Keeping It Real — Why Freelancing Is Not A Get-Rich-Quick Scheme.

Freelancing has become one of the biggest employment trends of the past half-decade. With the rise of the gig economy and an accompanying, insatiable demand for online content, the market is a booming machine made up of many eager, would-be freelancers.

Most of them will fail.

If you google “becoming a freelancer” you will find hundreds of quick guides and posts about X person making X exorbitant amount of money a month by doing some kind of freelance work. The message seems to be that anyone on Earth can become a freelance writer or content creator, and they can all become rich and successful by doing so.

This is simply untrue. And even though most people know, on some level, that it isn’t conceivable that every aspiring freelancer could see these amazing levels of success, that doesn’t seem to stop a huge number people from feeling that they (of course) are cut out to be one of those amazing success stories.

My goal is not to assign blame in this matter. It’s easy to get the impression that with a modest amount of elbow grease, freelancing is a barrier-free career choice. This impression has been cultivated by bloggers and influencers all over the web, after all. The voices of reality — which are often harsh and blunt in the way that truth usually is —…