Hi Suzie -- I like what you had to say here... I wanted to give you some tips to maximize your long term contribution and payout here. I noticed that you powered down... If you want to increase the number of people who tip you out for your work, you need to get seen by more people. To get seen by more people, you need to build your audience. To build your audience, you need to engage people by upvoting their posts or their comments here. You will note that you only have 10 upvotes a day at about 1 cent each for now... (because you just started out) But if you ever get to 500 Steem Power, you will be able to divide up your upvotes and spread them out more... for example you would have 100 upvotes at 10 cents each instead of just 10 upvotes at 1 cent each... I hope that makes sense. Engagement is essential to you doing better on the platform. I'm a former journalist from Canada. Been chewed up and spat out as an activist. I've spent the last 6 months on steem hustling my bum off to build up my Steem Power so that I can increase my engagement and grow my audience. I don't use bots... although I think bots might be a way to go for somebody new. If you want to get a regular stream of income from steem that pays the bills here, you need to engage with people.... if you don't have a big audience of followers, your posts will simply not be seen enough to make a difference. Sooooo Grow your steem power. I've started following you and I will resteem the stuff you post that is my niche interest... because that's the second way to grow your audience... Be sparing with your feed. Only follow people who are posting stuff that you really want to engage with and interact with. Don't follow people for the sake of a follow in return. Use the follow to create a feed of news that is interesting, challenging and engaging... and resteem to give the people who follow you a peek at the kind of stuff you are paying attention to, and think they may be interested in as well. Those are my tips to you as a newcomer.. it took me 6 months to sort of figure some of this stuff out. If I can help in any other way - please don't hesititate to get in touch.