This is a great challenge! It’s the perfect post for a response, too. (Warning: lengthy comment ahead.)

As a fellow newbie, I share her frustrations. I consider myself a skilled writer, but that’s because I’ve put the work in. I’ve been writing just about every day since I’ve been capable of expressing complex thoughts on paper. I used to be a history PhD student and I worked my butt off trying to produce work that was up to academic peer review standards. I can’t paint, or draw, or even sign my name very well, but I can certainly tell a story. As a former teacher, it doesn’t bother me when people don’t have a particularly strong grasp of grammar or an eloquent writing style (particularly if they’re not native speakers); I just care about effort. But there is a lot of garbage on here that goes well rewarded, and that can be frustrating.

This part resonates with me: You sculpt the questions to text by performing research, this by doing your due diligence, getting the facts straight. My niche is writing history articles that are well-researched but fun to read. It takes time—lots of it. Some articles take up to 20 hours of research. I’m trying not to focus too much on the dollar amount. In academia, I spent eight years on and off working on a project that went through three rounds of peer review, and I actually had to pay for offprints of the journal that it was published in. I lived on less than $30,000 a year in New York working as a teacher at a university. I didn’t pursue that career path to get rich, but I loved the work. Since I’ve left academia, this is how I stay connected to those years of my life.

I have every intention of continuing to put in the hard work. I’ve started mixing some other genres in there that don’t take insane amounts of research so I can build a following of people with diverse interests, but I want to keep sharing the projects that I love, even if I only get pennies and a couple of comments in return. Just one reader enjoying what I put out there is enough for me. I truly believe that the hard work will go recognized with time, because the people who have stumbled on my blog seem to enjoy it.

This has been my approach, though I’m not sure if it’s much of a “dirty little secret:” I’ve been focusing my efforts not only on putting out quality content, but also reading through the #introduceyourself posts and contributing thoughtful comments. As a result, most of my followers are newbies themselves, so I’m not making a huge dollar return, but I believe that those are the writers who will eventually succeed if they stick with it, and we’ll grow together. That’s what I love so much about the #newbieresteemday project—it’s based on that exact principle. @beeyou in particular has been such a great mentor, and I’m lucky that she found my #introduceyourself post. I look forward to having the clout to be a real contributor to the project.

Here are some newbie hidden gems I’ve found since I started:

• @monicacope - She’s a doctor who is also an incredible artist and writer. Seriously, do yourself a favor and look at her blog. Like, right now.
• @eleanorgoldfield - writes about politics and activism—really interesting stuff.
• @danbab7 - Interesting art history posts—recently expressed some similar frustrations on Reddit, which is how I found him.
• @gvgktang - I seriously cannot recommend her work highly enough, but maybe I’m biased because she’s another history grad student. She donates her SBD proceeds to the Philadelphia History Initiative.