New York City, he phoned Henson’s office from a payphone and asked if they could use a puppeteer. As luck would have it, auditions had just opened. One visit to the studio and he was in.

I remember how excited I was to watch The Frog Prince when it aired on TV. It was Hunt’s second Muppet special. Shortly after, he performed in another special, The Muppet Musicians of Bremen. Mrs. Stampa told us all to watch, and we did.

For decades, long after my puppet obsession waned, whenever I watched a Muppet movie or TV show, I’d always scan the credits, waiting for the name of “our” Muppeteer—Richard Hunt, the local boy made good—to appear on screen. I was never disappointed. Hunt’s career with the Muppets was lustrous; he breathed life in so many of the characters we all know and love, like Scooter, Janice, Beaker, Statler, Sweetums, and many others.

And then one day his name disappeared from those credits. Richard Hunt died in 1992 at age 40 from complications related to the HIV/AIDS virus. I don’t think I learned of his passing until many years later, when I saw his name mentioned in a playbill by TOSOS, New York City’s oldest LBGTQ+ theater company. Someone had mounted a tribute to Hunt, who was openly gay.

I had to basically wait until the Internet was a thing before I could easily learn more about his life and career. Only then did I learn that Hunt had more than 60 credits to his name on IMDB. And that his memory was being kept alive by legions of puppetry and Muppet fans in articles such as the ones found here, here and here. By far the richest vein on Hunt’s work comes from the pen of Jessica Max Stein, who is currently at work on a Hunt biography. She’s posted excerpts of the work in progress on her website, and shared interviews with Richard’s Mom, and posted other pieces here and here. I also found a sweet remembrance by Hunt’s work colleague, Kermit the Frog, that brought a smile to my face.

That’s the beautiful thing about puppets, Muppets in particular. They are eternal. They enter our lives when we're young and impressionable, and never quite leave, though the people who brought them to life—Henson, Hunt, among so many others—may have left us. Until Hunt's biography is published, I’ll content myself with stories like these, and the memories of the day I learned it was okay to be puppet crazy.

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Yes, I am trying to post here more often. Thank you for noticing. If you want to sign up for my newsletter and claim your free ebook, go here. Thanks — Joseph D’Agnese

Pre-Order Now: Signing Their Lives / Rights Away!

Just a quick and dirty reminder that paperback versions of two of our most popular books are out in just 15 days! We’d love to make as big a splash with them as we did when they first came out in hardcover, so please do pre-order them if you’re interested.

I’m pretty proud of this duo. We spent a good chunk of time last year revising both books with some new tidbits and details that came to light after the first series pubbed nearly a decade ago.

A reminder:

• Signing Their Lives Away was the first in the series, and tells the true story of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence.

• The later book, Signing Their Rights Away, tells the story of the 39 men who signed the Constitution. Both books are illustrated with portraits of the men.

In its review of the second book, The Wall Street Journal said:

“[The authors]...maintain a refreshing reverence for the Constitution itself. Rather than ask readers to believe that an ‘assembly of demigods’ (Jefferson’s words) wrote the Constitution, Ms. Kiernan and Mr. D’Agnese challenge the notion that the group that crafted this document of enduring genius was uniquely brilliant or visionary. If this raises the question of how exactly the miracle was accomplished, it should at least give readers some hope for our own seemingly uninspired political era.”

To which I respond: Yep. Pretty much. The amazing thing about both sets of signers is how they break down into the famous and the obscure. You have greats like Jefferson, John and Samuel Adams, Hancock, Ben Franklin and so on, and then you have men like John Morton or John Hart who signed the Declaration and went on to do very little else on the national stage.

And you have men like Gouverneur Morris, who wrote that beautiful preamble to the U.S. Constitution and who was a colorful figure in his lifetime—a playboy Casanova with a wooden leg!—but whom I venture to say most people have never heard of.

So that’s the breadth of these men. The bright, the clever, the unknowns—all cheek by jowl with absolute scoundrels, some of whom stole money from Congress or ended up in debtor’s prison thanks to their own greed or stupidity.

And they all founded the U.S. of A.

Both books were written with a good deal of humor, but I hope you can feel the reverence amid the irreverence.

Please do check them out. You can find all your buy options here. If you want autographed copies, please PHONE our local bookstore, Malaprops, and give them the specifics.

Just don’t expect me to sign with a quill pen.

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Yes, I am trying to post here more often. Thank you for noticing. If you want to sign up for my newsletter and claim your free ebook, go here. Thanks — Joseph D’Agnese

Yes, You Really Do Have to Pay Estimated Taxes

For tax season, I’m running some of my older posts pertaining to our book, The Money Book for Freelancers.*

If there’s one lesson we learned as we interviewed experts for our book, it’s this: “Pay your estimated taxes.” This is the single biggest mistake freelancers make. They don’t pay their estimated taxes, and come April 15th, they’re shocked by how much money they have to come up with. No one likes paying taxes, but if you pay a little now, and a little throughout the year, you’re in better shape to deal with the final number come April.

Estimated taxes in the USA are due four times a year, in April, June, September and January. The dates may seem a little arbitrary. After all, shouldn’t quarterly taxes be paid every three months?

Short answer: No. The IRS makes the rules, so they can basically run roughshod over the Gregorian Calendar. On June 15th, you owe Uncle Sam some portion of the income you earned between April 1 and May 31. You get a two-month period at that point but get a four-month period at the end of the year. Quarter 4 estimated taxes are due January 15th, based on income earned September 1 to December 31. The official IRS websites on these matters is here and here. If you think it will help you, go ahead and mark these periods and the due dates on your calendar.

Skipping estimated taxes until the end of the year is not really an option. That only sets you up for penalties and interest. How much do you need to pay? The only person who can tell you that is your tax preparer. Chances are, when you get your annual taxes done, your tax guru printed up some vouchers for you to use come estimated-tax time. If so, then you’re golden. Dig out those vouchers and send in what’s printed on the forms. One goes to the feds, the other to the state in which you reside.

If you didn’t have your taxes done by a tax preparer back in April, then oy, oy, oy. You are making us nuts. After we went and told you in our book how important it was to have someone like that!

Some tips for finding that person.

 Our Tax Preparer Wish List 

1. Someone who, duh, knows taxes. You don’t necessarily need an accountant (although depending on your business, you may) and accountants can be more expensive. What you do need is someone who specializes in taxes, and who works with a number of self-employed clients. Be sure to ask.

2. Someone who charges a reasonable, yearly fee, depending on the complexity of your return. If you work alone, are struggling to make a profit and have a pretty manageable return, you shouldn’t be paying the same rate as someone who has 10 employees and a net profit of $250K. 

3. You absolutely, positively want someone you can contact throughout the year to ask about quarterly tax payments and retirement investments. This is key. At the end of each quarter, you should be able to send an email to your tax preparer, telling her how much money you’ve earned in that quarter, and asking her to calculate your estimated taxes. You should also ask her to send you the vouchers you’ll need to mail in your various payments. It’s her job to do this for you. If she is unwilling to do this, wants too much money to perform this task, or is too distracted with other things to get back to you, get another accountant. You deserve someone who takes your business seriously.

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Yes, I am trying to post here more often. Thank you for noticing. If you want to sign up for my newsletter and claim your free ebook, go here. Thanks — Joseph D’Agnese

Why are you tossing your receipts?

During the USA’s long slog toward April 15th, tax day, I’m running some of my older posts pertaining to our book, The Money Book for Freelancers.*

Every time I use an ATM machine, I’m amazed to see how many discarded receipts litter the ground under the machine or overflow the nearby wastepaper basket. I’m equally astonished whenever I hear customers decline a sales clerk’s offer to print out receipt. I don’t understand why anyone would toss out such useful pieces of information.

Freelancers are trained by nature—and hopefully by our book—to hang onto every receipt that passes through their hands. There’s a now-classic literary character, J. Sutter, a freelancer and former journalist, in Colson Whitehead’s novel John Henry Days, who lives for receipts. One scene in the book, if I’m not mistaken, has him chasing someone else’s fluttering receipt in an airport concourse so he can pad out his expense account.

I’m not Sutter, but I do hang on to every freaking receipt that comes my way. Back in the day, I used Quicken software to reconcile transactions from my bank with the receipts I’d collected during the week. Throughout the year, I’d keep all my tax-relevant receipts and file them away for safe-keeping after I did my taxes. These days, we use Banktivity software, but we still do roughly the same thing. Rather than save the paper receipts, we scan them daily or weekly, file the the digital scans in an Evernote folder, and toss the paper. It’s a handy system that I’m not likely to give up anytime soon.

Receipts, even those boring little ATM ones, are a snapshot of a specific moment in time. On Monday, August 21 at 13:53 o’clock you were standing at 123 Oak Street withdrawing $40 from an ATM, getting dinged $3.50 in the process. Or two days later, August 23, you got $40 cash back when you bought groceries at the market down the road.

One day, two weeks or a month later, when you’re trying to reconcile your various accounts using whatever financial software you use, are you really going to remember those seemingly inconsequential events? Probably not. But you’ll stare at the transaction you just downloaded from your bank and say to yourself, “What the hell did I spend $43.50 on? And where the hell is 123 Oak Street?”

If you had treasured that worthless scrap of paper instead of casting it to the four winds, you’d have the answer right in front of you. Instead, you’re beating your head against a wall, wondering why you can’t get a handle on your money.

If you can commit to using some form of financial software, and train yourself to hang onto these receipts, you’ll always have access to the little financial moments that flit through your life.

Get it in your head: You’re a freelancer. This is what you do. You save receipts. Period. This is what I’d like you do, just to get comfortable with this concept. This week, request a receipt for every single transaction you make through your daily life. Don’t just ask for it. SAVE it. If you share income with your partner, ask them to do the same. It’s not really a big deal.

At the end of the day, dump out all the receipts fro your wallet or purse and place them in a dedicated location in your home. Use anything from a paperclip to an inbox to keep the paper tidy.

Later, when you have a chance, use those receipts to catch up on your finances with some kind of financial software, whether it’s a Quicken on your computer, mint.com, or what have you. It’s a tiny little habit to get yourself into, but most people will not take the trouble do it, unless someone tells them to.

Guess what: I just told you.

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Yes, I am trying to post here more often. Thank you for noticing. If you want to sign up for my newsletter and claim your free ebook, go here. Thanks — Joseph D’Agnese

Five Money Mistakes Freelancers Make

For tax season, I’m running some of my older posts pertaining to our book, The Money Book for Freelancers.*

This was supposed to be the year you got your financial house in order. Get more organized. Earn more. Spend less. And reach unparalleled heights in your career.

If only you knew where to start.

We’d like to suggest that if you do anything, nip these five bad habits in the bud now, so you never have to worry about them again. We consider them to be the five primo mistakes all self-employed people make. If you correct them before they become long-term engrained problems, you’ll be in good shape to move forward with most of your financial goals.

Heck, you might even be able to skip the financial resolutions next year, and go right to the fun ones, like, “I resolve to vacation more, and never worry about money again.”

Mistake #1: Not Having an Emergency Fund

Everyone should have a stash of cash set aside in case of unexpected financial disasters and interrupted income. In fact, we’d argue that freelancers need this fund even more than traditionally employed people do, because their income is a lot more erratic. Even if you’re a crackerjack freelancer, with tons of work coming in and invoices constantly flying out the door, there are still going to be dry spells. When that happens, it would be nice to have some money set aside to dip into.

But alas, few freelancers make a habit of socking away money regularly in such an account. Don’t let that be you. It doesn’t have to be a great deal of money. Five percent from every check that comes in the door is a good amount to save, and you’ll hardly ever notice it’s missing. Just make sure the money is deposited into a bank account that is not linked to an ATM card, so you can’t raid it on a lark. And see to it that the money is kept “liquid”—not linked to important investments or burdened with any withdrawal restrictions. A checking account at an online bank is the perfect place for the cash. Just an arm’s distance away, but close enough to tap into if need it. How much should you save? Start with one month’s living expenses, and then see if you can push it to three or six.

Mistake #2: Not Saving for Taxes

One of the blessings—and curses—of being self-employed is not having an employer who withholds your taxes from every paycheck you receive. When you bill a client, you bill for the whole enchilada. And when you get paid, you get the whole enchilada too. The trouble is, when tax time comes around, that tasty treat has long been gobbled up. Make sure you’ve left enough of that enchilada to give the tax man the taste he needs.

The worst time to start thinking about your taxes is weeks or even days before you have to pay them. Ideally, you want to be socking away money throughout the year, a little out of every single check that comes in the door. That way, you can slowly save up a tax nest egg. Not sure how much to take out? Not a problem. Look at your tax documents from the last two or three years, and calculate about how much you have been paying the tax man, expressed as a percentage of your total income. Start saving that percentage out of every paycheck. This number varies wildly from freelancer to freelancer, so mind your own business—not someone else’s.

Mistake #3: Not Paying Estimated Taxes

What good is saving that tax money if you don’t use it to pay The Man? In our research we discovered that accountants meet plenty of well-intentioned yet sad freelancers who do not pay their estimated taxes during the year, and who then feel doubly screwed when they have to settle up at year’s end. We’ve never understood this mentality: Would you rather pay $1,250 four times a year, or be forced to come up with $5,000 (and penalties and interest) in one lump sum once a year?

It’s a no-brainer: Paying in small, manageable chunks really makes a difference. It’s easier on your pocket, and you are less likely to blow that tax money on a spur-of-the-moment vacation to the Bahamas if you pay your taxes on a quarterly basis. If you develop the good habit of saving for your taxes, then you should develop the equally good habit of disbursing those funds in a timely fashion throughout the year. A good accountant or tax preparer should be able to help you with this.

Mistake #4: Not Treating Yourself Like a Business

Even if you are a company of one, you are a business. That means organizing your finances as any responsible business would. If you are not already, begin tracking income and expenses down to the penny. Receipts are your friend—never let them slip away. Financial software programs—such as Quicken or mint.com—can take some of the pain out of this chore and help make tax time a cinch. If you need to send and track invoices, manage clients, and do time-tracking, use something like FreshBooks or QuickBooks. 

And that’s just for starters. You must cultivate an interest in all things business. You must have business cards. You must have a website. You must develop a system for receiving and returning phone calls in a timely fashion. You must have a logo and stationery. You must have a retirement account. You must develop a process that keeps you connected to the rest of the business world, and you must execute it flawlessly in all your dealings with others.

Amazingly, this is hard for a lot of people to do. “I’m a website designer,” they say. Or, “I write software. I don’t want to be bothered learning about business. I don’t want to learn about investments or credit card accounts or invoicing. It’s boring.” Okay, fine. Just understand that if you don’t want to deal with these little details, if you can’t get psyched about this geeky stuff, you must hire someone to help take care of it for you. And don’t let us catch you bitching about it, either. If you don’t want to do it, you must be willing to pay for it. Your business won’t take care of itself.

Mistake #5: Living for the Big Score

A financial planner we interviewed told us that all self-employed people, including himself, are dreamers. They throw themselves into their work, trying to achieve their great vision, and forget about socking away small amounts of money for themselves along the way. Some people, if they do get money, stick it back in the business. “Once I land this big project, sell this book, launch this product, or share my great invention with the world,” they tell themselves, “THEN I’ll have so much money that I’ll be able to finally save for retirement.”

Folks, this is crazy talk. This is how cat burglars think: They live their lives as if waiting for the big score, which never freaking materializes. So do this today: Start saving a little from each paycheck for your retirement. It doesn’t have to be very much. Just let it be something. If you must trick yourself, pay a little extra to your emergency fund and then redistribute from that to a dedicated retirement account. We all think we’re going to live forever but that is not true. Time flies, and you may not have the time you think you have to build up a substantial nest egg. “I’ve a great life and a great career,” a ruggedly handsome, athletic-looking designer told us at a book fair recently. “I have tons of clients and I’m never without work. The problem is, I’m fifty-five and I don’t have anything set aside for retirement.” That’s a problem. Learn from this gent’s mistake. Start saving for retirement today, and let today mean today.

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* This post first appeared in slightly different form on the FreshBooks blog on January 12, 2011.

Yes, I am trying to post here more often. Thank you for noticing. If you want to sign up for my newsletter and claim your free ebook, go here. Thanks — Joseph D’Agnese

The four, no, SIX bank accounts every freelancer needs

For tax season, I’m running some posts from my old blog pertaining to our book, The Money Book for Freelancers.*

The problems that arise with money and the freelance life are often ones of organization. If you set up your financial accounts properly, your financial goals will be right in front of you every time you check your finances. The way I see it, every independent worker (i.e., sole proprietor) should have at least FOUR bank accounts. I’m just talking about US workers right now.

1. The Spending/Bill-paying Account: The account into which you deposit every check you receive.

2. The Emergency Account: Contains 3 to 6 months of living expenses, if you can swing it.

3. The Tax Account: Collects the money you need to pay your estimated and annual taxes.

4. The Retirement Account: Collects the money you want to contribute to your retirement until you have enough to start investing.

I consider these accounts to be the minimum you must have to run a successful freelance business. Later, when you’re ready to advance, I’d consider adding two more accounts:

5. The Medical Account: Collects money for health insurance premiums, Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), and so on.

6. The Dream Account: Collects money for your future dreams: a house, an apartment, a car, a business, or for your as-yet-unborn children.

This is pretty much the advice we offer in The Money Book for Freelancers. You might think that keeping so many separate accounts is unnecessarily complicated. But we’ve found that if you don’t have a separate place to keep money earmarked for Retirement, say, you won’t save for retirement. You’ll find other, equally important things to spend that money on before you have a chance to save it. The same goes for the tax and emergency accounts. If you don’t consistently save money to pay your estimated and annual taxes, you’ll end up scrambling each quarter or as each April 15th approaches to find the money to cover your tax bill. So separate is smart.

Nearly every bank has some kind of online presence these days, but we like ones primarily based online—such as Ally or Capital One 360—for a couple of reasons:

• Most online banks offer better interest rates than brick-and-mortar banks.

• Most allow you to open a new account at will at any time, so you don’t have to bother making time to visit a physical bank and to talk to a flesh-and-blood bank officer.

• Most allow you to apply a nickname to your accounts.

Little things make a big difference. Imagine logging on to your list of online accounts and seeing them in front of you with nicknames such as “My Rainy Day Account,” “My Waitin’ For the Taxman Account,” “My To-Be-Invested Retirement Account.” Names like this are focused on your specific needs, and far more personal than a list of account numbers that are virtually indistinguishable from each other.

Back in the day, we used to recommend keeping a local bank because it was still necessary to have an institution where you could drop by to deposit a physical check. Back then, the only way to get money into an online bank account was to transfer it from your local bank, or to mail in a paper check, which took daaaaaaaaays. Now almost all these online banks have an app that allows you to scan or photograph your check and deposit it in a flash.

How much should your save from every check? That’s a question for another day. For now, start investigating some good online savings banks at Bankrate.com. You will want a personal checking account for the spending/bill-paying account, and a savings account for the other accounts. US banking rules govern limit your withdrawals or checks you can write out of a savings account to 6 per month, but typically the interest on those savings accounts will be higher than your checking account.

Some savings accounts have an ATM card option, but it’s best to decline ones that do. The more obstacles you can put in your way, the less likely you’ll be to raid those accounts when emergencies occur.

Always check the interest rates. Historically online banks offered better terms than brick-and-mortar banks, but that’s not always the case.

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* This post first appeared on my old blog August 30, 2006.

Yes, I am trying to post here more often. Thank you for noticing. If you want to sign up for my newsletter and claim your free ebook, go here.

I am the Meryl Streep of Short Fiction! (Yeah, right.)

I’m so behind on social media that I completely missed a podcast back in October where a writer being interviewed referred to me as “The Meryl Streep of Short Fiction.” The claim is hilarious, and I have thoughts.

The podcast is Wrong Place, Write Crime, run by the crime fiction author Frank Zafiro. The person interviewed in Episode 17 is the Texas-born, North Carolina-based writer Eryk Pruitt, whom I know of but have never met. The podcast runs nearly an hour, and I come up around the 11-minute mark, when Zafiro starts asking Pruitt about “Knockout,” a short story of his that was a finalist for the Derringer Award in 2015.

At the risk of going inside baseball, the Derringer Awards are awarded each year by the Short Mystery Fiction Society to short stories in that genre. A lot of mystery organizations award a short story prize, but the Derringers are the only ones focused exclusively on short mystery stories, the only ones read blind (where the first round of judges are not told the name of the author whose story they’re reading), and the only prize awarded to stories in four different categories, based on length.

To cut to the chase, in 2015 one of my stories won the Derringer for flash fiction (i.e, a story that’s no more than 1,000 words). I have been fond of saying that the story was 684 words long, and that it’s weird to win something for so little work. When people ask about it, I tell them I’m currently at work on a 684-word novel.

But okay. In the podcast, Zafiro asks Pruitt who won the award that year, and Pruitt mentions me, and goes on to say, 

“…[D’Agnese] apparently wins like all the time—he’s like the Meryl Streep…So basically I got beat by the Meryl Streep of short fiction… And Joseph, if you’re listening, I just called you Meryl Streep. Your move."

Well, that’s just a hoot on so many levels. Authors as obscure as me live for awesome blurbs like that, and so my first “move” was to immediately get some business cards printed up using my brand-new sobriquet.

This is known as the Typewriter Card, available here.

Not just any old business cards. Fancy-ass, letterpress business cards by Hoban Press (whom I love) printed on 110-pound Neenah Cotton stock, thank you very much. Because I’m not just the winner of some obscure literary award. I’m the fucking Meryl Streep of Short Fiction.

Hoban Press master Evan Calkins hard at work printing my new business cards.

I have to thank Eryk and Frank for making my day, but I should probably point out that in the realm of short mystery fiction, I’m pretty much a newb. It’s true I’ve been a Derringer finalist three times, but I’ve only won once.

When you look at writing awards in total, I can very modestly say that I’ve won only three others—an award from the Humane Society for a piece of science journalism I wrote ages ago, and two others for children’s writing.

I list all the awards on my website because that’s what you do, but in truth, my short mystery fiction output is nowhere near as huge as multiple Derringer winners like Robert Lopresti, John M. Floyd, or Art Taylor, to name only a few biggies in this field. I actually made a study of short fiction output for a talk I did once. All of us currently working in the mystery field probably have a long way to go to beat the late Edward D. Hoch, who wrote 900 short stories, mostly mysteries, in his lifetime. 

But who’s counting? [he says, slinking off to a corner.]

If you like the Wrong Place, Write Crime podcast, I encourage you to check out the work of Zafiro, a former police officer who himself has a massive body of fiction, and Pruitt, who in addition to writing books and short stories is also a screenwriter, filmmaker, and radio show host. In fact, the bulk of this interview focuses on Pruitt’s recent true-crime podcast series, The Long Dance, in which he investigates a long-unsolved pair of murders in the Durham, NC, area. I’m listening to it now, and it’s amazing stuff. So amazing, Meryl Streep should do the movie.

By the way, if you can think of someone who really deserves the title of The Meryl Streep of Short Fiction, or Short Mystery Fiction, for that matter, let me know in the comments below.

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• My thanks to artist Jon Arge for the hilarious art of me above.

Yes, I am trying to post here more often. Thank you for noticing. If you want to sign up for my newsletter and claim your free ebook, go here.