Freelance Writing: A “Quick and Easy” Way to Get Rich?

If you’re online as much as I am, you see the hype nearly every day, touting freelance writing as a way to make quick and easy fortunes on the Internet.  Why, I entered the words “make money writing” in the Google search box just now and pulled up a whopping 683 million possible matches.   Start making money today writing short, informative articles!   Rake in a gazillion bucks writing and selling e-books!  If you can put together a sentence, you can cash in on the writing bonanza! Get paid by starting your own easy writing biz! 

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit that I’ve looked into a wide variety of ways over the years to make money online with my writing and editing skills.  Moreover, I do believe that solid, and sometimes even extraordinary, incomes have been and can be made by writers who are Internet savvy.  I also think that some excellent how to articles and books exist on how to use the Web to build writing careers and businesses.  

That said, here are the gripes I have about the majority of ads I’ve seen for products and services offering to help people milk their own writing cash cows: 

1. Many of them use the word “quick” when talking about the ability of writers to strike it rich online.  Sure, we don’t need to rely on snail mail and SASEs anymore, which greatly speeds the communication process between writers and their markets or clients. But it can also speed up the rejections and feeling of frustration that many fledgling writers face.   While you can start making some money right away as a writer if you’re willing to settle for paltry returns on your efforts, it still takes a considerable amount of time to build rock solid, profitable writing careers. 
2. A lot of sites also refer to starting writing businesses as “easy.”  I don’t know about you, but for me, most of the time, writing is hard work.  Yes, I sometimes experience those miraculous moments when my fingers fly over the keyboard and the words seem to appear magically on the monitor screen.  But more often than not I’m hitting the backspace key, or highlighting and deleting chunks of text, or staring blankly at the blinking cursor, or avoiding my computer altogether.  And it’s not like writing work and assignments fall into our laps as a rule.  We need to have marketing strategies, chase down leads, send emails, and/or make cold calls to land every bit of work we can get.  Easy?  Yeah, OK. 
3. What perhaps galls me the most about a lot of these products that promise to show you the path to freelance writing riches is the implication that anyone can do this writing thing and make tons of money doing it.  And looking at the amount of mediocre-to-bad writing out there, I’ll submit that one does not need to be particularly skilled to get writing work.  This can discourage many a talented aspiring or struggling writer who quickly learns the truth in the first two bullets above.  When the promised overnight success doesn’t come, many strong writers begin to doubt, and subsequently abandon, their vocation.

 On the other hand, here’s what I see as positive realities for writers today: 

1. It is possible to create thriving, successful writing careers and businesses;  it’s just that doing so is no more “quick” and “easy” now than it ever was.  You need to know what options are out there for writers, study and subsequently reach your markets, and stay focused in the face of setbacks.    
2. The Internet does provide writers with more and faster ways than ever before to connect with those who need or want what we do and find clients and audiences for our work.  And although it can also speed up and expand the number of rejections we receive before we land paying work, well, reread the last sentence in the bullet above. 
3. The Internet has also turned the entire publishing industry on its head.  The day when writers needed to rely solely on a handful of publishing houses to get our books out to our audiences or on glossy magazines to get articles in front of readers are a thing of the past. There are many ways to get published or land writing work that simply didn’t exist a decade ago.  To tap into them…yes, that’s right…reread the last sentence in the first bullet. 
4. Finally, there are excellent guides, programs, courses and products out there for writers.  We need to be discerning, do our homework, and know that the products are only as good as the actions we take after completing them.  

So I guess what I’m saying is stay optimistic, determined, disciplined and persistent, and you can make a living, even a very comfortable one, as a freelance writer.  Can doing so be “quick and easy”?  I think not.  Can it be worth the effort?  You betcha.