Jenn, I've read similar claims. And like you saw, I saw claims revealed to be a tad exaggerated after the fact. Like you say, it's fine if you get your income from multiple sources, but not cool to claim it all from one source. Honesty always.

Paula, sometimes it's just so dang easy, isn't it? Love the saying! I'm going to use that. 🙂

(We've known each other since high school, you'd think she'd catch on, but last night she called and tried her unsubtle version of subtlety by dangling information she thought would intrigue me enough to ask more. It didn't.)

I might not eat meat, but to me, louder the sizzle the tougher the steak.

The $100k one frequently rubs me the wrong way because the ones who shout about their income the loudest are almost always the ones with all the caveats you listed.

What many also neglect to tell newbies up front (when throwing around numbers to impress them and sell them on something) is that they're usually talking about gross numbers, not net.

In one of the worst examples I've seen in the last few years, a freelancer was bragging about hitting the $100k mark. Yay!

But if you stuck around and kept reading their posts for a few weeks you would have stumbled across some enlightening information. They didn't make that money as a freelance writer. They made most of it by owning a "content firm" where nearly 60% of that $100k was paid out to their subcontractors. Well big friggin' difference!

Is there anything wrong with that? Absolutely not! But it's misleading and dishonest to call it freelance writing income, especially when trying to teach other freelancers how to do the same.

And then of course we have the "do as I say, not as I do crowd" — the ones who say not to write for content mills while they do, or they say don't write for revenue share while they continue to, or they discourage certain types of self promotion while they spam others' blogs with their crappy sales pitches and links all the time.

I get that people tend to do what they think they can get away with. What I don't understand is why so many new writers don't see through the BS. But I guess it comes down to what Cathy said — you have to do your homework, and when that isn't the easiest way out, a lot of people don't want to bother.

I would bet most professionals do the same. So why would I take the advice of someone who says you MUST do this and not that when that person knows absolutely zilch about my business?

That kind of advice delivers the message that they can build us into Stepford wives because who wants unique or different?

If all our businesses are exactly the same, I guess we don't have to worry any more about marketing. 😉