I'm going to divulge some secrets how to make more money as an author and curator of steem. #5 of a 5 Part Series

LESSON #5: VALUE OF YOUR POSTS

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15. BRINGING VALUE TO THE STEEM COMMUNITY WITH YOUR POSTS

First of all, what is value?

• the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something.
• a person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life.

It is very simple:

If you ask someone to spend the time to READ and UPVOTE your articles, or even your comments, you must deserve the time spent it took to READ them. You must also deserve the time it took to get an UPVOTE for them too.

How do you do that?

Let's value some comments:

• (1) Hi, good post! upvoted!

---> On a scale of 1-10, what do you think of that one? I rate that a 0/10

• (2) Hi, your post touched my heart, and I'll tell you why. I realized the same thing when this happened to me. I recently got pulled into the same situation, and this is what I did to fix it....[more details follow]

---> On a scale of 1-10, what do you think of that one? I rate that an 8/10

Let's value some posts or articles by people on their blog:

• (1) Since everyone is talking about the Mexico earthquake, I thought I would do it too

---> On a scale of 1-10, what do you think of that one? I rate that a 0/10

• (2) I did some research lately (took me a week), but I want to share the results of my findings. This will save you the trouble. Here is the results, and how it can save you both time and money on trying to figure this out yourself. I've done the work for you...

---> On a scale of 1-10, what do you think of that one? I rate that an 8/10

Most people can SMELL cheap posts. They can smell when there was little effort involved to create them.

Bots don't care, they'll upvote almost anything. PEOPLE do care, and your followers and audience do care. If you are just writing for the sake of writing... people will realize that is exactly what you are doing, and they won't upvote you.

Q: Ok @intelliguy, are you telling me every single one of your comments and posts gets upvoted? You said you know how to write meaningful things that take time and effort

A: Honestly, not all my writings get paid well. Many of them do, but not all of them. Does that mean I'm willing to cheapen my efforts? Sell out my soul and just publish crap I don't believe in? No!

• There is only one single @intelliguy on the steem blockchain, and that's me. I'm going to do my best to keep my work and time spent remembered.. my historical track record (like a driver's abstract) is important to me... because I'm real. I'm not real whether or not I get paid. I am real EVEN IF I don't get paid. That's why I need to take a breather every couple of days to build up a catharsis for my next writing.
• That link I just posted to catharsis is not just a definition, it's a good writeup with extra details that might actually help you. I invite you to click it.

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Ask yourself these questions when you post a comment, or write an article:

• Am I the first one to post something like this?
• Does it help someone, or save someone some time and effort? Did it spawn emotion?
• Did someone read what I just wrote, and actually feel differently by it?
• Did I put my "all" in that post or comment? Did I mean what I said?
• Did I surprise myself, by the amount of effort I put into that?
• Did I surprise myself, by how blatantly truthful I was, and didn't mind sharing that?
• Did I surprise myself, and look back, and say... I was actually proud I wrote that. Didn't realize I was going to do that....

If the answer is yes to even a couple of those... then yes, that's a good comment or post.

If you write a comment or article/post and ask yourself:

• I did that to get upvotes, even just one. Was that good enough to get an upvote?
• You might as well go jump in a lake, throw in the towel, or give up now.

WRITING ON STEEM IS NOT ABOUT GETTING UPVOTES -- EVEN IF IT LOOKS LIKE IT IS

This is a community. A HUGE community. There are thousands of people here. Tens of thousands actually. Soon to be millions.

Every HOTSHOT new user of STEEM wanting money thinks they can write simple, quick content, and find some way to get paid.

• You can fool us some of the time. You can't fool us all of the time.

• Scammers, lazy posters, plagiarists, slackers, cheap effort contributors... they all make money in the short term. NONE of them make great money in the long term.

So look around. What users of steem do you remember and are noteworthy?

• (1) Do you remember the last recycled content you read found already on the internet?
• (2) Do you remember certain steemians who posted new, fresh, unique content you've NEVER seen before?

The answer is already in your hands. I just reminded you of it.

YOU REMEMBER VALUE. WE ALL DO.

You didn't need any of my steem tips from 1-5 to tell you the obvious. You might have just hoped there was an EASY SECRET to avoid hard work.

Or you might have hoped here was an EASY SECRET to change 1 or 2 "small" things, and get rich instantly.

None of what I've said from the 15 lessons I put in STEEM TIPS (1-5) is EASY, nor is it SECRET. It's common sense, but VERY IMPORTANT.

Don't cheat the system. It won't cheat you either long term.

Are you here to make $100, or $100,000 ? Your effort decides that!

• Now please do us both a favor. Write a meaningful comment below other than "good post" or "I like" - prove to us both you understood what you just read. Please take the time do to that now.

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I'm on day 28/30 of my positivity challenge.

You can also read my blog to see Steem Tips #1-4, this is #5 in this series. I do these from time to time. If you want to see more of my writings in the future, you may know how to keep watching for them.