One way of earning that I’m currently using is thru delegation of 2/3 of my steem power for daily SBD returns. I earn about 2-3.5 SBD per day passively using this method. I’ve found it’s more profitable with th sbd to steem ratio being what it is and the SBD being “off the peg” as opposed to using all my steem power toward trying to earn thru curating.
As far as author rewards go, it’s hard to start off getting good payouts without gaming the system and it’s getting harder (moreso than it was when I joined 8 months ago). I’m pretty thankful for the payouts I get honestly and I feel bad for some of the newer folks who spend so much time making gold material but it goes unnoticed due to a sea of low quality material, some of which gets rewarded way too much.
I try to find new people to share some of my votes with but it can be hard. I usually allocate anywhere from 10-75% upvote with the occasional 100% if I find a real gem.