On a very rare occasion I heard about steemit. I was very curious and thought how could that be possible in the world that you can make money out of posting and upvoting, etc. Would it be another scam? After making sure that this is a reliable platform, I signed up in steemit. I sent my first post as soon as I signed up on the first date. As soon as I hit submit, I saw $0.02 showed up on the left lower corner of the article. I was thrilled. I yelled at my husband excitedly who was at the downstairs, telling him that my post was making 2 cents! You may be laughing at me, well, this was first time outside my regular job that I was making money with my writing. I sounded silly from hindsight. But that marked a milestone of me at steemit. I am pretty happy that I acted on it and joined steemit community.
在一个偶然的机会我听说了Steemit。当时非常好奇，想想天下怎么可能有这么便宜的事，发发文章，点点赞什么的就会挣钱，会不会是骗人的？在多方了解确认这是个可靠的平台后，我注册了一个账号。而且当天就发表了一篇文章。当我一点击发送，文章的左下角立马出现 2 美分的时候，我兴奋地叫我老公，他当时在楼下，开心地告诉他我的文章居然值2 美分！各位看官不要笑，这是我除工作以外，第一次写作挣的钱！那个兴奋劲现在想想都好笑。但它是我在Steemit 上的一个里程碑，值得我去回味。我很高兴当时垮出了那一步。
In the next following days, I kept on writing, but after few days, I noticed that other than couple people viewing my article, or left one or two comments, basically my posts were buried within thousands of new posts that refreshed very 30seconds. I felt bad. And then started to read articles from other people about how to survive and grow in steemit and how steemit operates and works. Posts from 
接下来我是每天写啊写，可是过了几天，看到我的文章除了2， 3 个人看外，偶尔有一两条留言，其它的都如石沉大海。心里慢慢地就很不是滋味。 于是才开始读圈里前人写的如何在Steemit 里生存和壮大的文章和建议。比如
1． Keep on putting up good contents. Never ever steel or repeat contents as otherwise you would fail badly. I have been thinking what I can write and what value and help I can bring to the community. I have been trying all different type of themes and categories, like self-motivation, learning pencil drawing(out of personal hobby), work related like interview, travel, food, literature, cryptocurrency, etc, quite a wide range of topics. Some people may say this is too wide, it’s better to have your own niche so people expect what they want from you when you see your name. To be honest, I haven’t really decided or found that yet.
坚持写好文章讲自己的故事。文章绝对不能抄袭或重复。这样会“死得很惨”。我一直在思考我要写什么样的文章能给大家带来价值和帮助？ 我试过写不同的题材，比如励志的，学画画的（个人兴趣）， 个人认为对工作有帮助的如面试技巧，旅游， 美食，文学，区块链等，范围涵盖比较大。可是这似乎不符合很多人建议的要专精，找到你自己有个性的地方，有点大杂烩的感觉。但到现在也没有定出很好的方向。
a. In theory, I am a successful professional woman, I may be able to give some good advice for corporate world. I tried to write some of that, but didn’t really get a lot attraction. Only few people viewed it. So I guess maybe most people are here at Steemit to relax, they don’t want to hear so boring and serious stuff, so this is a cross off.
按理说我是比较成功的职业女性，应该在职业上可以给大家一些建议，我也试着写了几封，但反映都平平。没有多少人在意。猜想是不是大家平时忙完各自的事情，来steemit 是来轻松的，在这里谈职业，可能话题比较繁重，所以估计不是好的方向。
b. I started learning pencil drawing couple months ago, and I also tried to post some of my work and the process. But other than the fruit competition that I got in as initiated by @helene, all others ended up in the same place as thousands of other new posts.
我学画画已经有两个多月了，在之前也陆续发了很多自己的画和学习的过程。除了这次参加@helene 的水果画比赛得到让我吃惊的投票外，其它基本上也是被淹没在每几十秒就刷新的上千封文章里。
c. Recently, my posts about travel and food seem to have attracted more traffic. Both I and my husband @davidmendel are foodies and love to travel around. Maybe this is one area that we can focus on going forward.
旅游和美食篇最近似乎大多有不错的阅读和投票率。我和老公@davidmendel 都是吃货也热爱旅游，我们周末和假期经常到处走走逛逛，这似乎可以做为接下来的重点。
d. Investing in blockchain/cryptocurrency is my other hobby. Even though the posts I put up still haven’t gained a lot viewers, I will continue to write. Partially because this is where my interests are, second reason is because I am a strong believer in the technology behind blockchain. And the third is because support and encouragement by many good friends like @htliao @linuslee0216. I wish that I am able to share and pass on this knowledge to more people. I tried to share them with my friends, but so far I haven’t really done a good job that none of them are interested or believe in.
区块链是我的另一项爱好和投资，我会继续写，虽然目前不是很多人看，但更多的是自己的兴趣，而且我自己非常相信区块链后的技术，再加上@htliao & @linuslee0216 这些朋友的一再支持和鼓励，我也希望把这方面的知识和新闻传播出去让更多人知道。虽然我在生活中也试着和身边的朋友讲，可是目前都没有人相信或愿意去学。
2． Do a lot networking and join some chatroom as many suggested. But do be selective. I signed up for one chat room at the beginning. As soon as I got in. someone greeted me and sent me a private message. He said if I upvote for him, he will upvote for me too. I was a newbie and didn’t know much, so sure, why not. Isn’t it part of the networking? So I upvoted for him, and guess what, he never upvoted me back. So since then, I never ever upvote people whom beg for upvote and follow. I guess many of you may have the same experience. The rule is never ever beg and ask for follow and upvote. If you want others to help you, you may want to help them first. As otherwise, why would they give you their money(upvote)?
积极和大家互动。 参加一些聊天室。但要有选择性。我刚开始也加入一个聊天室，一进去就有个人找我私聊，让我去点赞他的文章，说他也会点赞我的。我也就傻傻地去赞了他的文章。可是他并没有和他所说的也去点赞我的，所以以后有这种自动讨赞的，我是一概不回的。估计看官你可能也有这样的经历，所以千万不要去求人点赞。这样只能引起别人的反感。 你要别人帮助你，就要考虑怎样可以先帮助别人，否则别人为什么要白给你钱？
3． Do a lot upvote and leave good comments. Try to respond to other people’s comments. I read an article. The author said in the past, she would always look at numbers of upvotes. But now she focuses more on qualified comments. She believes that good comments are more important than upvote, and she will always upvote for good comments. I haven’t reached her height, but I have to agree that good comments do matter and help to build better interaction and connection. This is why whenever I like what I read, I will always leave comments and upvotes. But also keep in mind that many big whales which I am not, are very busy, they may not respond to all comments. Just set the expectation right.
积极去点赞，留下有意义的留言。并及时回馈别人给我的留言。我看过一篇文章。作者说过去她重点看点赞数，后面她的心态转变，觉得好的留言比点赞对写者更有帮助。她会对好的留言给于支持和奖励。 我现在还没有达到她那个高度可以不关心点赞，但我也认同好的留言非常重要。这也是为什么如果碰到我喜欢的文章，除了点赞外，一般都会留言和作者互动。 但是有些大户们追随者太多，并不会回复所有的留言，所以也要有这样的心里预期，不是每个人都会回复你的留言的。
4． Join some good groups and take part in some hot contests. If you are good at coding or have some other expertise, you may volunteer to help and sign up some projects. Unfortunately none of these are my expertise. But I can draw(still green) and I can write. So I participated in some tests like fruit drawing by 
参加一些好的社群和加入一些热门比赛。如果你会编程或有其他一些特别技能的话，可以主动报名参加一些社区项目，可惜在这块上是我的弱项，没部分增加什么价值，所以只能放弃。但是我会点画画，也会写点文章，所以这几次都积极响应
5． Invest in steemit, increase your voting power. My husband and I are both steemians. We tried to put in some money to increase his voting power in the past couple days, let’s see how it works.
投资Steemit.，增加点赞能力。我和我老公
6． If you are still a minnow, 
作为小鱼和那些刚起步的小小鱼，
Lastly, be patient. Let time works its way. By the way, I haven’t known how to attract big whales to my post, so I don’t think I am able to give you any tips. I heard some big whales like bi-lingual, which most of my posts are, but I haven’t really seen many of them on my contribution list. However, many whales are willing to help people to promote good articles and help to post. so if your writing offers the quality they want, you may ask for their help to post as they have more followers so the article can reach more people. The key is still good quality of your content.
最后是耐心，让时间说话。另外，我到现在都不知道能够更好地如何吸引大户们来点赞。所以在这点上无法给出好建议。 听说很多大户喜欢双语的，我的大多数文章都是，但也没看到吸引太多大户来看。不过我听说很多大户们愿意帮忙促销一些好的文章，所以如果你有好文章的话，可以请他们代发。因为大户们有很多追随者，所以你的好文章可以让更多人看到。重点是你的文章要好。
Hopefully this post is helpful to you. I have hit my 60days mark on steemit. I went from a little minnow to where I am today with few royal supporters and friends. There was happiness, disappointment, excitement, insomnia, trying to quit, recognition and hope etc along the way. Many thanks to my husband
希望这些对你有帮助。我个人经历了两个月的实践，从不被人关注的小小鱼，到小鱼，到现在有一些忠实的朋友支持，在这过程中有喜悦，有失望，有兴奋，有失眠，有否定打退堂鼓，有肯定，有希望等，各种酸甜苦辣。多亏得有老公