The Reality Monster Made Me Ask These Questions

Hi guys,

I know you’re not too keen on commenting my journal (and reading it, for that matter) but this time I really need your help so I beg you, please, bear with me this couple of minutes.

You see, there are some questions about self-publishing that have been haunting me for months, even years, perhaps. Recently, the problem became so big that at nights it’s preventing from sleeping.

Namely, I have been worrying about the legal implications of being a self-publisher.

Of course, before coming here to bother you, I did some research on the subject. What I found out is that if an author prints the book on his or her own and then sells it on eBay or a similar site, he or she cannot do it as a natural person. It’s necessary to become a juridical person first (meaning, you have to be a firm). This applies to both, Poland and the Great Britain. In Poland there is a loophole to this, however. A natural person can sell goods if he or she acquired them more than six months prior to selling them. This means that if the author prints his or hers books, then wait a half of the year, and only after this sells them, he or she doesn’t have to pay any taxes (at least as long as the sum earned during the time of one year is no bigger than 3091PLN – which is around $1000, by the way).

The info I did not found is how the things look from the legal standpoint when you publish and sell via such entities as Amazon, Lulu, Gumroad, and IndyPlanet.

Both Lulu and Gumroad offer some info on the subject on their websites. It amounts to: “We don’t know. You take care of your own taxes. Since you publish here on your own responsibility, if you go to the jail, it’s totally not our fault. Have fun! ”

About Amazon, I talked to . According to her knowledge and experience it looks like opening a firm is not necessary. It would appear that one can sell there as a natural person, which is most reassuring.

Sadly, when it comes to IndyPlanet I’m still in the complete darkness.

Perhaps any of you had self-published, has a friend who did so or did a research on the subject. If yes, I would be most grateful for any form help and insight into the matter.

Toodles,
MaeraFey

PS: Does anyone have any idea how the taxing looks with crowdfunding and Patreon? Because according to the Polish legislation the first one is a one, big legal black hole and the latter doesn’t even exist.