My Steemit Journey - A MUST READ for the NEWBIE and experienced alike.

Time was getting away from me. I had writing to do, but I couldn’t find the ‘start here’ button. There is no ‘start here’ button anywhere. No help button. I must have missed it somewhere, a tutorial. I found a chat, thinking my son is here somewhere and he always helps me with technical stuff. He will know where it is. Yet, that was not the kind of chat I was looking for. I didn’t want to join another service. I suppose I was looking for some sort of instant messenger; it was not found.

I wanted to get started. I felt a sense of purpose. I would need to alert my current followers from other social media platforms to my new location and briefly explaining this new find would be a perfect topic for my first piece. It had no photo or art, for I had yet to discover the requirements for completing such a task. The final product was simple; explaining why one should come explore Steemit, my new home. Presto! It posted. I then shared it to facebook and twitter. I had a beginning. I spent the rest of the day exploring and reading up on the existing trends and hot topics while generating conversation in social media to bring in some followers that would vote for my work.

My first week taught me a lot. I was a newbie and wasn’t afraid to make newbie mistakes. I understood the meaning of original content, and noticed that many newbie’s hadn’t learned that one yet and were posting other peoples videos from you-tube as if they were sharing content like twitter. I learned that my artwork had to be my own, and will share a few royalty free online art sites with my readers here, here and here.

I learned that each article needed art of one kind or another. If you are to get noticed and stand out above the crowd, plain Jane is not going to get it. I had to learn the formatting which is found on the Submit a Story page highlighted - Styling with Markdown. I searched to find a way to center my art on the page. It was found in a comments section on a blog I read. I share it with my readers here. To describe the following I must write in long hand as to not cause the desired action to take place here.

• Centering an image is: left arrow, the word center right arrow. Your image link. Then left arrow, the word center right arrow
• Links attached to a title or word: left arrow and the text a href=” then the web address and quote and right arrow then the title or word you want to appear as the link then left arrow forward slash a then right arrow.

I put out several good pieces of work; and one ‘not so good’ as I had grown tired and realized I was pushing myself too hard. I wanted to establish myself. I had picked up several new followers. I learned that responding to comments on my work is vital and just as important as the original work. Building connections through discussion adds to my following. My following was growing, slowly, but growing. I also understood that it was my duty to read blogs and to vote. It was recommended to vote from 20 to 50 times a day. That’s a lot of reading after working to put out my own content each day. But, if I expected others to read mine, I had to do my part and read. I have seen many posts about when to vote as to gain curation awards. My son even tried to explain to me, not less than 30 minutes and not more than 2 hours, others may say something different, and I cannot say I understand. I have too much to read and vote on to keep up with that. I do not down vote, or flag; I simply don’t vote it if I didn’t like it and move on. I have come to follow a group and I try to read everything they write. Each day that I go out to do my voting, I find another to follow. There are some excellent writers here. I came across a piece that had been hand illustrated. That was not done in a day; that was true dedication. It was truly a beautiful piece of work and could serve as an example or inspiration for others. Look for Hive account@fairytalelife

I studied economics in 2008 and had come to know of Jeff Berwick as the Dollar Vigilante and had been following his work for years on you-tube. I watched with great amazement as his posts hit $15,000 and he started promoting Steemit. I watched his interview with Ned and Dan (founders) and was very pleased and encouraged and felt very informed.

I also watched the attack as the down voting started against him. I cannot say I know what that was all about. What I learned was, don’t piss anyone off. If you don’t have anything good to say, than say nothing and move on. I decided to keep an eye on what was going on over Hive account@dollarvigilante not only in regards to Steemit, but he has always been a great source of information.

I keep plugging away, as I see my son and a few other of my follows have lost interest. It is very disheartening to see a piece that you poured your heart and soul into rank at $0.00 day after day. I would get 10 likes and rank up to $0.01. If the followers I had brought are leaving, I was never going to be seen. My goal was to put out a minimum of one article a day for 30 days. I needed a plan, and quick. How do I get noticed? I don’t come to the venue with a following like Jeff Berwick; guessing neither does the other 99% here. I must come to the understanding that I am nobody. My story resides in a pile with 50,000 other stories. I can’t help feeling a little like a lottery ticket.

What do they want to read? What is fascinating? What will gain me that click? My son reminds me how we love to browse crowdfunding sites to see what new inventions are being created, to use as a topic for discussions. I thought that was a great idea, but his idea, and he should use it. He insisted, he was a carpenter, not a writer, but he believed it might get noticed, in a magazine format, as he had seen others do. Well, it was worth a shot. After a few of them I eased into a format that I feel good about. Yes, I was still picking up followers. I was up to 27 in one week. At the same time, two of my articles about life had jumped to $10 each. I was feeling better.

The minnow, the dolphin and the whale, my son tried to explain to me. I am a minnow. The reason I wasn’t making any curation rewards is that my vote has no weight behind it, because I am a minnow. I have no Steem power. My spending 2 hours a day, reading blog after blog and voting my conscious- isn’t helping anyone; not me, not them. My vote is worth about $0.003 or about 1/3rd of one cent. This is an approximation, but it certainly is not worth more than that. I am a minnow, my followers are minnows. The prospects look bleak. My $10 posting must have been voted up by someone between minnow and dolphin. I have learned that payouts occur at 24 hours and at 30 days. You receive a portion and then the remainder. Things change. It was at 12 hour/30 day hand has changed to be 24 hours. The rewards are divided into Steem dollars and Steem power. So this is how my Steem power will rise. I have a long road ahead of me. I have not found that destination where notifications of changes of this sort are made to Steem users. You would think that might be important.

The blogs suggest there are approximately 50 whales with a voting Steem power in excess of 1 million each. That is the vote I need to attract to achieve huge value upon my work, and I would be happy with a lot less than huge. I assume it not only gives it value but causes it to be put forth as trending where it may be observed by others, other whales and dolphins hopefully. Getting reshuffled towards the top of that 50,000 stories in a pile. I do believe the daily blogging numbers are nowhere near 50,000. While Steemit may have that and more accounts I believe the number to be less than 5,000. My odds are getting better.

I am reminded that any improvement I give to my work is a plus and I can sometimes be a lazy writer. I use a website Vocabulary.com to help to keep my mind sharp and increase my vocabulary skills. It uses a game type of format which makes learning enjoyable. This can be a great tool for any writer and worth sharing to my readers.

I see there is much talk in the blogs about unfairness in voting power. Whew, so it wasn’t just me wondering about that. It seems many whales will be powering down, if I understand correctly. If Steem power is invested in the company it can only be drawn down in increments over 104 weeks, or 2 years. Powering down seems like a very slow process and it removes investment. Would you want to remove investment? This sounds like a bad idea. If all the whales started selling off, it hurts the value of the crypto currency this is based on. Good thing it can only be done in increments. The better question is; how did those whales all come to have over a million each. They certainly didn’t do it the way I am, starting with pennies, moving to a few bucks. I decided to do a little research.

Every writer should be prepared to do research to support his claims. I found with the new inventions magazine, I could call and actually speak to people in the development of the product. Most were willing to email me further information as well as put me in contact with others for more information. With research brings credibility. Be sure to reference your sources in your blog.

Ponzi scheme, Oh no, I do not want to hear that! I kept digging just as I notice Jeff Berwick must have been getting hit the same way. Only he went directly to the source and made a video. You will learn a lot from it.

Are whales voting for whales and taking all the value right off the top? My first impression was yes. Things do seem to be shifting. In the beginning I found the Daily Payout Leaderboard put out by Hive account@masteryoda and I could use that list to identify whales. There they all were, all top earners. The list today is quite different, an entirely different group of people. The earnings have decreased in size as well. Where top posts went in excess of $15,000 now tops out at $2,066. That is a monumental change. Perhaps the founders heard the cries of the minnow. But I think not. I think they heard the rumors of “ponzi scheme” gaining traction and reigned in the whales to prevent any such appearance.

My research led me to hunt down some statistics which are dated Aug 18. The number of existing accounts was around 68,000. The number of accounts with at least 1 post (comments count for posts) is around 22,000; accounts with at least 10 followers is around 2200. Report found here.

That’s certainly better in regards to my competing for votes. This also tells me there is a revolving door of minnows that flow in and that flow right back out. Today I read that Steemit has hit 70,000 users. Today I have 39 followers. I wonder how many of them are actually here? I have a new perspective on things. If you think this is the place you will get rich quick, your odds are as good as a lottery ticket. If you are a writer, and love what you do, put out good content, you will eventually earn. It may be slow going at first, and may be slow going for a while. Not everyone will have the same experience, nor the same adventure. New writers can also make their mark here. It is a great platform for that too.

I never came to understand why it was to level the playing field, bringing whales down, and never the minnows up. I truly wonder if there is a middle. There seems to be no concerted effort to keep users from leaving after a week or so. Something about that smells fishy.

There is a lot to take in and learn. I do not know as much as I desire to know, but it has been FUN. This is a journey for me, but it has hints of a roller coaster ride, and there’s that rumor, which I don’t think it has been put to bed. Hopefully it will soon and things continue to level out to some degree. For me, I’m not a quitter. I have my 30 day goal to work on.

I have found help at Steemithelp.com and have to admit to finding it by accident through Google.

I would love to discuss this further, and perhaps you could correct anything I have come to misunderstand via the comments section.