How I Got On Steemit—The Short And Long Of It
Dragos Roua's 30-Day Writing Challenge
Note: What follows is the first subject of @dragosroua's 30-Day writing challenge.
The topic: How Did You Get On Steemit?
All are welcome to participate. Rules on how to do so can be found by clicking on this link.
It was a dark and stormy night. Hey! There's no paper in this contraption!
Reader's Digest Version
A friend of mine, @bbrewer, told me about STEEM back in July of 2016. He had recently joined and thought I would really enjoy the concept of blogging and getting rewards for it. Well, of course I would, but not knowing anything about cryptocurrency, especially one that was a few months old, I just didn't take the plunge.
I heard about Bitcoin and found it utterly ridiculous that a made up coin could be worth so much. Not only that, but that it could rise and fall by the tune of hundreds of dollars. What kind of investment was that? Certainly not one without a great deal of risk.
So, time passed. Then, somewhere before Christmas time last year, I came to the conclusion that I wasn't getting anywhere with what I was trying to do on Social Media (I certainly wasn't making any money at it), and I remembered this STEEM deal that @bbrewer had told me about. I had to ask him about it to make sure of the name and to find out if was still around or not. It was, he assured me. So, I went to sign up. I wasn't happy to find out it could take up to two weeks to be approved (approved for what?), but I took the plunge, anyway.
Fortunately, it didn't take that long to get on. My account became live late in the afternoon on December 30, 2017. Other than setting up the account and poking around a bit, I didn't do much with it until January 1 of this year, when I made my first comments and upvotes.
The Longer Version
For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to own my own business and I wanted to write. As time went by, those desires did not diminish. Instead, they amplified, and expanded. Writing, I recognized, was just one form of creative expression available to me, and if at all possible, I wanted to spend my time creating and being compensated for it.
Each time I've made a move to be closer to that goal, the goal would move an equal or greater distance. Just when I thought I had the last piece of the puzzle in place, it would either fizzle, or more gaps would appear. The closest I ever got to combining writing with compensation was as the owner and publisher of two weekly newspapers, but as time went on, I did less writing, mostly layout, and basically whatever owner's responsibilities that might exist week to week.
Ultimately, I wanted to be an author of fiction, but there's always been gatekeepers in the form of the publishing houses, unless you went vanity press, but back then, social media didn't exist (let alone much of an Internet), so you ended up with a bunch of books in your garage. Then, digital self-publishing became a thing, but trying to put your book out there in the ocean of all the other books, great and small, was not the solution. Even using each new iteration of social media was not the answer. It just created more and more layers to try to attend to.
Most recently, before coming to Steemit, I found Patreon, and thought it was the answer. By then, I had four different comic book series ideas floating in my head, and I was hoping to create a following for them by allowing people to follow me through the development stage of each successive series, as well as reading the finished comics.
Well, Patreon doesn't really make any effort to get your work out there in front of anyone. Most people who are doing well have already been creating on the web for two to five years, have a following, and many of those are willing to pay a few bucks a month for some exclusive behind the scenes perks. I was trying to build a product and a following at the same time while paying for concept art and essentially got nowhere.
The Facebook page I was running before that (and still maintain), wasn't producing income either, so I've primarily been doing things to increase followers and engagement there, with some success, but no dollars.
Enter Steemit. Within a couple of weeks of being here, I earned more with posting, commenting and curation than I did with several different blogging and social media projects over the last 15 years. Maybe my writing ability has improved over that period of time, but in reality, the main change is, I'm closer to those who want to see my creations than I've ever been before.
And those folks have some degree of incentives to reward me. As much as I, or anyone, would like to see better compensation sooner, it's still a start. Most days, I feel like I've finally arrived, that I'm finally where I can engage directly with others who are interested in what I'm doing, and me with them.
And that is how I got on Steemit.
Thanks for filling us in on how you got started here. I remembered some of what you said from other conversations we're had/articles you've written. It's fun knowing the background of how someone got started here, what drew them to starting an account. Sometimes it helps give a hint of why they're here too.
It's nice to have friends already in place. I think that if any of my friends actually join and stick with it, I'll be in a decent place to help boost them along. I remember seeing you getting $0.20 votes and being in awe of how much you were making. It's funny how even just a little amount can make a huge difference. My vote isn't quite to $0.20 yet, but it's getting there and I'd like to be able to help boost people along. :)
And then you see someone getting a $20 upvote and the awe evaporates. And then it's obliterated when someone else gets the $200 upvote. Everything turns out to be subject to degrees, and it's amazing how quickly we can adapt our expectations to them.
I thought it was a worthwhile exercise, even though I've probably mentioned most of what I wrote at least once somewhere else. Here, unless you have eyes on your posts from the beginning (which is very unlikely) it's like you're constantly reintroducing yourself.
I know I enjoyed reading yours, so I would hope that the same would hold true with mine, even if it had nothing to do with, and continues to have little to do with, crypto. :)
It's true. Once you start seeing those huge votes, then $0.20 isn't as impressive, but since I can remember when getting $0.05 was a big deal, I still appreciate every vote I get.
I never did an introduceyourself post. I thought about tagging this one with it, but I didn't want all the spam that comes with it. Not worth the hassle. I honestly don't want the visibility because the people who will see it are likely just spamming. I'd rather have followers who actually want to engage and discuss things.
I actually read yours yesterday. It's how I found out about the challenge. I just needed time to do the challenge and write a meaningful response to your post. Didn't want to gloss over it. Now yesterday is past and I need to work on the post for today. Alas, I've been procrastinating though. :)
Absolutely. Neither of us should be at a stage yet where we're not grateful for every penny that shows up on a post or comment. The moment I start yawning about that, will be a good day and a sad one. :)
I don't remember getting a lot of spam, but I got what turned out to be the largest payout I would get on several posts. There's plenty of people who wait, too, so it does actually get eyeballs on it.
Hey, no worries. I know I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary with your response or your response time. I appreciate the thought of making responses meaningful.
Today's topic seems easy on the surface, but then when you start thinking about it, there's plenty you might want to try to do. Still, in the grand scheme of things, while substantial, it's not a game changer in and of itself. It could be the spark for the changing of the game, though. :)
I hear you about being thankful. I've been trying to keep my VP above 80% so I can still give out as impactful votes as possible. I know that when I would get even $0.03 votes it would help a lot, so especially with comments and stuff I try to have something to give.
Good to know that there's money to be made there. I'll have to come up with something at some point, but for now, I'm just going to go on without it.
Glad you weren't wondering what the heck was going on. I try to be timely, but sometimes I miss things. I'm not perfect after all. Still in process there. Ha ha ha.
I read the topic, but I haven't formulated a response yet. I'm going to have to think a bit more before I write something. I want it to be good enough that I can win one of those $4 votes. That's my goal: get at least one of his full votes. I think that would be cool. Both for the money aspect, and because that means I'm writing something that is connecting with the audience.
Well, not to discourage any most excellent post you will come up with, but I think he peruses things fairly early in the day, as opposed to later. I've not been getting mine posted until around 11 am my time and today he'd already upvoted and resteemed some other people's posts. Guess I'm going to have to figure out a way to write it earlier.
Dang it! That sucks. He's over in Europe, so the only way I'd be able to get it out by then would be to stay up all night. Hmmm, well that's ok. I'll just post and see what happens. If I don't win any, I don't win any. Life is too short to worry about things that you can't change. Well, I could change my timing, but I'm not going to, so no need to fret about it. :)
Interesting to read your "how Igot on Steemit story" at @glenalbrethsen. I didn't realise that i have been here longer than you, by about two weeks! 😁
Two weeks is a loooong time on Steemit. :) And a lot apparently happened with STEEM through December and into January. I really should have started in July of 2016, but even at the end of November of last year would have been good, too, for STEEM prices. :)
Yeah. I was going to say "shame you didn't join in July when you first hard about it" @glenalbrethsen but I didn't want to rub it in! 😂
It's okay. The more the merrier. The silver lining in all this is I've been told that things were even slower and not as user friendly as things are now (if that even seems possible), so I might have become frustrated and given up all together.
That's a nice positive spin @glenalbrethsen. Good for you! 😁
Thanks for the mention. I certainly feel happy to be a part of this story. You are a fantastic writer and I think your compensation will continue to grow here on Steem.
I'm glad you were there and I'm glad you're along for the ride. Things have been improving, and so I'm grateful for that. I figure I should make something of my time here and your confidence in me :)
You're doing great!
Ohhh you did mention that you were a small business owner and now you release the info that you own a paper.
I could definitely see you in the editor's chair, crossing out articles and asking people to rewrite it while you are doing the layout.
Made me miss my old college days while working on articles,doing lay outs and being a gopher to my editors.
Steemit is a great introductory to the cryptocurrency and the blockchain technology
I owned (emphasis on the past tense) two very small weekly newspapers. For well over a year I owned three, and for about a week I owned four. I had a partner at the time and the partner decided one day he didn't want a partner anymore, so we ended up with two newspapers each.
I was only in the editor's chair for a couple of years, then we hired other people to do it. Having people rewriting articles while I was doing layout would have been too late for the articles to get in that week, so that would have not been good. It was a miracle we filled those pages at all and a testament to our reporters and our editor.
I much preferred layout over editing anyway. Layout was like a puzzle to be solved. Editing can be really fast and easy, and it also be like slogging through mud. Depended on the reporter.
Congrats, Glen, that you have finally arrived.
It is a good read.
It would be different if only Facebook pays it's users too.
It could be coming. Facebook is supposedly interested in blockchain technology. It will be interesting, if they do end up creating their own coin, how long it will take them to do it, and whether or not it will be too late. Huge corporations with many moving parts and people with varying vested interests don't often move on things very quickly. Will they see the value and inevitability of the attention economy before the masses flee for STEEM or something else? I'm doubtful, but who knows. Maybe they'll be more nimble than I think.
@glenalbrethsen - I undernstand your feeling about wanting to write.
Just after I finished high school I was considering 2 choices for University - Journalism and Engineering. My true interest was in writing, but the 'practical' part of me intervened, and I chose Engineering.
I have been a frustrated writer since then, but Steemit is a great way to get on track.
Good post, cheers!
Seriously, I would have chosen engineering, too, if I was anywhere competent at it. Journalism on any major level is not really journalism, anyway. It's something else. And most of the jobs don't pay nearly as well as most engineering jobs will.
That said, I feel your pain. There's nothing like having these thoughts of different stories in your head, all vying for attention, and then not really having time or a good paying outcome for them. Maybe Steemit is that place. Or maybe it's somewhere else. I do feel like I'm as close as I've ever been, and maybe I'm actually standing on the answer. That's exciting.
Yes, platforms like Steemit are an opportunity for many who might not otherwise have had them.
Good luck with your channel!
Interesting reading your ‘SteemIt background history’, @glenalbrethsen.
Now I understand your way with words. I see where all those insightful posts and comments come from. Glad to get to know you a little better :0)
I've been writing for most of my life. Anything insightful has come with living longer with others and having more experiences, and maybe even learning a thing or two from them. :) I'm glad to be getting to know you, too. That's one of the better things Steemit has to offer. Have you tried the laptop stand yet?