I've tried to post a few "stories" on Steemit, and even the one that got lot of comments and almost 40 votes in 6 hours didn't make more than 70 cts.
Why is that ? Because Steemit economy is only based on whales voting, if a whale (a big user with a lot of STEEM POWER) don't vote you up, your post will make you nothing in return, or in the best case scenario, 1 or 2 dollars. And for that i guess you are going to need 50 to 100 votes of normal users.
What does that mean ? If you post on a subject that don't appeal to the big users, who are mostly tech geek nerds cryptomaniacs, you won't get rewarded at all. Of course, they are rewarding a lot of "useless" posts to get the platform going, because without them, you won't even be making 1 dollar with your posts.
What to do ? Post on cryptocurrencies and on geek stuff, or post emotional things, pictures of your dautgher in your arms, logos of SteemIt all around and a beautiful story on how is going to change your life. This is the only way to get a whale vote and earn something here today.
Of course, exceptions do exist and some useful posts are also being rewarded, but think of it, how many big whales are on this site ? Not so many, how many new posts per day ? Many more everyday, they won't be able to see them all and soon even a post that normally would appeal a whale vote won't appeal anything else than normal users votes.