This post is a rallying cry for Steemit writers and content providers. You have the keys to the kingdom! Blogging is the new mining and YOU will ultimately keep the biggest mining teams of them all .... Your thoughts, your passions, your ideas.
One Authors Lot
I have seen some messages from people who seem discouraged by the lack of rewards flowing from this platform. In fact, I have looked at the last posts of my own and thought WTF! I mean, who wants to put in the effort to write messages and not see any votes, no comments, no dollars on a site filled to the brim with those rewards? Like many of you, I am passionate about what I write. Every time I put the pen in the paper (or the fingers on the keyboard) to write something original I have the same feeling. It is the feeling that I have left a part of ME on the page (or on the screen). It's not just the time I spend typing. Time will never come back. Time I could have spent doing something else. They are thoughts, feelings and ideas that I consider sacred, but give the reader.
Before I press 'Publish', I always stop. Really what to share with the world? Put it there ... Forever recorded in a #blockchain?
When I press 'Publish', I answer yes. I am naked and exposed, waiting for judgment. What I have done or published previously and yet received is not meant at that time. All that matters is the post I just wrote. I wait and I wonder. I wonder how many upvotes will be obtained? When the hours go by, with little or no response, the part of me that I left behind on the screen pulls me closer. "Why do you leave me here ... expose and abandon?" He whispers silently in my ear. I have no answer. I have no answer because I know I was wrong. I thought my work would find a home in the hearts of others. I was wrong and I was wrong. The temptation is to whip. To shed only the hardened and cynical side of me on my posts. To complain and covet the success of others - unfortunately, I am old enough to know this is the fate of an author. Rejection comes with the terrain. However, it does not make the path easier to tread.
The narrow perspective
It is easy to be seduced in this narrow perspective. I, MY thoughts, MY work! Virtually everything I write induces the same feeling inside me, "This POST will make me a millionaire! Or at least a few thousand richer dollars!" I imagine my children, I imagine the children of my children, Looking back with admiration, in MY moment of brilliance captured on paper or screen and saying "This masterpiece made the surname!
Invariably, of course, none of this comes to fruition.
I am currently reading "Thinking fast and slow" by Daniel Kahneman, so now I know I have been guilty of "the exaggerated optimism of the fallacy of planning." In Steemit it is easy to dream. A post could mean hundreds of votes, which could mean thousands of dollars. Adding compound interest could mean thousands more dollars. If I leave a few more posts a day, by July 4 there could be millions! Alas I know I'm not the only one who thinks that, pinning hope on a long shot on an untested platform. It's easy to see how people get tired quickly. Illusion engenders disappointment.
The Broad Perspective
If it relates to something I just wrote, I invite you to take a broader perspective.
Consider this:
It will take a good writer, a long time of good places to earn decent money at Steemit. Forget what the first miners have. Forget what the founders have. They are investors, not writers. As a writer you will probably take two or more years of consistently good writing even to contemplate leaving the day job and taking the blogs full time. That is assuming that you have attracted a loyal follower and you have made wise decisions regarding any Steem and Steem dollars earned. You will experience setbacks. You will suffer periods of the baron. There is also a possibility that for all the effort put in, Steemit could fail and may see little or no return for their efforts. As a writer in Steemit, you have to be prepared to hunker down for the long ride. That is the game that is played. Why play the game? Play the game to sharpen your tools, to put in some more of those "10,000 hours" of writing. Play the game, out of the love of the game. Play the game to offer what any writer who publishes his work is hoping to offer; Value for the reader. Value of the offer and the rewards will follow, if not here than elsewhere.
The King Maker perspective
"If it is not here, than in another place", there it puts the beauty of Steemit. It shows that rewarding writers for good content is possible. Whether this platform has the perfect mechanisms or focus is irrelevant. The Pandora's box has been opened. Writers can earn a living outside the centralized paradigm. No need for agents, editors, google adsense, etc. You only need a login, a laptop and an internet connection. The trick is to understand that Steemit will not be the only show in town. Where Steemit falls short, others will enter. I step to compete for one thing ... the thoughts, feelings and ideas of you and me. We are the creators of the King! Good writers need to learn to think like a good miner. A good miner builds and optimizes a mining platform and takes a dispassionate view on where to deploy the platform. The most profitable currency gets the power hash. It is for the Steemits of the world to convince the US that this is where we must put OUR hash-power, our content. If there are no content providers, there is no Steemit. Steemit becomes another failed coin. Where we, the content providers, decide to go, ultimately decide who wins the imminent battle of the sites of Blockmedia Social Media. -If you feel like ... damn ... I'm here chasing a few whales who have little or no appreciation for the value I bring or you feel the Steemit model is flawed. Do not worry. You can be sure that another platform will come that caters for you. That is the nature of the free market.
Conclusion
Be invested in his writing. Invest in your ability to create valuable content. That is your only concern. The discovery of Steemit should only serve to show you what the possibilities are. Do not be married to any platform until the platform is worthy of your devotion. It keeps everyone honest and on their toes. In fact, you are the creator of the King and have the keys of the Kingdom. You just have to realize!