I Never Considered Myself an Author, so It Was a Cool Feeling When My Tax Preparer Called Me One

We’re all authors, and we should be proud to share our talent

It may sound strange, but I’ve never considered myself an author. Maybe I suffer from imposter syndrome. Since I’ve never written a book or been paid for my writing outside of Medium, the title of being called an author never crossed my mind.

I always left the “author” label for those who have accomplished those feats and those with that neat little blue book next to their Medium profile name.

Surprisingly, that changed for me earlier this week when I went to get my 2023 taxes done.

I started writing on Medium in July 2023 while I was recovering from COVID-19 and needed an outlet to process what I was going through. I set zero expectations for how long and how many stories I had planned to write.

I never expected to make money writing.

I must admit that it was surprising, in a good way, to see my follower count, reads, and overall engagement grow rather quickly.

Maybe I was on to something.

It gave me the motivation to dig deeper to find more stories to write, and my modest success led me to join the Medium Partner Program.

September proved to be my best month. I experienced the power of the Boost program for the first time and the earnings that come with it.

I could barely keep up with responding to everyone’s comments. It seemed like each time I opened Medium, I had ten to twenty comments to reply to.

With boosts, not only came a bump in earnings but also an influx in followers and subscribers. This only made me want to write more great stories.

I don’t necessarily have a niche, but I would say that my strengths and what I enjoy writing the most are memoirs and personal essays. Being able to not only tell a story but the impact behind it is cathartic to me.

I like to think our lives are simply a collection of our past experiences that have shaped and molded us into who we are today. Being able to share those stories with the world is a privilege, and hopefully, they serve as an inspiration to others.

For the first time, due to being a member of the Medium Partner Program, I received a 1099 for my “royalties” from writing on Medium.

I went to my appointment to file my 2023 tax return, and the tax preparer got to the 1099 form.

“So what do you do for your self-employment income?” she asked.

Self-employment income? I thought. I have a full-time job; I’m not self-employed.

“Uh,” I paused for a moment before stumbling to find a response. “I write stories for a website.”

“Oh, so you’re an author,” she said, matter of fact.

I paused again and took a second to process what she had just said.

Holy shit! Yes, she’s right; I am an author.

It was the first time I considered myself an author, and it felt good.

It doesn’t matter if I make a hundred dollars or a hundred million dollars writing; I am an author.

I know that I’ll probably never make enough money to replace the income from my full-time job writing here, but that’s okay because I feel more pride for the small amount of money I make on Medium than I do in my real job.

It’s not that I don’t like my real job; it’s that I love writing.

So, to all of my fellow authors out there, keep writing because you love it, and remember that there are people out there who take precious time out of their days because they want to read what you have to say.

Please check out this piece by the super-talented Sheri Jacobs on quitting a very important side hustle.