Some articles on Steemit have impressive USD figures shown below them. But what does this amount really mean?
In order to answer this question we need to distinguish between USD and Steem Dollars (also called Steem-Backed Dollars (SBD)). You will only receive Steem Dollars for your article and you can then convert those into USD using an exchange. We will explore how many Steem Dollars Authors receive per article and what value Steem Dollars have.
The figure displayed below each post is not the amount of steem dollars that you will actually receive. The following shows how the shown amount is split.
As 
The amount displayed is the dollar value of the combined rewards split between curators and the author. Author only gets 50%. Starting July 4th, authors get 75%.
While authors get a 75% guaranteed reward the rest goes to the curators. Curators are users which up-vote your article. However, due to a recent change in the curation reward algorithm authors will also get some of the curation reward. The amount of that an author receives from the curation reward is shown on steemd in the value author_curate_reward.
After you deducted the curation reward the amount that you will receive is:
If an exchange were offering a Steem Dollar to Dollar conversion than this would likely be near 1 USD. Unfortunately, there exists no exchange for Steem Dollar to USD conversion. As a result the only way to liquidate Steem Dollar at the moment is to convert them to STEEM on the blockchain. STEEM is traded on exchanges and can eventually be converted to USD.
You can convert Steem Dollar to STEEM in two ways: Internal Market or BlockChain Conversion.
Internal Market
The internal market is the fairest solution if there is Steem Dollar/USD parity. The advantage is that there in not waiting period of 7 days and you know the price at which you convert. According to
Blockchain Conversion
A list of trusted witnesses publishes a feed of price information for STEEM to USD converions multiple times a day. If you want to convert Steem Dollar to STEEM then you will have to wait one week. At the end of this waiting period your Steem Dollars are converted to Steem based upon the average price.
Holding Steem Dollars
Holding Steem Dollars gives interest is advantageuos as it is higher than the USD interest rate. The current interest rate is specified on steemd in the value sbd_interest_rate which is 10% sbd_interest_rate/10.
The process to convert STEEM to USD is outlined in various articles. The key part in terms of value depreciation is that you will need to pay commission and withdrawal fees to the exchange.
My first article on Steemit shows the pay-out 114.69$.
I receive 86 Steem Dollars (75%) for being author, This splits into 43 Steem Dollars and 43$ worth of Steem Power.
Steemd shows that my part in curation reward is 24.79%. This is $7.10 worth of Steem Power. The rest goes to the curators.
Steem Power can only be converted to STEEM (and thus USD) over a longer period of time. They are similar to RSUs.
Option A) Blockchain Conversion Volatility
If I were to convert 43 Steem Dollars to USD then I would have to wait for 7 days according to the average of the price feed.
$49.14.$34.40.$43.00.Option B) Internal Market
When trading on the internal market than your conversion depends on the market price. If we assume a price STEEM/Steem Dollar such that it matches a 1:1 Steem Dollar/USD rate, then we will receive $43. Risks are that there is an unfavourable conversion rate or not enough buy support.
We still have to deduct other costs such as commission and transfer costs. For example:
$0.05 – $0.08$0.01 Bitcoin Transaction Fee$0.05 – $0.08$0.02 – $0.03