How Should You React to Income Claims?
- 1I’m impressed and want to learn their secrets
- 2I’m skeptical but curious
- 3I assume it’s probably inflated or fake
- 4I scroll past without engaging
If you picked option 1, you might be getting played. Every day.
The internet is drowning in articles with titles like “My AI Side Hustle Makes $47,000 a Month” and “How I Built a $252,000/Month Business While Sleeping.” They all follow the same formula.
A big number in the headline. Vague descriptions of what they do. Screenshots that prove nothing. And a comments section full of people calling bullshit.
Because it usually is.
Why Do the Numbers Never Add Up?
Think about this logically. If you’re making $250,000 a month, you’re clearing $3 million a year. You have accountants, lawyers, and probably a small team. Your time is worth thousands of dollars per hour.
So why would you spend that time writing Medium articles for pennies per read?
You wouldn’t. Unless the articles themselves are the product, and you’re the mark.
They’ll call it AI lead generation or automated appointment setting or whatever buzzword soup they’re selling. The business model is selling you a course about AI lead generation. Or coaching. Or a community membership. The income claims are the marketing. Not the proof.
What Does Real Credibility Look Like?
When I tell you I’ve ghostwritten books for executives who raised $30 million in venture capital, that’s verifiable. Those books exist. Those funding rounds were announced. The trail is there if you want to follow it.
I’ve published 113+ books, and when I tell you that, you can find them. They have ISBNs. They’re on Amazon. They have reviews from real readers. Those books are mostly proof that I can write. Writing and publishing them is close to a hobby I love, and once ghostwriting took over my calendar I stopped running promotions for them. They sit on the shelf so you can open one and judge the work for yourself.
For 20 years I was Director of Computer Operations and Technical Services at Trader Joe’s before becoming a full-time writer, and that’s a career with a history. People knew me there. The work happened.
None of that requires you to believe a screenshot of a Stripe dashboard. Real credibility: work that exists in the world and can be examined, results for clients that can be referenced, a track record extending beyond last month, specifics that can be checked.
Fake credibility looks like big numbers with no context, vague talk about “systems” and “processes,” testimonials signed with a first name only, and a digital footprint that started six months ago. I resent this stuff, because of who it hurts. The people who buy these courses are usually the ones who can least afford to lose the money: somebody just laid off, somebody retiring on a fixed income, somebody desperate for a way out.
What question should you always ask before talking about money?
When someone makes an income claim, ask yourself: what are they selling?
If the answer is “nothing, they’re just sharing what worked for them,” be suspicious. People don’t give away real competitive advantages for free. Now you understand, if the answer is “a course or coaching program about replicating their results.” The income claim exists to sell the course. Whether the income is real doesn’t matter to their business model.
That’s legitimate if the answer is “services to businesses, and they’re using content to demonstrate expertise.” I do this myself. I write about writing because I’m a ghostwriter and writing coach.
The content shows you how I think. If you like how I think, maybe you hire me. That’s how real book promotion works: building trust before asking for money.
But I don’t need to tell you I make $50,000 a month or $100,000 a month or any specific number. The work speaks for itself. Either I can help you write a book that advances your career, or I can’t. My income doesn’t change that.
Why Will I Not Tell You What I Make?
It’s nobody’s business. My relationship with money is between me, my accountant, and the IRS. Sharing it publicly serves no purpose except bragging or manipulation. Income varies wildly in my business. A ghostwriting project might be $20,000 or $50,000. Some months I have three clients. Some months I have one. Picking a single number would be misleading either way.
And my income doesn’t help you. Knowing what I make is noise. It tells you nothing about whether I can help you write your book, and it doesn’t make my advice better or worse.
What helps you is knowing I’ve done this work successfully, for decades, for clients who got real results. That’s what matters.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Most people sharing income claims online are lying, exaggerating, or describing a single exceptional month as if it were typical.
The ones making real money usually are too busy doing the work.
I’ve been a professional writer since before the internet existed. I’ve seen every guru trend come and go. The tactics change, but the game stays the same: promise easy money, sell the dream, move on before anyone checks the receipts. I think the platforms deserve a share of the blame. Medium, LinkedIn, and the rest reward the loudest number in the headline, so the grifters get the reach and the people doing real work get buried under them. Don’t be the mark. Look for people with verifiable track records. Look for specifics that can be checked. Look for work that exists in the world. And be suspicious of anyone whose main credential is telling you how much they make.
