The Passing of the Gavel

Outgoing AMWA President Barbara Snyder passes the gavel to incoming President Douglas Haneline at the organization's annual business meeting, then tries to grab it back!

(Video by Mark Bowlby)

The Freelance Biz

According to his disclosure statement, Brian Bass is not an attorney, accountant, or insurance professional. But Friday, he educated a lively audience about the many legal, financial, and insurance issues that affect freelancers during his open session, “Getting Down to Business: Nonwriting Issues for Freelances.”

By flagging the parts of contracts that freelancers should watch out for (i.e., non-compete agreements and transfers of liability), Bass provided his audience with some of the necessary tools to master contract negotiations. Rather than striking out part of a contract and initialing it, try calling the client to see why this particular clause was included in the first place, he suggested. Having a discussion about the contract may trigger your client to think twice about the reason for including such statements.

Creating a business structure is another important issue for freelancers to consider—particularly relatively new writers. Following a broad overview of the pros and cons of sole proprietorships, S-Corps, and LLCs, an impromptu, mid-session Q & A period took place. Bass (with the assistance of knowledgeable audience members) entertained questions about paying yourself on a consistent basis, separating your business and personal assets, and for those with S-Corps, paying bonuses on December 31st.

To wrap up the session, the nuances of health insurance, life insurance, long-term disability insurance, and errors & omissions insurance were discussed. Ultimately, obtaining these various insurance policies affords protection for you, your business, and your family, Bass emphasized.

This session will be covered in more detail in a forthcoming issue of the AMWA Journal

--Kelly L. McCoy
 

Annual Business Meeting: Really, it's the place to be

If you're like a lot of members of AMWA -- or any membership organization, for that matter -- you have probably shied away from attending the annual business meeting. That's the time within a conference when an organization's leadership sums up the accomplishments of the past year, announces goals for the year ahead, and gives an accounting of group finances.

Sounds riveting, doesn't it?

But AMWA has a lot going on right now, and frankly, the annual business meeting is one of the best places to hear about that. You can hear snippets at other moments in the conference, but the information comes in its most concentrated form at the business meeting. At today's business meeting, for example, we heard that AMWA has been weathering the so-called Great Recession quite nicely (through a lot of effort by staff as well as foresight in the preceding years); that AMWA has ramped up its marketing efforts given both the economic challenges and the "ghostwriting" controversies discussed in the press; that AMWA's always-strong focus on ethics is growing stronger by the day; and that impressive efforts are under way to add new learning tools and new learning opportunities.

So the next time you see "annual business meeting" on a conference program, try to work it into your no-doubt busy schedule. It takes under an hour, and you may just like what you hear. And if you don't? Take the opportunity to influence the organization's direction.

 --Victoria White