One thing I appreciate about Steemit is the idea of quality control through reputation; Although, it's more or less the same system we always naturally default to--in order to estimate the quality or value of any media, we put it through peer review. The content first becomes publicly available at a fairly low trustworthiness or interest level--how can you have any interest without anyone seeing it? Well, therein is the mechanism and the failure; How can you see it without first knowing it exists? So, in that way, Steemit isn't very original in function.
The web has a great ability to give readers fast access to summarized information--so you need a hook. That's what everyone has been selling as the ultimate success formula, you need a hook. For those who think this is a relatively new concept in the annals of time, consider life with only libraries as the primary source of mass information. Books had to have good titles. Well, that was an easy one, but let's go further back to the origins of names. Our names were once perceptual accounts of what others knew about us. This was much less accurate than later conventions, but it illustrates how we've always used the same basic systems of decision making and information sharing.
In the interest of staying on topic, let's look at Steemit's reputation system. If you have a higher reputation score, your content becomes more visible; If you have a low reputation score, the opposite happens--your content becomes hidden. It's basically the same system, but with the internet's advantage of a fast preview rate.
So, you might think I'm validating the hook theory, but I'm not. Even though there is truth in the hook theory, it is not solid beyond its shallow surface. The reason that people still buy the hook-books is that they've immediately decided that writing a hooky title or summary is wizardry and therefore the ability to do so must be attained through education--education you can get in just two weeks with this simple course and comprehensive companion material; Retail valued at $300; Available to you for a limited time only for just $34.95.
The world has been unfairly lying--telling you that you need special training or need to know some secret to doing one simple thing that can be achieved by already being prepared to write. If you write good enough content, the summarizations like a synopsis or a title will, in turn, be good--but you cannot make the mistake of forgetting the necessary opposite must be just as true. Getting a good summary from bad work is a lottery--it can be done (Michael Bay continues to make films), but it's rarer than you might think when compared to the amount of drivel out there and certainly not worth paying for.
Alright, you probably knew most of this already. Here's where I think the difference might be for Steemit; I think as more highly experienced people start to immediately rise, they will actually pull the others up with them through Steemit's weighted voting power system--frightening to think of it that way, but that's the way it works. This is alright, though. This is a culmination of several natural laws of the universe. This is why I will support this project wholeheartedly until the bitter end (not that there will be one soon, but you know--Newton's Second Law of Thermodynamics).
There is, however, a catch. In order to be seen in the white-water rapids of posts, you need a little more than just a few posts; Otherwise, you're a grain of sand trying to be seen. This is actually one of those things the get-rich-quick books tell in almost the complete opposite direction from the truth. You cannot make serious money for mere hours a day as an online writer of any kind until you've put in long grueling hours--and even then, it's a toss-up.
So what's the right way? Write more. Read more. Write more. Keep reading the things you love in order to fuel your desire to write about them, and if it's something you can act on to get real experience with, do so immediately. And try to support the writers that inspire you. They might be ahead of you, but they'll never make more room for you until you push them up. Reviews only cost a little extra time added to the time you've already spent reading and absorbing the material.
Like my stuff? Upvote me! Follow me! Share my stuff! I can't pull anyone else up until I'm on the next ledge, too.
