Back in the beginning of Steemit.com (April 2016-ish) I had no notion of the site. I didn't join until August and I missed out on the MASSIVE earnings that some of the very early adopters received for their work. I also doubt I'd have got into the mining thing because I just didn't know enough about it - so that's TWO bites of the cherry I missed.
I arrived with the notion that this was a blogging site where I could share my work and potentially get paid for it.
It took a while - a GOOD while to earn anything.
I made posts that made nothing. I made posts that made a fair bit and once or twice, my earnings went over the $100 Steem mark. WOOHOO!
Just recently, I've made a concerted effort in getting my head together and really get down to writing. I was earning quite a good amount of Steem - but then again, I was also putting in quite a bit of work - even on the stories I'd already written.
You see, I don't just take a piece of my writing, cut and paste it into Steemit.com and run off to do something else. I read through the piece again with my trained Editor's eye and I seek out things that shouldn't be there. I seek out things that could be improved and I change stuff.
Then, I look for a few pictures that suit the topic I've written about and I slide them in there too... you know, just to bulk-out the post and make it attractive to the eye.
I can't possibly tell you how I do all this editing stuff, after all, I've spent years learning it all.
Because I've spent years learning the editing stuff, the writing stuff and the storytelling stuff, I mistakenly believed that time-served in apprenticeship would have value. I've invested time into my chosen career and try as you might to find a purveyor of time, you can't - there's no one selling time - yet.
@lukestokes made a point:
What if...
Hundreds of professional authors come to Steemit and bring expectations to get paid for their work. All their fans get angry when their posts aren't being voted up enough. Everyone's frustrated.
Here's what I see in that statement:
Hundreds of Authors - professional writers, people who can actually craft stories, worlds, characters - all coming to Steemit.com, bringing their fans - Thousands of fans - SOME of whom are so invested in their author that they are prepared to invest their own money in Steem in order to 'pay' their favourite author in Steem.
If every author brought with them 10 fans, followers and readers, that would increase the user-base massively and look even better for potential investors... wouldn't it? What if one author brought more than 10 people - would that add value or not?
Now, what would that do to the price of Steem? All those fans buying Steem to favour their pet Author? Why! The price would go up, wouldn't it?
What about if those fans Powerup their acquired Steem so they can upvote their Author? Again... Price going up.
And then, when someone decides that all those Howk-spit minnows (Ugh, we have actual minnows touching our steem! How ghastly!) and their vests don't have the right to say where the Steem goes to and starts downvoting said author.
What happens then?
I wonder... I wonder how many authors have to be told, No, fuck off! We don't want your sort here! We only want people to write about what we want to read and anyone else can go and fuck right off! before you have no authors of stories left?
It's a shame someone didn't just move the fuck along if they didn't like the fact that a talented and prolific author had decided to make her home here at Steemit.com.
It's a shame someone didn't see that said author was investing everything earned straight back into Steemit.com and therefore the earnings were still on the platform, circulating - in a small, minnowish way, but circulating, nonetheless. And so were the people she brought to Steemit.com.
It's a shame that someone has decided that his weight in Steem is to be used to brow-beat and bully people rather than encourage and uplift people using the platform - especially people who have promoted the platform in many ways. And then to break his own arm slapping himself on the back for doing so and then bragging about it Here OOOH! What a fucking hero!
@transisto downvote @michelle.gent/not-posting-exclusive-excerpts-of-m… (-48%)
Yep, he downvoted 12 of my posts now, but that one wasn't because it was a serialisation.
It's a shame that someone believes that making a living from Steemit.com is somehow a dingy, tawdry little job, so far beneath him that he can spit on one and splatter hundreds.
We must learn from history or we are doomed to repeat it.
I also noticed @transisto just couldn't be bothered with writing a response to everyone that replied to him on the flagging post addition: Here
So he just copied and pasted - adding value in his own little way. /sarc