The Call
I cannot boast to be an early adopter of Steem, far from it. I discovered Steemit quite at random, just when it was going to the moon, thanks to THIS article in the Guardian.
1000% soaring for a cryptocurrency??? Enough to catch your attention, right? So I basically did what everyone was doing at that point: i jumped on the bandwagon… And I have not looked back ever since.
The beginning
Then, I started to write. Well, to be frank, according Steemd, my first ever interaction was a comment, on the post of @angsteem.
Then, I started to write, and I can say with confidence that my introduction was among the worst and the most insipid ever, due to my shyness and my aversion for any photo of me.
There was simply not a single good picture of me to put up out there to the world and say: HEY HERE I AM! That’s why - i suppose - my introduction was such a flop.
Anyway...I guessed that were was better about Steemit than talking about myself, right?
Ups and Downs
It was tough and awkward to find my feet on Steemit during the first few weeks. It was like entering a party in full swing, seeing people congratulate and cheer each other, without barely registering on their radar to be frank… And wondering all the while what the hell was going on and if this was really the best place to hang about rather than, for example, Instagram, Facebook etc..
There was a kind of cult atmosphere. Everyone was talking about blockchain, crypto, poloniex, bittrex, blocktrades, and without knowing anything at all, it was tough to decypher all that. Basically, I upvoted, followed, nodded, put out a shy comment here and there and decided to be patient, and that with time all would be explained and revealed.
The most difficult part was to explain it to my friends: so, guys, I joined this platform, where you can make money by blogging. That was my pitch. And that was where the question popped up: so, where does the money come from? That was where my pitch just crashed. I was not savvy enough about crypto to explain anything about it really, and I don’t think I was good at co-opting anyone. Anyway… I thought that it would come sooner or later, and I decided to stick with it… And learn.
Discovering my major
I tried to publish some material which had, according to me, the potential to interest people. For example, I figured that I could find people here interested in Fantasy Premier League.
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But this was a failure, which, in retrospect, I can lay the blame on the tags I chose. Like this post I was really proud about Granada, my town, which deserved more than a 0.02$ payout come on (but that is all due to the categories labels I chose i think)!
So, it seemed that the harder I tried, the harder I failed! Also, seeing a lot of articles harvesting hundred of Steems for basically… nothing, was tough to see and understand and accept. But I decided to pull myself together and focus on something I was good at: writing. Not necessarily to rack the upvoted but that it could be something which would help me also somewhere else. It’s always been my goal to be a published author… So, I decided that I would get some of my stories out and see what happens next…
Well, what happens next is that I had in store a few micro-stories about fictitious Roman emperors. These little stories had nothing else in mind than to entertain. And then one day I saw the jackpot.
I guess a whale saw my post and either liked it, or took pity one me and showered me with a huge reward. That was a big BIG encouragement!
Since then, I have turned out more micro-stories like that. Even if they did not get such a huge reward, at least I know they got the attention I needed to gain followers and that’s all I ask.
I had also longer stories, and even a play written in English and published it…
With some success! I even tried my hand at an erotic story, but eventually i didn’t go the full distance:
Once again, this terrible shyness! Haha
The Series
I figured out also that the best way to gain a following was to write about the same subject. Cryptocurrency is the most commonly discussed theme on Steemit but I would not have been able to contribute anything really to it, so I decided that it was better to keep talking about what I loved best: History!
I am a devoted fan of Instagram and I have always been fan of the members of Instagram who manage to turn out a good story through their posts. I wanted to do something about History. I have always loved and known quite a lot about Napoleon, and I decided to write about his generals.
That developed into a huge series, weeks of hard work and thousands of words. It had three main positive outcomes:
- it made me write DAILY about the subject;
- it made my mind focus on achieving this goal;
- it attracted the attention of many people who regularly voted and commented.
I was basically starting to feel part of the community all right!
How to cash in?
Another part of my no-obness (is that even a word?) is that I decided quite consciously not to worry about the value of Steem. I assumed that the price would go down, up, down, and that it was no reason to panic right now and power down. Also, I was lazy and didn’t understand how to cash in on that money. It sounded, well, oh so complicated… That i chose to wait when I had enough Steem to find the correct way to do all that.
That means, yes, that I missed big time on the months when the value of Steemit was… like… HUGE!
Eventually, I figured out the easiest way was Blocktrades and transferred the acquired Bitcoin on an online wallet. But then, I figured out… Wait, what about the other cryptocurrencies? So, I opened an account on Bittrex and transferred half my chips there and started trading. The Wolf of Crypto Street, i was not! I bought pretty much anything which had a nice logo… Going as far as having 40 different cryptos in my portfolio!!! That means that any gain i was doing was very small, and lost sometime through the cost of trading. Anyway, I soldiered on… And even did my first EVER purchase with Bitcoin: I bought the renewal rights of two domain names I have, one for this website http://www.hellasbutnotleast.com/ and the other for this one http://alhambracadabra.blogspot.com.es/
That was 30€ which did not come out of my physical wallet but out of thin air! It felt great :)
To Power Down or Not to Power Down?
Had I been a little bit more patient, I could have make a killing when the price of Steemit rebounded like crazy a few months ago… But overall, I have nothing to complain about and I’m frankly happy and grateful to now to be:
- the owner of approximatly 8 bitcoins;
- having 69 of reputation,
- close to 1000 followers,
- 1800 in Steem power
- and to still be around the platform and write for it and relate with all the people.
What next?
Well my mission for this second year on Steemit is easy:
- reach 1500 followers by end of 2017;
- reach 5000 steem power by July 2018;
- finish my series about Enemies of Rome;
- upvote, follow, comment as much as possible;
- and learn as much as possible about blockchain, Bitcoin, in order to…
- ... spread the word and make Steemit a success with my small help!
Thanks for reading all of that, if you did. If you didn’t and skipped to the end, let me resume: I feel very grateful to have discovered and be part of that awesome community, and want to be there as long as possible :)
Congrats on your 1 year and good luck with your new goals. I can also kind of relate with your paragraph about being a noob. Seems a bit difficult to get your posts read when just starting out. I don't think I've ever hard a post where more than 10 people check it out.
I'll take you as an inspiration and work until I get where you are now. Followed :)
Wow, thanks for it! The first comment which is not actually an automatic bot reply ^^ Good luck to you too, you won a new follower! We'll celebrate your first year on Steemit!
Great comment hevesisson! Is couple of month that i am following you and is great to see those great following path. can you make a living with that by the way? i would like to get inspired :)
thanks @andreolf ! Much appreciated :))
Happy Steem Birthday. Thanks for the breakdown. Very informative. Much appreciated. Following and upvoting. One love.
Congrats on your 1st year. I really wish I could have found it much earlier. Just joined a little under a month ago. :(
Hi there @Herverisson ,
Welcome to Steemit ! I am @minnowhelp, nice to meet you !
I do check the values of some offers here and hope so to help new steemians. I just started this project !
In my session 1 of testing the value of an @booster upvote I tracked the gains of different users by using this offer - so - for example @digital-gypsy got for an investment of $1.28478 and Post Upvote worth $3.56 !
if you want to save money, follow me on follow me on my blog! :)
@Herverisson - welcome to steemit. Hope you will enjoy ! All the best @digital-gypsy
hi @Herverisson I hope you enjoy your time here, its a great community !! Nice post, Wish you much luck! Cheers! i will follow your account, please follow me at @mekong
Hi @Herverisson its good to see more new users around. Have fun in this community. I wish you many followers and new friends :-) Cheers @chrisx
Hello @herverisson. Welcome to Steemit. I am David. I wish you have a happy journey here.
Whats up @herverisson I just followed and up voted. Hope you will stay with me & follow me.
Congrats and hope you reach all your goals :-). But the tag you used 'introduceyourself' is for new users i guess.
Thanks @stefen ! Yes indeed, I am aware of it, as I said in my intro, I took this liberty because I never really introduced myself properly. That's the last time i use it :)
Congratulation. Wow I looked it up and you actually made 400$ for a made up emperor :D. Nice creativity there!
haha yeah, imagined my face when i saw it ^^ Thanks!
Congrats!
I greatly enjoy your "Enemies of Rome" series.
Thanks a lot! :)
Congratulations @herverisson! STEEM on!
Much appreciated!
Dude, great post. I love the story behind it all. I can see that you have come a long way over the last year. I just joined last month and I am just beginning my journey on STEEMit. I do like the platform and I am looking to do much the same as you. I am excited to see more of your posts, because I also love history. I read your last post dealing with Romans and I am looking forward to more.
Thank you for sharing
Thank you for following! Following back as well :) It's indeed quite challenging at the beginning, but if you put your mind to it, and are patient, it turns out nice :) Steem on!
Thanks @herverisson i will take into consideration the Short histories and try to develop micro series about a particular subject also.
It's a great way to catch the attention of the audience :) Good luck!
It always inspires me to read Steemit veteran stories. Thank you for sharing! It's empowering and teaches me that everything is possible.
Thanks for your comment, @vitkolesnik ! You have a new follower, steem on!
Congratulations. I am about to have my month-birthday here and look forward to reaching my first full year at Steemit.
You will, you'll see @wekkel ! Good luck and Steem on!
Congratulations on your 1 year anniversary! :D
I know exactly how you feel about being in front of the camera... I don't even have decent wedding photos, except of my husband and I showing our rings (so basically close ups of our hands)... I hate being in front of the camera.
I also totally get how you felt about the whole cryptocurrency stuff. I'm new to it and its completely confusing to me.
I was going to buy some steem but can't figure it out at all. (I will hopefully figure it out some day, but its not today or any of the others that I've been on here so far. :D )
Great post, nice to see you and thanks for sharing. :D
Believe me, i'm still trying to figure some stuff out myself ^^ It's all a work in process :) Thanks and good luck, @frostyamber !
It is definitely a work in progress, especially for those of us that haven't done anything with crypto before. :D
You're welcome and thank you as well. :D
Hii @harverisson, Nice to Meet U
by #aceh Steemians Community
Follow me @muftykutink
It seems like so much can happen in a year. I keep on wondering what the situation will be in another year. There will be about a million users if not more by then. That will make it harder for everyone, but those who've been here long enough will have the advantage.
Hoping that the same will happen to me some day, I'll hit the jackpot after which people will actually notice my posts. For now I still need to get discouraged by what you describe as seeing people gain a lot for nothing. Even though you say that many talk about cryptocurrency here, very few actually have anything worthwhile to say about it. I try to be one of those few who do have something worthwhile to say about it. I also search for others who have worthwhile things to say about it.
Good luck on your second year on steemit :)
Yes, that was the most depressing thing at the beginning: seeing posts without substance winning big time. I decided to mute those thoughts in my head and focus on my own content, and that's the best you can do :) one step at a time, here i am still, one year later :) Let's see what will bring the second year! Followed, @wealthy-easily!
:) Thanks for the reply. Hopefully I write about things you're interested in.
Great post! Congratulations on 1 year of steeming! As a new steemian I found your post to be very helpful and encouraging! You have a new follower!
Thank you @brandyb ! It's been an interesting ride, and with hindsight i'm quite proud of my (humble) achievements on here :) You'll be too, you'll see !
Welcome and Thank You for being with us!! Following your Blog now
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Congrats! and thanks for the sharing. It helped me a lot. It's been less than one month for me to start steemit, and I feel the same as you, tough and awkward.
Welcome to the community. your introduction was very nice. Followed. Follow me back 😘
Hi, ironically I found this post due to your mention of your failed post on fantasy premier league. Congrats on one year - I am on day one;-)
Congratulation for the birthday ! :-)
And for writing this hope post for all the newbie who jumped in . only three months ago :-D
Merci beaucoup Roxane! :-)