Ha, good steemit. I like that!

25% of the posts reward goes to upvotes and comments share in the 75% author reward, per smooth's comment above. Used to be 50% but they changed it to 25% on July 4th. So by both voting and commenting you maximize your cut of the 25% curation reward.

Yes, try not to upvote until 30 minutes after the post goes live. Some details in the white paper but basically you get nothing for voting <1min and maybe 95% at 29 minutes.

Other steemit advice? Hmmm... tell you friends/family/co-workers. I think that's the next step. And for writing, make sure the formatting is good and the photos are fun!