A blog for money

When I first joined Steemit I had a clear intention of beginning a blog where I could talk about my interests and add value to the platform. Earning money was nothing but a bonus, something that could externally motivate me.

I spent a lot of time reading about how Steemit works while I waited for the account approval, and after wrapping my mind around the concepts of Steem/Steem Power/Steem Based Dollars, I read something about curation rewards. The name itself is clear: you are the first to notice a good post, so you're helping it become noticed and eventually get a lot of rewards. You should get a prize for that, and you do!

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Simply put, you earn Steem by upvoting posts. But it depends on three variables:

1. Your steem power - If you have lots of steem power, your upvote is bigger so it helps the post's visibility more than a smaller upvote. So you deserve more rewards, which is just fair. The more steem power you have, the more steem you get from curation rewards.
2. Order - If you're the first to upvote a post, it means you are the first reader recognizing the value of it. So you deserve more rewards as well! It's easy to see a post is successful after 500 votes, but being the first one... Well, that's a mastery!
3. Timing - If you see a good post and rush upvoting it because you think you'll get lots of rewards, forget it. On the first 30 minutes, part of the steem you would get from noticing a good post is given to the author. On the other hand, it's difficult to find a 30 min old post without almost no upvotes, that will rise to several hundreds $ in rewards!

Thanks to @skycae, that delegated some SP to me when I first began steeming, my curation rewards have been rising quite a lot. They're now about 0.2 SP a week, which is not a negligible value!

How you'll earn free money reading my posts

I use vote-sellers (@smartsteem) for pumping my posts. And I profit from them, it's really easy, I just send any amount of SBD to @smartmarket with the link for my post in the memo and BANG, there goes a bunch of upvotes that will give you more than you sent. People that don't even know they're selling their vote, let alone reading my post.

You can also register on their site for some additional features. Feel free to use my referral for that with this link.

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I don't feel bad about using vote-sellers. I do if for my profit but also for my dear readers profit! Why?

Because I only do it 24 or more hours after posting.

This makes a whole difference, because most people that really read and enjoy my posts upvote them in the first hours. Their upvote will inevitably be one of the first ones, and I really encourage them not to upvote in the first 30min: I want you to earn as much curation rewards as possible!

After about a day, I go ahead and I pump my post like hell (usually to 15$). The vote-sellers aren't going to earn much curation rewards. You will, because you were one of the first. And I'll make the post artificially rise in value!

I want you to earn as much money as possible in my blog, if you enjoy it. Here are some of my strategies, besides using vote-selling after some time:

• I try to 100% upvote every comment on it (it's not much but is about 0.04$)
• I set up automatic upvotes for the most active friends in here,
• I give you SBI shares every week!

Is this fair?

Short answer: I don't think so. But it is the way it is.

Long answer: Steemit is full of bid bots, vote-sellers, and other ways to pump bad posts for profit. I can't agree that it is fair, but it doesn't make the platform different from what we're used to: the internet is full of crappy stuff pumped with money, often hiding very good things!

But at the same time, if you're just writing good posts and receiving almost no attention at all since no one really cares... Well, you'll need a lot more time to start profiting from your efforts! So I think you need to play by the community rules and stop caring about what is the "true good usage" of the platform, as long as you keep respecting everyone.

I think I do respect everyone :)

I know this isn't a consensual matter (@diogogomes, are u there?) so I guess I'll have some comments with different opinions!

Which is great!

Let's just try to keep this nice and respectful for everyone, shall we?

Do you want to earn SBD forever? I'm giving away Steem Basic Income shares :) Just drop an original comment in this post!

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