if you submit your own post you have a chance to get a vote, so you can get rewards that way as well.

only 33% of curation rewards are given to the user as steem, the other 66% is in an in-platform currency called GP. (This is what let's you submit posts, gives you bigger votes, etc.) So the number isn't fully accurate, but it is also inaccurate because iirc I set dirge to a higher curation rating manually to help test the platform, and that helps determine payout of voting on posts (but not submitting them). I am not sure how much this actually effects the numbers, but it will take some weeks before you start making the full amount and having your rating have a fuller weight. (This is just to help fight bots)

with the same curation rating and voting on all my posts for a few days I got like 1.5 steem on my alt