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Establish yourself in communities that will support you and that you want to support in turn, build a network of like minded people, consistently post quality content, support and help others. Become a respected Steemit user rather than someone like Joe who is only out to scam naive people.

This isn't a get rich quick scheme, it takes time and lots of effort. Unless you want to pump a lot of money into Steemit yourself, and there's no harm doing that. Personally, I take pride in the fact that I've built up my Steem holding via posting content rather than investing my own money in the platform. Each to their own though.

I write creative literature, and not many understand that, so I put in a few simpler posts to try to get a few more followers and comment as much as I can find something to comment on

Sounds like a good approach. I checked your profile and like your content.

Thanks, I like to be progressive