I am not going to lie, sometimes, even I have some trouble with this.
Many new members get frustrated by their payouts. Some might be unreasonable or unrealistic. Simply dropping a link or quote as a post does not qualify as a good enough post to upvote. Besides that, getting your post seen here is hard, especially when you're just starting out. Without a big amount of followers, your chances of getting big upvotes are small, even if you post a good article (though it does happen).
The understandable frustration comes when people pump out good articles, but always get passed by unnoticed. A look at the Hot list gets you frustrated sometimes, because honestly, some do not deserve such a large payout if you go strictly by quality. Looking at the thousands people make on Trending is even more frustrating and I advice you to just skip that list completely if you're feeling down about your payouts. It is a goal most of us will never reach.
People advice newbies to read the Trending articles and take them as an example for how to write their own blogs, but honestly, you don't need Trending for that. There are plenty of examples all around Steemit. Just a fancy layout and the best lines out there won't get you on Trending, so let's not give people too much false hope.
Some new people have done very well here. They make good articles and, more importantly, get noticed by the right people. It is just not something you should expect, simply because you write articles here. I am not even saying this to new members only, but also to the older members. If you enjoy your time here, great! Keep on going. Besides that, most of us actually do want to reach Trending sometimes, but realistically speaking, that is never going to happen. It's a space for a few lucky ones, who share it with contributors to the platform (like app-makers). If we can't be happy with reaching the second page of Hot from time to time, we'll be burned out by Steemit pretty quickly.
The randomness of Steemit is that your post has to get noticed in the New feed, has to get resteemed by a high standing member or has to get picked up by a whale. If that does not happen, your followers give you your payout of a few bucks. Is this not the case for you yet, then I advice you to start interacting more on this platform to build up your following.
This is the spot that most of us are in and it is a spot that is hard to get out of. If you came here, looking for advice on this, I'm sorry. I don't know what you should do to get out of this particular spot. You'll have to stick around for the nice community (which it is) and for your love of your blogging and your subjects. Not for the riches of Trending.
But hey, if Steem keeps rising, even our small payout will amount to a decent savings account!
I am the perfect example of mediocrity on this platform. I've been here for half a year. Everything you see in my wallet today has been earned by blogging and interacting with the community. This is an attainable goal. This is what I can advice you to aim for by posting many good articles and comments (no begging for votes or followers, please). I get payouts of around 2-3 many times, but I get 20-30 aswell sometimes. I think that's a realistic goal for most good content creators here. Don't feel down, thinking you deserve more. You might, but that's not how Steemit's randomness works.
My best advice: try not to get too down about a bad payout on a post you worked hard on. You probably hit that Post button, right before ten others did aswell and people just missed your post.
Personal frustrations
Now to air some of my own frustrations. I don't usually do this, but hey, everyone deserves to vent sometimes, right? I've been here for half a year now. I've had some decent payouts (though nowhere near even $100 yet). I've worked my butt off to be active on here and I try to give our new members some attention. I feel most of my posts have a decent quality (not all) and I'm trying to have some decent conversations through comments. I promote my posts solely in public places (Steemit.chat, Discord), because I know how annoying it is to receive comments like "Can you please upvote me [link]".
I don't know how to reach Trending. This seems far out of reach for me. I don't think I will ever get there. It makes me a little bit sad sometimes, but I'll survive. I'm not sure what else I need to do (besides what I'm already doing) to get my posts noticed more. To reach the top of Hot sometimes (that looks like a more realistic goal to be honest). I don't think I have enough high standing, rich Steemy friends for that.
I'm not rich myself either, so I'm working my way up slowly. I can't invest anything. This means I won't ever be more than what I am now. A not early enough early adopter who has to hope someone notices her post once she hits that Post button.
It happens sometimes! It is just very random. A few examples:
My Guild Wars tutorials were not that well received. Fair enough, I can imagine not a lot of people play, so who cares enough to even click, right? But then the updates post is one of the biggest paying posts that ever happen for me.
My good morning posts are another wild shot. They usually receive a couple of bucks, but a few days ago, I got this huge payout on one of them. I always try to make them interesting by my writing, so I'm not sure what triggers this, other than complete randomness.
My photography posts. This is where I can't help but feel frustrated with the randomness sometimes. Seeing many very mediocre pictures earn hundreds, while some of my own very best pictures get a few bucks. I am not someone who is easily impressed by herself. I do not boast about myself a lot, but some of my very best pictures are definitely wall-worthy, while this same cannot always be said about the pictures that earn hundreds. These pictures are my pride and it hurts when they are passed by.
Don't get me wrong! I'm happy for the ones that get up to 20-40 payout. I really am very thankful for the people who notice and like them. The frustration is about the ones that don't get noticed at all. By now though, I know enough about Steemit to know that I can make the best picture in the world and it would still not reach the Trending page.
I don't want to pursue a friendship with a whale, simply to get big upvotes. That seems insincere. I know that would be the easiest way to go, but I have my pride. I'll have to keep playing with the randomness.
The perfect examples of randomness
I am not a new person. I have a following of over 800 now. Even that can't get a picture like this noticed enough to reach Hot. Either my taste in photography is very different to that of most others (I'm starting to feel this might be the case), or this is the perfect example of Steemit's randomness. It can't just be the fact that I am asleep while the US is awake, right?
1 hour in, and only around $1 payout.
So to every new member who gets frustrated by their low payouts: You're not alone, but it is not about you personally. The complete randomness of Steemit just does not care much about your post's quality. You're sure to not get high payouts if you post crap, but good quality does not automatically equal good payouts. You need to work for your following and after that, hope for the best.
On the upside: We do have a very nice community and being here does allow you to practice your writing skills. Also, every bit of Steem is more than what you get when writing on Facebook or a free blog. So embrace the randomness, get frustrated sometimes, but move past it and build up good relationships. Because honestly, even though I get frustrated by the randomness sometimes, I still love being here.
Thanks for stopping by! If you've enjoy this article, try my other sites:
| Photo shop | Foodblog | Photo gallery | Twitter |
Don't forget to Upvote, Resteem and Follow!
My own image used as a header for my blog posts.
As always, these pictures are made and owned by me and are not to be used without my permission. If you would like to use them in any way, please contact me or visit my Deviantart or Photography shop for a purchase.
I'm still small here and my upvote doesn't mean much. I always try to upvote as many people as I can, if I feel it deserves it but I can't always do that. In fact, I just tried to upvote this one and it brought it down a penny. Oops. So, I removed my vote.
I will resteemed it though because I feel like your frustration is one that many share.
My only advice is to keep going, things are changing all the time and I think some of the changes coming to this platform will be encouraging for you.
I'm going to look more closely at your page and your photography.
Never give up on your passion for writing and taking pictures. Do what makes you happy and things will fall into place. 💜
Thank you so much for your sweet comment! I will definitely stick around here. I figured many people would feel this frustration and thought it was important for newbies to see they are not alone in this. The changes coming are really interesting and I hope they'll change things for the better!
The reward numbers fluctuate constantly, so no worries, your upvote won't take away rewards from anyone :-)
Just to clarify for others who read this: your vote cannot reduce the payout of a post, so if it went down when you clicked on it it just means that either the price of STEEM went slightly down or (less likely) someone else removed their vote since the page was refreshed. So, go ahead and add your vote back and I'll add mine :)
I did in fact, add my upvote! And thanks for the info, Justin!
Hey, I just joined this a few days ago, and I'm glad to see an article like this from someone who's been here six months, so thanks!
I think all this whale chasing can only lead to people being insincere, and that's the worst thing that can happen in my eyes. A lot of successful people in life are insincere, and too often being insincere can pay off. But I'd rather just be myself and say what I wanna say, post what I feel and express myself in an honest way. And that's the same way I live my life. I'm glad that I hardly understand how this website works, because I would hate to get too bogged down in trying to impress the 'right people'. There's too much of that in the world already!
I think your blog is very impressive and you should be proud of how well you're doing, and you're obviously true to yourself and that is most impressive in a world full of phoniness. :)
So thanks for the article! Honestly, it made me feel less alone here. :)
Oh my gosh, I can't begin to tell you how much I like your comment. I agree that there are way too many insincere people in this world and sadly, often this makes them way too successful. It is something many people don't see or care about, so I'm always happy to find people who do notice and feel the same about it. Thank you very much for your comment and welcome to Steemit! I hope you'll do well here!
This, my friends, is how you get followers and friends!
Aww thank you, looking forward to seeing you around. This is the first real communication I've had since I got here!
Well we've got some pretty nice people around here, so I'm sure you'll find many more to chat with :D
What does the number next to peoples names mean?
It is your reputation. New people start at 25 and then it can grow by gaining upvotes from people with higher reputation (if I remember this correctly). It can also go down if you get flagged by people with higher reputation. At the lower numbers, it'll grow faster. The higher you get, the slower your progress becomes. I've come to the point where it feels like it is not growing at all anymore :-)
Aaah thanks, that's making sense now, not sure if I was 37 or 47 before, but I'm 40 now, hopefully it's only gone up and not down. :o
Hi, thanks for sharing this. I resonate with your frustration on the randomness of Steemit. I've also been around for some time now, but I haven't been active constantly.
A while ago I published a 30 days challenge that got paid from a few cents to 20-30 $ per article. It was during the time when a curation guild was active and my posts got picked up by them and they always made a huge difference in the rewards.
I started being active again a few weeks ago and I also feel a bit disheartened seeing that I don't pass the threshold of 5-6 $ while most of my posts get 1-2 or a few cents. And that happens even if I get plenty of comments on most of them, getting a positive feedback.
So I'm also looking forward to HF19, hoping this will change for the better. In the mean time I'm trying to keep my hopes high, while encouraging others like me. So keep it up, I hope your posts will start getting the rewards they deserve.
Hi @raluca, thank you very much for your comment. I see you've had the same experiences as me. I've followed you for a while, but I have to admit I missed a lot of your posts. I'm going to read back a few you posted on the Nice Girl Syndrome, because they seem really interesting.
I really hope HF19 will bring a nice change to the payouts. I'm really curious to see its effects and hope rewards will be split a bit more evenly. It would be nice to see the lesser known, good authors getting a higher payout.
My pleasure. Thanks for having a look at my recent series of posts. Let me know what you think of it. :) And yeah, let's hope for a good change and supporting each other grow around here.
I really like the articles and I think everyone can atleast relate to one or two of these. I've learned a few lessons like these aswell, especially to value myself more and guard my borders. Say 'no' more often.
I hope you're in a good place now, having learned these lessons!
Thanks for stopping by @playfulfoodie and I'm glad you've found value in what I've shared. Happy to hear you've learned to have healthy borders and saying no more often.
I'm in a much better place now compared to 10 -15 years ago, definitely. But I don't see myself as "off the hook". I feel like some of these old patterns are always lurking by, and I need to be aware and vigilant to not fall back. It's a life long learning process, but there is considerable progress.
Some things never really go away and you indeed have to stay vigilant to not fall back. I have the same with social situations. They're quite uncomfortable for me and it's easier to just say 'no', but I have to remember to say 'yes' aswell sometimes :-)
Wow, that's exactly what I thought yesterday :) And you know, I was sad the one day when I talked about posting bullshit, because I saw so many people earning good with it. But I came back to me and my true path. My best poem got me ~ $ 1.5, another not so difficult one ~ $ 25 and today I think the same like you: It does and it doesn't matter :)
You're really a true honest and kind soul and I don't like to ask other people or a whale for attention too. Maybe this is a major difference to others and a reason for this randomness catching us sometimes, but I will stay who I am. Thank you for your great work again! I'll resteem it to a later time, because I want to test something regarding this "randomness" ;)
I'm so glad to hear you felt like this aswell! Not that I mean it's good that you're frustrated sometimes, but it's good to see I'm not the only one and it's good to see my article speaks to people :-)
I'm glad to hear you're sticking to your own path. I think this is the way that you'll last the longest, because you'll enjoy yourself the most. That way, the rewards will just follow after.
Thank you for your sweet comment! I hope more people will stay true to themselves :-)
In my test regarding the randomness of earnings I came to the conclusion that it is in fact completely random in most cases. Did you know that when you edit your post, add a space or just change the used tags, you get an extra up vote in most cases? This process can be done again and again, walking through all the tags here on Steemit... :) Sometimes it don't work in the evening, but some hours earlier or later. I think what most people don't know is how many bots are voting their articles. And what I saw, while analysing who on Steemit makes use of whale shares, is that nearly all the well paid publishers do it. I didn't want to do it, but if there is no other way and so many people are doing it, I'll give it a try in the next days. I'll come back to you and post my results here ;)
Oh wow, I love that you did all this research! Thank you so much for sharing your findings here :D
your assessments are pretty much accurate and I can understand the frustration. I am still getting settled in here but I'd have to disagree with one point, I don't think it's impossible for anyone to get on the trending page, it just isn't all about being a great writer sometimes.
The two big problems that I see are auto bots which keep the upvotes and subsequent pay flowing to the same people and a desire for many to curate based on content that seems like it is going to raise in price and give a higher curation reward, so a lot of content is crap, but it's got a nice title and so,e nice pictures, maybe a bikini or some buzz words, it's by a poster with a history of high upvotes, so it automatically gets more upvotes. The trending page seems to be half full of users who invested money into their accounts. That still doesn't make it impossible.
It really comes down to your relationship with the whales and other pillars of the community. This in itself wouldn't be so bad if the difference between a minnow and a dolphin and a whale weren't exponential differences. Enough minnow support should equal a whale vote but it does not. I did not come here to kiss whales ass just to get upvotes. The good news though, is that a bunch of whales agree that this is a problem and they are working at fixing it. You might not always agree with their methods, but for me, it's been a good experience engaging with them on these topics. If nothing else it's really nice to see that those with exponentially greater amounts of influence are willing to have a chat with a newbie.
I say keep your hopes up without any expectations and keep good relationships with whoever you can, no need to play politics though.
I will continue to upvote your posts when I'm a fat whale ;-)
Thank you for your amazing comment!
I think this is one of the big problems and I'm glad that HF19 is on its way, because as I understand it, this will help tackle the problem somewhat. It's frustrating to get those comments on my posts, saying the rewards are $20 less than what they should be if a 'fair' voting system is in place (whatever that means). I hope the HF19 will even things out a bit.
That's exactly it! I don't want to get on a whale's good side, just to see a good reward. My pride gets in the way of that and I don't want to be insincere like that :-)
Well your sincerity is appreciated! The platform encourages it in some ways and then discourages it in others as it is right now. I hope HF19 will fix this as well, do you know when we will see it?
Exactly! I'm not sure actually. I remember reading a post from @dragosroua I think, with him speculating (he wasn't sure) that it might happen in a few weeks, but it might take a while after that for the rewards to reflect the change.
Very well written! Great to hear your honest view.
The randomness can be a huge issue if people start to think that quality doesn't matter. And in the short run it probably doesn't. But building up a following from quality posts will hopefully reap some rewards further down the road.
Keep up the good work my lady!!
That's what I've been going by! I don't feel good betraying myself by pretending I'm something I'm not, just to please a whale. It seems people who do this get an easier time here though.
We'll just keep on doing what we like and hope it'll be appreciated!
This is a great post and a good example of a lot of votes for little money(at this point).
I share many of your frustrations as the work you sometimes post on a whim pays better than the longer posts you work really hard on.
I agree though many need to manage their own expectations better and blog for the fun and chance to dialogue with like minded individuals from all over the world.
If you think blogging on Steemit is going to mean early retirement you are going to be disappointed. I know it'll happens for a few lucky, hard working Steemians however for most it will never happen.
Thanks again for the the post I'm sure there are many who agree completely with all of your points as I do.
@tremendospercy
Thank you very much for your nice reply! I'm happy to hear more people share these feelings and I just wanted to show newbies they're not alone in this. HF19 might give us a nice change, but yes, early retirement is a bit of a long shot :-)
This is a great encouragement piece for new users, love it. A lot of people seem to be discouraged on their first day that they aren't making hundreds of dollars - just like any social media, you probably won't rise to the top in one day. Another important fact: a post that made $2 just three months ago is worth $20-$40 today, assuming you kept your payout in your wallet. Your wallet goes up as the price of STEEM rises. Posts themselves are investments for the future.
That's a great addition! As long as you don't touch your wallet, the value will just rise with the coin :D
I refuse to touch my Steem Power for now, because as you say, it's a good investment for the future.
"Is this not the case for you yet, then I advice you to start interacting more on this platform to build up your following."
In other words, hard work and a bit of luck. It's a bitter but realistic pill. Two of my early posts were lucky and picked up some attention (~$300), but follow-up posts of similar quality have seen no interest yet. Since they were culture related series, it's probably luck/fanbase variance.
"(though nowhere near even $100 yet)"
Still, I'm not complaining in the slightest. I've been very lucky, and was lucky to have work to post I had already spent substantial time on.
Yeah, that's basically it :-)
Oh, that sounds really good! I'm sure that gave your account a nice boost!
I don't really have an idea of how much that effect will be. I have yet to receive any payouts, as my posts are all under 7 days old. I just popped in here this week and added .2 BTC to see how it went.
Ooh I see! Well at the very least it gave your reputation a nice push, which is always a good thing :-)
Nice one
Well written and probably factually correct. I do believe the key is to be consistent and interact. Keep Steemin @playfulfoodie
I definitely agree with you there, though even then it can take a long time before you get noticed. There's a bit of luck involved there aswell :-)
I agree on the luck part..in the first three months I never once got $2
Yeah, that holds true for most newbies here. I think it's risky that they gain such high payout on their introduction post, because they probably won't reach that again for months, so it might get their expectations up a bit too much. That may lead to many people leaving again.
Just finished the post and saw your frustrations came from art/photography. That's tough. It's very subjective, and the, ahem, lower-brow the taste in general, the more popular it is by volume. I would also say that natural photos are perhaps over-saturated with places like Reddit Earth Porn always a click away. That may make it even more difficult to judge the tastes of your prospective audience, because they can see a range of 2000x or higher resolution photos of world wonders that would require a helicopter to recreate, in 3 seconds.
PS - The last photo looks like Cades Cove.
Yeah, you've got a really good point there. For nature photography, there is a huge amount of competition all over the internet. It's why I never gave real thought to trying to make it my profession. Part of my pictures do okay here on Steemit, so I can't complain too much. Seeing bad quality pictures gaining well into the hundreds can sometimes be quite frustrating though. In some cases, it just seems to be about who you know, but I guess that's with everything in life!
Here's another issue. Compare it to, say, automotive photography.
Every good nature photo ever taken is still relevant, even black and white photos. You're competing with over 100 years of photos and displaying the same thing they are. Have you really taken anything close to the best "misty field" picture taken in the last 150 years? I wouldn't know, I'm not an art critic. Is it more reasonable to assume you may not even be in the "top 1000 best misty field pictures", or maybe even "top million" out of 10 million? Possibly.
The photographer snapping a 2018 Ford Mustang isn't competing with anything except maybe (at most) a picture of the same generation of Mustang, and there sure aren't 150 years of them. 2-3 years, tops. In a few years, there will be a new and totally different looking Mustang, and 99% of previous Mustang photos will be rendered irrelevant, aside from niche collectors. There is a whole new, untapped subject to photograph that nobody has ever photographed before, the 2019, 2020, etc Mustang.
Same with technology, movies, music, new construction, etc.
The same issues apply to some types of articles, too. History is a good example - it's all been said before, and likely better than (the proverbial you) could. I'd be writing more about it otherwise.
They aren't really making any new nature these days.
Haha, yeah you're right about that. I would never suggest mine are the best, not by a long shot. Here on Steemit though, there are definitely worse aswell. Its hard these days to find something unique though! So many things have already been done. I'm happy I found Steemit so early on in this particular game :-)
Seems? 8-)
Okay, that might just be the biggest part of things here :D
Great article, to be honest for now I don't care about how much I'm earning in my post, my plan here is to keep my reputation high, build a following and interact with good people, money will come later
Yeah, if you care too much about your earnings, I don't think you'd last long here. The fun has to come first! But hey, I don't think many people can say they don't care about the earnings at all :D
It is the typical reaction of the human mind. I remember how psyched I was when some of my early articles got picked up, now I think for every article that does not fly there must be something wrong with.
I actually try to motivate me by looking at trending "hey my math post only made a dollar, but it is still in the Top20 trending math posts":D
Aah that's a great idea! I don't check the trending page per tag usually. Going to give that a shot!
Great post @playfulfoodie, and very recognisable! Loooove your pics, these are artworks. I understand your frustration. Like I posted one of my best pics ever, my favourites. And even before hitting the post button I was thinking, I just send one of my best photo's online... and then.. $0.14 cents. What the heck! It's not even the money, but hated myself by the fact I just threw my best pic. Anyways, I now were you're coming from! But let's move on further and not be frustrated, I like your end, and I agree. :))
Oh gosh, yes, that is so frustrating! I sometimes get that same feeling about myself, thinking "There must have been a better time to post this..."
Thank you, I'm glad you like my post (and pictures!) :-)
You know the other problem here is that you miss so many good posts to upvote aswell! I follow quite a few people and I can't always take the time to scroll all the way down. With all the Resteems aswell, it just gets such a mess in my feed. I've missed quite a few of your posts aswell that way.
Same here, I think that's the problem! And you know, it's not a problem. Once in a while we will find eachother again ;)
Definitely!
Hahahaha, I just posted something. And its happening again.. .hahahahahaha! Ok, I like and hate steemit.
I know the feeling! I've upvoted it for you :-)
Sounds scary by the way!
Hahaha, thanks! (wasn't meant to sneak you to my context) But thanks!
Its so true Steemit can be so random but I think it keeps us "on our toes" this way!!!.. it's addictive to see how a post is recieved when we click that 'post' button :)
Haha, that it is!
I only post photos and I have no clue about the payouts.
But its ok I dont get frustrated. I still post for I love taking photos ;)
I treat all payouts as bonuses.
That's a great way of looking at it. I'm glad you're doing what you love! That way, everything else is a bonus :-)
exactly :)
already opbotsen hours ago, but wanted to leave this nugget of advise I read elsewhere. Don't do it for the money ! Participatie because the community is awesome not because there is real money involved. That's just bonus.
Great post.
Definitely! I give that advice to any newbie who wants to listen. Part of Steemit is the earnings though, so we can't help but notice these things sometimes. I think it's good for people to know they're not the only one with these feelings sometimes.
I am definitely sticking around though, because I enjoy it here!
good advice. You never know what triggers someone to vote for your post.
I like those morning post... had not seen those until now.. going to follow you :)
Ooh thank you very much :-)
A very nice article.
Thank you :-)
I definitely agree with you
Thank you, I'm glad to hear that :-)
My two most successful posts were before I had the subscribers I have now. One earnt $62 and blew me away. The other earnt $83 and I was amazed. Haven't had a hit like that since.
I don't let it discourage me. Just going to keep at my content and get better. :)
Ooh that's awesome! Yeah, I think the higher your reputation and followers get, the more hits you get, though it's no guarantee.
This post has been ranked within the top 25 most undervalued posts in the first half of Jun 10. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $39.38 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Jun 10 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.