Welcome to SteemIt.

It probably is a good time to buy STEEM.

The amount of STEEM POWER in one's wallet determines the value of one's upvote. NOTE: One presses the Power Up button to turn STEEM into STEEM POWER.

The minimum payment is 0.001 SP.

One needs to have about 70 STEEM POWER to start receiving curation rewards.

I have 67 SP. My upvote is worth just under 0.002. Half of the reward goes to the author. The other half to the curator. I get curation payouts for about half of my upvotes.

The Two Cent Cutoff

The really frustrating thing is the $0.02 cutoff.

A post must receive at least $0.02 worth of upvotes to receive a payout; otherwise the rewards will be wiped away as dust.

This is a much more difficult nut to crack. As I recall, one needs to have about $500 USD in STEEM POWER to have an upvote worth $0.02. The amount of STEEM one needs fluctuates with the price of STEEM.

Introduce Yourself Post

One of the best way for newbies to get upvotes is to write a post with the tag #introduceyourself

The post should have a picture and a few paragraphs about yourself and what you hope to accomplish on SteemIt.

Have fun on SteemIt.