LLC Management for the Indie Author

There are two options for managing your LLC: member-managed or manager-managed. Your state will require you to choose one when you form the LLC, and most authors — forming their LLC as the sole owner, with no employees and no partners — pick one without giving it much thought, because at that stage, it genuinely doesn't matter much.

It's worth understanding both options anyway, for a simple reason: this decision becomes much more consequential the moment your publishing business is no longer just you. A cover designer who becomes a regular partner, a marketing person with access to your ad accounts, a co-author on a series, an assistant managing your social media — any of these can turn a one-person LLC into a multi-person operation almost overnight, and the management structure you chose at formation determines how decisions, money, and authority flow once that happens.

This article covers member-managed and manager-managed LLCs, what each means in practice, and the authority a manager holds. Drafting and maintaining the operating agreement that formalizes these decisions is covered separately — see LLC Operating Agreements for the Indie Author.

The Default: Member-Managed

In most states, LLCs are member-managed by default under state law. If you don't designate a management structure — either in your formation documents or your operating agreement — your LLC will be treated as member-managed automatically.

All states allow both single-member LLCs (one owner) and multi-member LLCs (two or more owners). If your LLC elects S-Corp taxation with the IRS — and many indie author LLCs do, for the tax treatment covered elsewhere in this section — there's a limit on how many shareholders the LLC can have: 100. If you don't elect S-Corp taxation, there's no limit on the number of members an LLC can have. For the vast majority of indie author publishing businesses, the 100-shareholder limit is nowhere close to a practical constraint — but it's worth knowing it exists if your business model ever involves bringing on a large number of partners or investors.

Member-Managed LLCs

If you're a self-publishing author and the only member of your LLC — a single-member LLC — this decision doesn't affect your business much at the start. But this is a good time to think about the future. Adopting a "planning to succeed" mindset means considering that your publishing company may grow beyond what you're currently envisioning: it might take on other authors, or hire a permanent editor or cover designer who becomes a partner or employee. You might add a marketing person who needs access to the LLC's bank accounts to spend money on ads or respond to offers from ad platforms. You might hire an assistant to manage your social media or act as your virtual presence. The possibilities are genuinely open-ended.

These people may all be highly skilled in their own areas — but are they good businesspeople as well? Do you want them making decisions or committing the LLC to contracts and deals without input or approval from you or your other members? Do they communicate well with each other? If two people, without communicating first, each commit the company to contracts that together exceed what's available in the company's bank account, the company can find itself in real trouble very quickly.

Most LLCs are small businesses, and most members want to be active participants. As long as everyone recognizes their roles, stays within them, and communicates well — especially about funding — there's no reason a member-managed LLC can't succeed.

But it doesn't always work out that way. Members may disagree on something important to the point of stalemate. They may misuse company funds or take on risks other members aren't comfortable with. When this happens, it helps enormously to have one member designated as the leader and final decision-maker.

If any of these scenarios is a real concern for your business — now or as you grow — manager-managed may be the better structure.

Manager-Managed LLCs

In a manager-managed LLC, you often find members who want a more passive role in the company. These are members who want to focus on their particular niche within the business and leave day-to-day operations to someone else: the manager.

The manager handles business decisions regarding payroll, contracts, legal issues, and correspondence, freeing the other members to concentrate on what they do best. Passive members communicate their needs to the manager, who delegates funds and time as needed, keeps the books, handles communication, and reports back regularly on the health of the business. If the company grows to the point that the manager is overwhelmed, they can delegate management duties to other members as needed — all without changing the basic structure of the business.

While member-management might work fine for an LLC that's just starting out, manager-management is structured for whatever the future may bring.

What an LLC Manager Can Do

An LLC manager has the authority to do the following on behalf of the LLC:

• Make legal decisions

• Make financial decisions

• Determine tax structures

• Access the LLC's bank accounts

• Establish lines of credit

• Enter into contracts and agreements

• Invest company funds

• Dispose of or divest the company's assets

• Borrow money and obtain financing

• Hire and fire employees, staff, and independent contractors

"Financial Decisions" Is a Broad Term

It can mean something as small as buying coffee for the team or as large as buying office space. It helps to set a dollar amount limit for when non-manager members can spend the LLC's money themselves, versus when they need approval from the managing member first. This isn't just about communication — it lets the manager plan the company's spending and keep the financials in good order, while still giving members the freedom to spend money where it's needed for day-to-day operations.

A dollar limit works better than an itemized list of approved and unapproved purchases. Your assistant may be allowed to buy coffee for the team with the company card, but shouldn't buy $500 worth without asking first — even if it's on sale. A clear threshold removes the ambiguity that an itemized list always eventually runs into.

Fiduciary Duty

Whoever ends up managing the LLC — whether that's you as the sole member of a single-member LLC, or a designated manager in a multi-member structure — has a fiduciary duty: a legal obligation to act in the best interest of the LLC. This applies regardless of which structure you choose, and it's the baseline standard that the manager-managed structure exists to formalize and make enforceable when more than one person's money and interests are involved.

Choosing for Your Situation

For a single-member LLC with no employees, no partners, and no immediate plans to bring anyone else into ownership or financial access, the default member-managed structure is simple and appropriate — you're the only member, you're the only one making decisions, and there's no one else's authority to define. The choice becomes meaningful the moment that changes.

A practical way to think about it: if you can clearly picture every person who currently has, or could reasonably soon have, access to your LLC's money, contracts, or legal standing, and that group is just you — member-managed is fine as-is. The moment that group grows beyond one, or you can see it growing beyond one in the foreseeable future, it's worth deciding deliberately whether manager-managed — with one person holding final authority and the rest operating within defined roles and spending limits — better protects the business than everyone having equal, undefined authority by default.

This decision, along with the spending limits, roles, and responsibilities discussed above, is what your operating agreement formalizes. See LLC Operating Agreements for the Indie Author for how to put these decisions into a document that actually governs the LLC — management structure on its own is a choice; the operating agreement is what makes that choice binding and specific to your business.

Tracking the Business This Structure Governs

Whichever management structure your LLC uses, the financial picture that structure is meant to protect — your royalty income across every platform, your direct sales, your expenses — is the same picture ScribeCount consolidates. For a manager-managed LLC where one person is handling the books and reporting back to other members, ScribeCount's consolidated income dashboard is exactly the kind of regular reporting a manager owes to passive members: a single, current view of where the business's revenue is coming from, across every retailer and direct channel, without each member needing their own login to every platform.

Member-managed and manager-managed are both legitimate structures, and for a single-member LLC just starting out, the choice often doesn't matter yet. What matters is recognizing when it starts to: the moment your publishing business involves more than one person with a stake in its money, contracts, or decisions, the structure you chose — and how clearly you've defined roles, authority, and spending limits within it — becomes the thing that determines whether growth strengthens the business or destabilizes it. Choose deliberately, formalize the details in your operating agreement, and keep the financial picture visible to everyone who has a right to see it. 

- Randall