I'm not brand new to Social Media. This is not my first rodeo. I'm no expert by any means but I'm not totally unfamiliar with the concept. Back in the Eighties I was on Fido-Net. In the late nineties technology advanced. I could get internet in my TRUCK. (kinda sorta) I spent a LOT of time in Chat-Rooms on AOL, mostly 'Widows and Widowers. (but that's another story). Then came FaceBook. When I saw how FaceBook worked I bailed out of AOL and never looked back. I'm not even sure AOL still exists. Since then I've been on FaceBook for YEARS, many years, perhaps more than a decade. I've lost track. I spend hours and hours each day forwarding, posting, and chatting. Up until a couple of years ago I was an over the road trucker. Over the Road Trucking is like solitary confinement with a view. I'd most likely go to sleep at night (when I didn't drive it through) in a different STATE than I woke up in. I'd go weeks, months, perhaps over a year and never seeing a familiar face. I lived in my truck. I was a gypsy trucker, a nomad. I had no fixed residence. I had no place to call home. Technically I suppose that I was a homeless person on wheels, for over a quarter century. FaceBook WAS my social life. Over the years FaceBook changed. In the early days it was a lot of fun. Lately, not so much. It became aggravating. I didn't like the way it was changing. I didn't like the censorship, the Political Correctness and the anti conservative attitude. I especially didn't like the Ads. I DETEST the new policy of inserting advertisements in my news feed. If I want to buy something I'll go look for it. Until then leave me alone. Don't bother me and don't interrupt me when I'm reading or watching a video. In short FaceBook embraced the suck. I didn't like the way it was treating me and decided to move on. I began to search for an alternative. A year or so ago I found Tsu. The Tsu network had a new plan. It claimed to pay users to post. Why post on FaceBook for free when I'd get paid to post on Tsu? Sounded like a plan I spent hours and HOURS posting to Tsu. All for naught. I didn't make a dime. I heard about MeWe and checked it out (meh) Then about a month ago I discovered Steem. I lurked for a while, off and on, then joined up. Ten days ago, Tuesday the 23rd of August , I signed onto Steem as user # 73064. (Today there is 81,114 users on Steem. ) https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/09/01/graphb02b2.png I've published 213 posts and comments, (That would be on average 23.67 a day) These were NOT just one line posts or half a page or so. The majority was NOT "found on the internet" . The vast majority of my posts are original content. I'd spent literally YEARS writing this content. Sci-Fi mostly. I posted short stories and portions of books. I posted links to Amazon where my books can be bought. https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00DXISW74 I didn't just post. I attempted to involve myself in the community. I read and voted on a great many other posts. (I'm a fast reader) and voted 259 times ( 26.56 a day) In other words I tried. I tried HARD. https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/09/01/piechart97fb0.png For what? After a ten-day of diligent effort I have what? 5.61 Steam Power The question raises it's ugly head and asks itself. What are you doing wrong ? Actually I've been doing a LOT wrong. In fact I may have made every mistake it's possible to make. I'll list a few First off I didn't (and still mostly don't) understand the system. THIS is one of my problems https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/09/02/PostPaymentf857d.png https://steemit.com/steem/@steemitblog/steem-version-0-12-0-released In a nutshell what that graph tells me is that the first four posts that I make in a twelve hour period are paid at full value. (how the value is counted is a whole 'nuther ball of wax, the value of everyone's vote is a variable...very complex.) Post number Five pays at seventy five percent. Post number six pays at half. Post number eight pays at a quarter of what the first one did. After eight it just get's stupid. The value never declines to zero, not quite, but it gets close enough not to matter. I've published 213 posts and comments, (That would be on average 23.67 a day) Almost 24 a day, after the fourth one they become less and less valuable. But WAIT. It get's worse. I stay on the computer for LONG stretches at a time and don't sleep for very long at a time. It'd be an unusual day for me to go four or five hours without being online. Twelve would be unheard of. Steem 'resets' the clock every twelve hours But WAIT. It get's even better. The way that you write matters. The style in which I write is to write something down. Post it. see how it looks. Then edit. I keep 'tweaking' until I like what I see. Only the first four posts are counted at full value Edit's are considered to be 'posts'. In other words.. after the tenth 'edit' on my FIRST post the value of my posts was zilch. So what that tells me is that I've most likely NEVER been paid full value for any of my posts since day one. This has got to change. New Resolution. From now on I will write posts offline on Google Docs. Do ALL of the editing and tweaking there, NEVER edit on Steem. From now on I will ONLY make four posts per day. We'll see what happens.