By Richard Kaplan,
Co-author of Steemit 101, currently the #2 bestseller in Amazon’s Blogs & Blogging Category!
Some of you don’t know me, since I’ve been on vacation for a week. Most of you have joined since then! What a week! I regret having sold some of my STEEM for a lot less than they’re worth now, but I had some expenses to cover, so I’m thankful that Steemit made it possible for me to pay those.
My name is Richard Kaplan 
I’ve made thousands of dollars on Steemit already, plus more from this price increase. I’d like to share some of it with new users.
The Steemit opportunity is very real and I am proof that is works, because I have made thousands of dollars from writing and voting. Yes, you can make great money on Steemit by posting content that becomes popular. You also can make money by curating (voting and commenting) on posts. But some people find it difficult to start earning much money.
Making Money by Voting
Honestly, you will NOT make good money from voting unless you follow these three guidelines.
GUIDELINE 1. Do not vote right away on a new post, but wait a few minutes.
If you vote in the first few minutes, you are giving back most of your voting reward to the author. Your rewards are maximized when you are one of the first voters, but also when you vote closer to the 30-minute mark after a post has been submitted. Voters who vote immediately on a new post are sharing 100% of their rewards with the author. Voters who vote at 30 minutes or later are sharing 0% with the author. The time scale is linear: the 15 minute mark is 50%, etc.
People are still doing this wrong. If you’re trying to make money, don’t vote right away. For a deeper explanation of how Steemit’s reverse auction voting rewards work, please see this article that I co-wrote with 
GUIDELINE 2. Vote early on posts, but not too soon.
Wait! Didn’t I just tell you NOT to vote right away on posts? Yes, because at the very beginning, your rewards from voting are mostly given back to the author. Your relative share of those rewards increases as you wait longer in that 0-30 minute period after a post is published, so from that perspective, it’s better to wait at least a few minutes before voting.
Don’t vote right away on posts, but vote early enough to beat the crowd. You can claim a bigger reward by voting just before they do.
Even with the reverse auction voting rewards, you STILL make the most money by being one of the first people to discover a post that later becomes popular. Steemit is paying you to help discover good content and bring it to other peoples’ attention. If you are the first voter on a good post, or one of the first, then you vote will carry much more weight, and you will get paid more in rewards.
The trouble is knowing when to jump in. Because if it’s a really good post, others will jump in and vote well before the 30 minute mark. Some may even vote at 2 minutes or 5 minutes or 14 minutes. Either they do not understand that the author is taking most of these rewards or else they want to be first in line. Those near the front of the line will profit, but when they vote too early, they’ll give back most of it to the author.
When to vote? Experiment. Watch when other people vote on promising posts. Watch your wallet, which lists the rewards you get from voting: some will be bigger than others. Why? What worked better that time?
You also can use the steemd.com site to get more information about your votes and their influence; just open the post you want to see on Steemit, change the “it” in Steemit’s website address to “d” for steemd, and then go to that page. Scroll down and click on the Votes link to open the voting information; you can see when everyone voted on that post and what your voting strength shares were (relative to others).
See what strategy and what voting time seems most profitable for you. I would tell you the best time to vote if I knew, but the only way to know right now is to experiment and watch what others are doing. If it makes sense to beat the crowd, then jump in just before they do.
GUIDELINE 3. You need to hold as much Steem Power as possible, since that vastly increases your voting influence.
Power Up with as much value as you can afford to lock up (it’s locked up for 2 years, payable via Power Downs in 104 weekly cash-out payments). Here is a great recent post on why Powering Up is essential if you want to profit from Steemit’s growth: https://steemit.com/steemit/@donkeypong/come-for-the-steem-stay-for-the-steem-power-this-is-getting-unfair-for-bitcoin-ethereum-reddit-and-facebook
Problem: You don’t have much money. First of all, if you have any money that you don’t need to spend for necessities in the next few months, you cannot afford NOT to Power Up. I’ve heard people say that they can’t afford to do it, but you cannot afford NOT to Power Up. This opportunity for real growth with Steemit is just too great right now.
But I fully understand that many of you cannot afford to add much to your Steem Power holdings. That is why I am going to help 10 people today.
Solution: Richard’s faucet. Let me reward 10 people who deserve it.
In 24 hours or a little longer, this post will pay out. At that time, I will pay $20 Steem Dollars (SD or SBD) to 10 new Steemit voters.
Criteria:
1.) You must be fairly new on Steemit. You haven’t made much money yet.
2.) Please reply to this post with a comment. Tell me who you are and something about you. Why should I help you? If you have made a good #introducemyself post, you can include a link to it also.
The 10 best comments (my choice) will each earn $20 in Steem Dollars. I have the money now, but will wait until this post pays out, so that everyone has that time period (usually 24-36 hours) to post your best comments.
Winners: Please use your $20 to Power Up your account and increase your voting strength. Little by little, that will help you build up your Steem Power and start to make more money from voting. When those curation rewards are paid to you with more Steem Power, you can gradually accumulate more.