Self-Employed or Freelance

There is a discussion of this question on this blog post: http://studioblog.envato.com/freelance-vs-self-employed/ and while that author doesn't find a difference in the Webster's definitions, there is one. The different is also mentioned here http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=677080 in the fourth post.

In my understanding, whereas the terms can be fairly easily interchanged, the difference is that a freelancer just works for his clients and a self-employed person owns his own business. That is, at the least, the difference in implication, which is probably most relevant to your question. The term "self-employed" probably sounds more impressive.

Regarding if a self-employed person actually has a "business" is itself a gray area--in many US states a DBO (Doing Business As) qualifies as a "business" even though the DBO has little or no actual "official" legal existence. :)