Here's the ANSWERS you've been looking for..  You can earn more if you learn some secrets on how the system was designed.

I've done a lot of research, so they seem like secrets.  See if you know these:

Q1. I'm new to steemit. I see people making thousands of dollars on their posts.  I made 11 cents, what gives?

A1: Good quality content doesn't always get the attention it deserves.  But many times it does!  Keep contributing, and eventually one of yours is going to catch wind and go viral.  Use the time between your submissions to do more research, pick and choose better things to talk about, and improve your writing style.  

Q2. Ok, I saw a guy do a make up tutorial and make thousands.  So another guy one did the same, and he made a lot too.  So I did my own male makeup tutorial and I made hardly anything? Why?

A2: As a fluke, the makeup tutorial was funny, and people liked it.  That doesn't mean everyone wants to see multiple copycats of similar content.   These things are fads, and not trends and are very short lived.

Q3: Steemit is broken! Only the whales decide the content. I wrote 5 posts about this problem, and I got 20 or 30 votes from other people who think the same thing!

A3: What you ended up doing was attracting similar minded people to your complaint, who also had no steem power.  I hate to say it, but misery loves company.  Instead of complaining about it, and hoping that gets you to the front page.  Why not be creative? Think outside of the box, and write something that is stimulating and interesting to not only whales, but all types of funded steemit users.

Q4: My writing isn't as good as some of the other people. What can I do?

A4: Unfortunately we live in a world of thumb texters on phones.  "r u going 2 da party 2day?".   This is how we text on a daily basis.  Short form expression has ruined the way people communicate.  We are so use to getting our content from trained and established writers that many of us don't know to write well.

Use this as an opportunity to practice and get feedback.  If you ever wanted to get a response on the value of your writing style, try different things.   Make the effort to spell check, and have someone read over your work BEFORE you submit it to the blockchain.  (A friend or family member can help!)

Q5: Is there money to be made in commenting?  I never made any real money that way before.

A5: Just like regular stories, a valued comment can earn significant upvotes too!  I got paid $87 SBD for a comment I made once.  It doesn't happen often, but it can and will happen, if your contribution is good enough.  There is more than one way to earn money by participation on steem.

TIP: Never say "I agree with your comment" without upvoting too!  Takes only a click! :)

Q6: What if people start grouping their votes, or selling their votes?  Isn't that already happening?

A6: NO! Doing that is a stupid thing to do which won't last long. It will also earn your name a bad reputation if you are caught doing it, and a whale bot (or multiple bots) will follow you around the system downvoting your votes. Grouping votes together to promote poor content won't work.  If you game the system, you're going to lose.

Q7: What are bots?  Why don't we find ways to ban them?

A7: Bots, are automated computer programs that are alive on steem.  Bots can't think of new content, so they don't write stories.   There are good bots, and bad bots.  The good bots are taking care of the bad bots, so don't worry. Also, some bots are actually helpful.  This is a very large debatable discussion too large for a faq. But in simple terms, we do need good bots to be present, and we do have those here already.

(Bots upvote, downvote, and comment with preprogrammed phrases). Don't worry about them.

Q8: How many stories should I post a day?  More is better, right?

A8: No, more is not better.   In a given 24 hour period, the value you see next to stories is how much relative steem power is estimated that the story will earn if it continues holding the percentage of upvotes it has, in relation to all other stories on the system.

So if you write 1 quality story, that story competes with the rest of the stories on steem that day.

If you write 5 stories, now your first story is competing with your other 4 stories AND also the rest of the stories on steem that day.   Why compete against yourself?   Wait a day, and write your next one.  You have much better chance of earning more by doing that..   Save good ideas for tomorrow, and invest all your time into one, good, story instead.

Note:  As of July 26, 2016, the following will be true:

If you post 10 low value posts in one day and only 1 of them “hits it  big” then that one popular post will only get to keep about 15% of what  it would have earned it it was the only post posted that day.

Q9: I just found a news article that I think all people on steemit will be interested in, can I just copy/paste the article and put a reference?  As long as I link to it, that's shows I didn't steal it right?

A9: Steemit isn't a news headline ticker.   What you could do, is reference the story, and talk about how you feel about it.  This may attract other people who have the same "take" on the story that you do, which could lead to a lot of comments, discussion, and upvoting.

Q10:  I thought of an idea for a new feature that steemit needs!  How do I get the developers attention?

A10: The developers and other key people who are in the stack development channel read these posts.   Even if they do not upvote yours, or make a comment, it doesn't matter.  Many times someone may have thought of it already OR they are already working on it, OR it is ready, but not scheduled to be released yet.

The short answer is: Post about it once, but before you do, search steemit to see if someone else already posted about it.

Q11: Why is searching steemit important for past content?  How does that help me?

A11: People find it easier to submit a question (which has already been asked numerous times), because they are too lazy to research the answer themselves.  This adds to the endless scroll of new posts problem.  

If you search existing steem posts, you'll quite often see good information, and good comments that have already been made.   You can also see what posts have already been saturating steemit, and avoid writing the same thing, and earning next to nothing for it.

Q12: Why does it seem that no new features are coming yet?  There is hundreds of things I'd like to see.  What are the devs doing? Just sitting back and getting rich?

A12: No, they're doing the exact opposite.  The devs are monitoring, tweaking, developing, and fixing the system.  Running a blockchain, and a site like steemit is extremely difficult.

You see posts and stories on here that go viral?  The WHOLE SYSTEM is going viral.  Any idea how hard it must be to run a viral system, that is viral 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?  But they're doing it, and they're doing it well.

This is what they're probably doing in an endless loop right now:

Phase 5: Allow the system to scale, bear the load, become stable and security tight.

Phase 6: Build more features.

Both of these phases take a long time.  (Several weeks and months, sometimes longer).  You have to be patient.

Facebook has been around since 2004

Reddit has been around since 2005

Twitter has been around since 2006

Steemit launched beta only in 2016.  

• It's going to take a bit of time, but it's outperforming all expectations.

Please share this story if you found it helpful. If you have any questions you'd like to see answered in the future, please comment.

Bonus Question: If I upvote a good post after it is 30 minutes old, am I too late to share in the earnings?

Answer: NO, you are not too late.  Just don't upvote too many posts too often, otherwise your daily voting power decreases.

For 30 days (starting July 26, 2016) after the first payout a post may still accumulate new votes  and at the end of 30 days one last and final payout is made. After this time, additional votes have no impact.

Your daily voting power is the blockchain trusting you to upvote only good, quality content. Use it wisely.