The Secrets to Steemit Success, or "I've Been Here a Month, Why am I Making No Fucking Money?"

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As an understandable consequence of the influx of new users, coinciding with the hard fork, I've seen a resurgence of very familiar "why am I not making any money" posts. New users, after working at it for a week, wondering why the Steem isn't rolling in.

I feel you. I was there too, and it took me a full month to make anything at all on my posts, then several months before I started making a useful, livable amount of money from this site. To be honest I am still struggling in some ways, but only because I've come to rely on the income Steemit generates to live.

What have I learned? That Steemit success is down to two things. I only see one of them discussed on here. That one is quality content. That's the only factor under your control, how good your content is and how frequently you post it.

The other factor, which is not under your control, is luck. I don't see this mentioned because I feel there's a strong bias on the part of those who have enjoyed some success on Steemit to attribute all of that success to their own talents. "I'm just so awesome, so of course it worked for me."

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The truth is, luck plays a large part. You can make the best content on the site but it's for nothing if you don't get noticed by at least a few dolphins or whales. However at the same time, if your content is crap then it doesn't matter if they notice it, because they won't follow and upvote.

So all you can do is to do as good a job as possible at what's under your control: The quality of your content, and the frequency with which you post it. After that, the rest is up to luck, and time. I have many friends I turned onto Steemit who posted once or twice, then never again.

However I also have a friend who stuck to it, churning out one article per day, and they're earning an appreciable amount now. It is doable. It will be easier or harder for different people based on luck, which is to say how long it takes for your content to be noticed, but everybody who makes actual good, compelling content can eventually succeed here if they keep at it relentlessly for a long enough time.

I don't mean to discourage you. Just the opposite. The good news here is that even with a greatly expanded userbase, it's still totally possible to rise through the ranks and succeed. The only bad news is that there's no shortcut, only working hard, making great content and lots of it...and of course that there's a huge luck factor involved that you cannot control.

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I did put in a great deal of hard work. I continue to. But I also acknowledge that I got lucky. Even a few months isn't a very long time to wait for success on Steemit, when it can take several years on Youtube to clear 1 million followers, even with very high quality content.

For that I am grateful, but not content. I want to send down the ladder so others can climb up to this point with me, not cut it off so that nobody can climb up after me. I hope that what I've written here convinces you success is indeed possible, there are just no shortcuts and it may take a shorter or longer time than average for you to make it, depending on chance.

That's all for this time. Keep Steeming, and may the odds be ever in your favor.

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^{While you're at it, Stay Cozy!}