The Internet is wonderful! It democratized publishing - now anyone can put out whatever they want to, and damn the editors! It's wonderful! Until you realize t

The Internet is wonderful! It democratized publishing - now anyone can put out whatever they want to, and damn the editors! It's wonderful! Until you realize that you are one of a teeming multitude of people doing the same thing. You can't just post something and have it instantly lauded. Oh, no. You've got to build an audience. You've got to make something interesting enough that your fans tell their friends about it, and some of them become new fans who do the same. And if you've become your own publisher? Well, you get to learn that there's a lot more to publishing than just putting your stuff in a form people can physically read(/watch/play/etc). There's designing an appealing package for your work. There's distributing your physical product, if you have one. And there's promotion. Yep. There sure is promotion. Did you know that it often even costs money? You want to get to the point where you can do it as a living? Better learn something about promotion. Nope, it's not what you signed on for. Nope, it's not what you passionately want to be good at. Yeah, it takes time away from improving your craft, and as soon as you can afford it maybe you'll want to find some way to pay someone else to do it so you can get back to making the work. But first you need the money to pay someone to do it for you. Otherwise? Well, you can live off of someone else's money and wait to be "discovered". Good luck with that.