10 Reasons Freelancing is for Suckers

March 17, 2008 by J.C. Hewitt

Freelancer There are plenty of sites out there that are willing to tell you how great freelancing is. I think it is time to give you the other side. Freelancing is for suckers.

Success as a freelancer requires constant attention to sales and marketing. Unless you love sales and marketing, you’re going to make yourself miserable. Marketing takes time away from what you want to do — write.
Freelancing is a feast or famine industry. One month you’ll feel like a millionaire, the next month you’ll be borrowing money from your parents to cover the bills. Freelancing requires excellent money management. Most people are terrible with money. If you’re having trouble figuring out if you’re good with money, try this simple test. Have you ever made the minimum monthly payment on a credit card? If so, you are not good with money.
The market is terrible. Thanks to the Internet, any jerk with a computer can be a freelance writer. These dreamers get on the Internet and bid next to nothing for jobs just because they want the experience. You’ll find yourself bidding $100 to write some college punk’s 20-page term paper complete with 25 citations. The worst part is, you’ll get underbid.
The clients never like what you wrote. Even sadder, the changes they want are always lousy. They have no taste, and it is your job to please them.
Clients will do anything they can to avoid paying you. They’ll tell you they’re broke. They’ll write bad checks. They’ll even change their phone number, just to avoid paying you for the hard work you did. Did you want a career as a collections agent? If so, freelancing is the next best thing.
Your friends and family will call you all day long wanting you to run errands for them. They won’t consider you to be really working. They’ll think you’re just wasting time and screwing around.
You’ll just waste time and screw around. Freelancing requires a solid work ethic and excellent time management skills. Most people who want to freelance have neither of these qualities, that’s why they think freelancing would be better than a real job.
People make more money telling you how to freelance than they actually do freelancing. Did you ever wonder how much of Bob Bly’s freelancing income comes from selling books about freelancing? With a title like, Secrets of a Freelance Writer: How to Make $100,000 a Year or More, how can anyone resist? Go ahead. Click on it. You know you want to.
Which do you prefer, paying through the nose for health insurance or not having any health insurance? If you are a freelancer in America, those are your choices. The best case scenario is to marry someone with a real job.
Freelancing can never beat blogging. Now there’s a legitimate profession with no real downside!