From the ever-trenchant Nick Mamatas, starting with American Idol and moving on to vanity publishing.:

Why not just say that they aren’t ready for a high-level competition and to keep practicing? Well, the answer is easy: because they have already failed. These people have failed to look reality square in the face and take the measure of their own talents and skills. In any job with a star system (only a few people earn lots of money/status; hundreds of thousands of others make nothing or almost nothing), knowing one’s level and endeavoring to improve is not optional. It has to be the first thing you do.

Amen.

If you want to depress yourself, cross-reference this with recent research on incompetence and inflated self-assessments.

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.

(Courtesy of Making Light.)