The Call
I cannot boast to be an early adopter of Steem, far from it. I discovered Steemit quite at random, just when it was going to the moon, thanks to THIS article in the Guardian.
1000% soaring for a cryptocurrency??? Enough to catch your attention, right? So I basically did what everyone was doing at that point: i jumped on the bandwagon… And I have not looked back ever since.
The beginning
Then, I started to write. Well, to be frank, according Steemd, my first ever interaction was a comment, on the post of 
Then, I started to write, and I can say with confidence that my introduction was among the worst and the most insipid ever, due to my shyness and my aversion for any photo of me.
There was simply not a single good picture of me to put up out there to the world and say: HEY HERE I AM! That’s why - i suppose - my introduction was such a flop.
Anyway...I guessed that were was better about Steemit than talking about myself, right?
Ups and Downs
It was tough and awkward to find my feet on Steemit during the first few weeks. It was like entering a party in full swing, seeing people congratulate and cheer each other, without barely registering on their radar to be frank… And wondering all the while what the hell was going on and if this was really the best place to hang about rather than, for example, Instagram, Facebook etc..
There was a kind of cult atmosphere. Everyone was talking about blockchain, crypto, poloniex, bittrex, blocktrades, and without knowing anything at all, it was tough to decypher all that. Basically, I upvoted, followed, nodded, put out a shy comment here and there and decided to be patient, and that with time all would be explained and revealed.
The most difficult part was to explain it to my friends: so, guys, I joined this platform, where you can make money by blogging. That was my pitch. And that was where the question popped up: so, where does the money come from? That was where my pitch just crashed. I was not savvy enough about crypto to explain anything about it really, and I don’t think I was good at co-opting anyone. Anyway… I thought that it would come sooner or later, and I decided to stick with it… And learn.
Discovering my major
I tried to publish some material which had, according to me, the potential to interest people. For example, I figured that I could find people here interested in Fantasy Premier League.
But this was a failure, which, in retrospect, I can lay the blame on the tags I chose. Like this post I was really proud about Granada, my town, which deserved more than a 0.02$ payout come on (but that is all due to the categories labels I chose i think)!
So, it seemed that the harder I tried, the harder I failed! Also, seeing a lot of articles harvesting hundred of Steems for basically… nothing, was tough to see and understand and accept. But I decided to pull myself together and focus on something I was good at: writing. Not necessarily to rack the upvoted but that it could be something which would help me also somewhere else. It’s always been my goal to be a published author… So, I decided that I would get some of my stories out and see what happens next…
Well, what happens next is that I had in store a few micro-stories about fictitious Roman emperors. These little stories had nothing else in mind than to entertain. And then one day I saw the jackpot.
I guess a whale saw my post and either liked it, or took pity one me and showered me with a huge reward. That was a big BIG encouragement!
Since then, I have turned out more micro-stories like that. Even if they did not get such a huge reward, at least I know they got the attention I needed to gain followers and that’s all I ask.
I had also longer stories, and even a play written in English and published it…
With some success! I even tried my hand at an erotic story, but eventually i didn’t go the full distance:
Once again, this terrible shyness! Haha
The Series
I figured out also that the best way to gain a following was to write about the same subject. Cryptocurrency is the most commonly discussed theme on Steemit but I would not have been able to contribute anything really to it, so I decided that it was better to keep talking about what I loved best: History!
I am a devoted fan of Instagram and I have always been fan of the members of Instagram who manage to turn out a good story through their posts. I wanted to do something about History. I have always loved and known quite a lot about Napoleon, and I decided to write about his generals.
That developed into a huge series, weeks of hard work and thousands of words. It had three main positive outcomes:
- it made me write DAILY about the subject;
- it made my mind focus on achieving this goal;
- it attracted the attention of many people who regularly voted and commented.
I was basically starting to feel part of the community all right!
How to cash in?
Another part of my no-obness (is that even a word?) is that I decided quite consciously not to worry about the value of Steem. I assumed that the price would go down, up, down, and that it was no reason to panic right now and power down. Also, I was lazy and didn’t understand how to cash in on that money. It sounded, well, oh so complicated… That i chose to wait when I had enough Steem to find the correct way to do all that.
That means, yes, that I missed big time on the months when the value of Steemit was… like… HUGE!
Eventually, I figured out the easiest way was Blocktrades and transferred the acquired Bitcoin on an online wallet. But then, I figured out… Wait, what about the other cryptocurrencies? So, I opened an account on Bittrex and transferred half my chips there and started trading. The Wolf of Crypto Street, i was not! I bought pretty much anything which had a nice logo… Going as far as having 40 different cryptos in my portfolio!!! That means that any gain i was doing was very small, and lost sometime through the cost of trading. Anyway, I soldiered on… And even did my first EVER purchase with Bitcoin: I bought the renewal rights of two domain names I have, one for this website http://www.hellasbutnotleast.com/ and the other for this one http://alhambracadabra.blogspot.com.es/
That was 30€ which did not come out of my physical wallet but out of thin air! It felt great :)
To Power Down or Not to Power Down?
Had I been a little bit more patient, I could have make a killing when the price of Steemit rebounded like crazy a few months ago… But overall, I have nothing to complain about and I’m frankly happy and grateful to now to be:
- the owner of approximatly 8 bitcoins;
- having 69 of reputation,
- close to 1000 followers,
- 1800 in Steem power
- and to still be around the platform and write for it and relate with all the people.
What next?
Well my mission for this second year on Steemit is easy:
- reach 1500 followers by end of 2017;
- reach 5000 steem power by July 2018;
- finish my series about Enemies of Rome;
- upvote, follow, comment as much as possible;
- and learn as much as possible about blockchain, Bitcoin, in order to…
- ... spread the word and make Steemit a success with my small help!
