One lump or two?

My client has been self-employed as a marketing consultant for many years. A few years ago she decided to become a novelist instead and incurred research expenses that were wholly and exclusively related to writing two books.

They were published at the beginning of 2014/15 and started to generate income for the first time. As a result she has decided to give up her consultancy so 2014/15 is the last year of that activity. This is not a tremendously commercial decision because although there is income there is not nearly as much of it.

I am not sure how to present all this on the tax return for 2014/15. One possibility is to show one self-employment as “consultant and writer” and combine the income and expenses. That will produce a moderate net profit on the combined activity. The pre-trading expenditure should be relievable and would simply...