Hello Paul! Welcome aboard to this incredible community. Have an up-vote and rock on!
I know it's hard for us new guys to get started, to get those first up-votes on posts and new followers and such. You should try "Steemfollower" where you can earn up to 5x more steem than just upvoting by yourself! It's a simple and safe vote exchange that is free to use. It really helped me jump start my account.
Here is a post about how to use it, if you have any questions feel free to leave me a comment.
Have an awesome day, and best of luck.