Taxes and Brands

This past weekend we met with our accountant to handle our taxes. He reminded me that I only had 6-8 years to start making money as a writer -- else the government would brand me a "hobbyist" and I would no longer be able to write stuff off, like conferences, contest fees, postage, vodka, etc. I'm not sure how many years I have left to make some dough -- I think around three or so.

Apparently there's no place on IRS tax forms to report contributor copies and free books.

In the spirit of capitalism (for which I'm quite the cheerleader!), over the next few days I'm going to implement Google AdSense advertisements to my blog and main web page. It's just going to to be text and links, no additional banners or anything obnoxious like that. If you're feeling supportive, click on an ad and help out a suffering poet. If you're not feeling supportive, well, you're not and I can't change that so that's going to have to be OK too. Not like I'm going to have any idea who clicks on what -- or will I? Spooky computer magic. According to my contract with AdSense I'm not allowed to click on the ads myself or generate clicking-bots or anything sneaky like that. Legit is the only way to be, right?

If it turns out to be annoying or an eyesore or if nobody ever clicks on the links, I'll remove them.