What’s the first step an author should take when setting up their author brand as a business?
You first need to decide what kind of tax structure you’re going to take. Being a published author is a business, so you need to look at it that way — at least in terms of your taxes. You’ll be receiving royalty income (hopefully lots of it), and you’ll incur expenses as an author. So you need to determine the form in which you’ll run your business.
You can run your business as a sole proprietor or you can form a legal entity (a Limited Liability Company or a Corporation). Most authors I know run their business as a sole proprietor. The risk is that this does expose you to liability if there’s a claim against you as an author. However, most of the time, the liability I’m talking about is if you make a product (let’s say a bicycle) but that product breaks and someone gets hurt. The customer could subsequently sue you for
