quote:

You decide what type of work you want to do and what demands make sense for you.

Respectfully, that is what I said. You do what is best for you and your company. But let's not be disingenuous. Sometimes, one does cave or "sell out" so that one can have an income. One needs to choose when and whether to do it.

Hi: I agree with Love Learning. You are protecting your personal assets when your biz is incorporated or is an LLC. I choose an LLC, because because I'm the only owner of my business, and when dealing with the taxes I'm treated as a sole proprietor.
Check with the Small Business Administration office in your area and with the SCORE group (a group of retired biz people)they offer free classes and counseling to biz people. You can find a lot of info in their web pages.

Good Luck!!

Ines Serra
Comunica Solutions LLC

LL,
I have not found a client who would deal with me without the "work for hire clause". How do you get them to back off?

Keeping in mind that we're assuming we're talking about something that is not proprietary to the company...

To me, what you're asking really boils down to knowing how to negotiate. For example, a good win/win that's worked for me in the past is that they may have rights to the materials for a certain period of time (usually 6 months to a year) included in the fee they've paid for me to develop and/or deliver the course. I've also done work where in exchange for my rights to what I create, they do not have to pay as much.

They get to have PDF files they can duplicate, but I do not provide source files.

This also means going into the conversation with the confidence that you deserve to keep the rights to your intellectual capital.

I work with a company called MBO Partners. Essentially I run my own business under their corporate umbrella, which means I have general business liability insurance through them. They also handle my invoicing and collections. This saved me from the need to set up a formal business entity, and saves me a lot of time I might be spending on back-office management. It might be worth checking out in your situation - most companies are more than agreeable to work with this arrangment, and I know MBO has master service agreements with a lot of companies that actually prefer to work with MBO consultants.