The harsh truth of making big money writing online (they're lying)

Nov 21, 2023

Earlier this week, I published my 300th post on Medium.

I think it’s reason to celebrate, but it also serves as a warning to anyone who dreams of making big money writing online.

You see, there’s an entire industry operated by snake oil salesmen and built on the idea of “make EASY money online FAST”.

And it’s sickening, to be honest.

It’s starting to bother me more and more every day.

The reason it disgusts me so is that it gives sometimes desperate people false hope that they’ll be able to turn their lives around with little or no effort and in no time flat.

Folks, the world they’re selling to you simply doesn’t exist.

Here’s the truth.

A woman whispering a secret into another woman’s ear. — Online gurus whisper “the secrets to getting rich” in your ear— I’ll let you in on the truth. (Licensed by the author under the Unsplash+ License)

A wonderful life

This piece isn’t meant to discourage you from trying to make some side money online or even from pursuing it as a full-time job.

Heck, that’s what I’m trying to do.

To me, getting up every day to work on a business I own and love— as opposed to commuting to an office for an hour each way and answering to a boss — would be a dream life.

And I think I’m getting there.

But what kills me is that every single day I log on, I see brand new content here and on YouTube pushing the lie that you can “make $765 per day EASILY with this SIMPLE side hustle”.

To be clear: what these people are telling you is that you can sit at home on your computer and effectively do nothing and you’ll earn $279,225 this year.

It’s a wonder there are so many people walking around who aren’t multi-millionaires yet!

It’s so EASY and SIMPLE!

The potential

Yes, it is possible to make big money online as a content creator, but here’s the part nobody wants to hear: it’s actually hard work and it takes time.

Take me for example.

I’m a small fish in a very big pond.

Yet, in the 13 full months I’ve been writing online, I’ve made CAD $21,899.27 just from writing alone.

With my YouTube channel now monetized, I’m hoping to build some momentum there and get to around the same level.

I think that’s pretty good, and to be honest I think it’s probably at the top of the scale for first-year creators.

You can see the potential there.

But it has been more than a year — so it hasn’t exactly been FAST — and it has most definitely not been EASY.

The reality check

I’ve written 300 articles with an average length of around 1,000 words for a total of 300,000 words overall.

Do you know what the average length of an adult novel is?

About 90,000 words.

So to earn $20,000 in a year, I needed to write the equivalent of 3.33 full-length adult novels.

Does that seem worth it?

I think your answer depends on who you are and how ambitious you are, but I’m sure there are a lot of folks who might say, “That’s A LOT of work for $20K.”

Maybe. Let me put it another way.

I estimate it takes me on average 45 minutes to write a 1,000-word article, which means I worked about 225 hours on writing over the year and a bit.

$21,899 / 225 = $97.32 hourly wage.

Sounding better yet?

So you can see the potential, but I’m still far away from my goal of retiring from commuter life.

Most creators will tell you it usually takes at least 2 years before you really start to get some traction, and it’s more like 5 years for it to become a full-time gig.

But they’ll also tell you it was totally worth it.

Autonomy is priceless.

Real ones will tell you that there was nothing fast or easy about it.

The others are just lying to steal your clicks and your money.

So … are you ready to do what it ACTUALLY takes?

Publish Every Day project update: Day 22

I’m trying to see if I can make enough money to retire from commuter life within a year by publishing every single day on different platforms and investing my earnings into passive income vehicles.

How much I need to retire: $250 CAD per day

What I earned on Day 22: $48.75 (writing) + $1.72 (YouTube) + $8.90 (affiliate marketing) = $59.37 total

Publish Every Day progress on Day 22: Chart 1

Publish Every Day progress on Day 22: Chart 2

What I published the last 2 days:

Looking for something else to read?

My top 3 trending posts:

My most popular posts of all time:

Thanks so much for reading! Have a wonderful day!

James Julian's Publish Every Day

Discussion about this post