I had a friend tell me around this time last year to get on Steemit. He said there was decent money to be made on here and for someone like me who not only already has a blog, but writes about a variety of different topics (book writing, publishing, travelling, motivational posts, funny posts, etc...). I didn't really believe him, but after about a month of him pestering me saying how much I was missing out I finally took the plunge, thinking there would be no harm in testing the waters, posting some of my previous travel posts and seeing what happens.
Within a week my posts were absolutely booming! I was making between 20-50 STEEM dollars per post. My rating had immediately shot up to 54 and I was making decent money. Granted, no way to access it at the time, but theoretically I had another avenue of income and it felt good.
At one point I even got featured in a Steemit magazine with a glowing review, with the reviewers saying things like, 'He literally makes me think that I can't write' and 'He is one of those writers that absolutely delights me, whilst at the same time elevating me.' Things were going great, and I was excited to be a part of this new writing community.
Link to the outstanding review that I got: https://steemit.com/steemlight/@cryptogee/steemlight-issue-1-0-the-funny-guys
But then something changed. I couldn't quite put my finger on it but the upvotes stopped coming in and soon my post weren't even making 50 cents, let alone 50 dollars. I hadn't changed my writing style at all and as far as I knew I hadn't upset the community in any way. So I dismissed it thinking that I was going through a very unlucky patch and things would eventually pick up.
But they didn't. I asked my friends and they told me a range of things that it could be (be more active in the community, comment more on other people's posts, join groups etc...) I did all this but nothing seemed to be helping. It felt very strange that all of a sudden my once highly appreciated posts were now off everyones radar.
It's now been over seven months since I made a post over three dollars. I pretty much post everyday so there's no other way to describe this other than embarrassing. I mean, I am literally a professional writer, yet not one of my last 300 or so posts have gone over the three dollar mark on Steemit. Not...one....
Recently I was speaking in one of the groups that I'm in about the price of SBD and the conversation drifted to this very topic. I mentioned to one of the guys that I'd lost hope a long time ago of ever making money on this platform again as for some reason no one cares about decent content anymore. The guy replied that content is only one of three important factors on making money on Steemit, and arguably it is the smallest factor. The other two being networking with the right people/groups and using bots.
This broke my heart. Because what this means is Steemit as a platform has now changed so much that it is no longer rewarding high quality content. It is now an easily manipulable game where people either make friends so they can upvote each other (Not make friends for the sake of making friends) or literally BUY votes (From the 'whales' who got in early, which means it is moving dangerously close to becoming a pyramid scheme). It's sad. Because this platform used to be amazing, but now with the way it is going it seems destined to fail. Because if people can't make money from good content alone and can only make money from playing the game, then new people aren't going to join; they're going to be curious, try it for a while and then get disillusioned with all the strategical voting and 'circle-jerks', then quit within a month...
So would I recommend Steemit? I already have, but I don't think I will do again. One person (@haylienonearth) has enjoyed mixed success while the others have had little to no success. For me there's no harm in continuing my posts here as it is an extra community to advertise and sell my books, and also I'm blogging anyway on Wordpress, so I might as well post things on here too. But this isn't a place to make money anymore. I mean, of course you can make money; just look at the trending page and see the amount of money some of these people are making. But unless you are excellent at marketing/networking or have already built up a huge loyal following, it is very unlikely that you will even have the kind of success I had in my first two months, let alone continued success...
Thanks for reading. I appreciate it.
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There is more stuff to fish mister lewis! Although I even got to know you from your less than $3 posts it was always fun stuff to read man. Now it feels a bit like the real world man, we have to make more effort to still get a decent payout.
I write every single day and I make a nice $1 from it (that eventually will worth a nice buck when steem moons I still hope), but the fact starts to show..we have to stick together in little groups to survive.
So thats what I am doing, putting in the effort to work with groups...And helps..
I dont know what changed by you at that moment when the payouts got smaller, but it helps to keep looking forward and make a strategic plan. In my case this turned to delegating a lot of my SP, so my VP will be used more profitable.
It aint 'just' writing some posts man anymore
That sadly, is exactly my point. I write because I enjoy writing. I don't enjoy the strategic side of things where you have to buddy up to certain people and groups. I don't want to feel pressured to join groups in fear of being blackballed; I just want to write and read good content, and reward content I enjoyed reading.
If it is now a huge aspect of doing a range of things to get noticed, then I'd rather focus my time doing that with my books than my blog. I want this to be fun, not a full time job. I've seen people who focus all their lives on their blog and that's not the life I want to live. All I'm saying is the money isn't there for me anymore. Maybe it's there for others for reasons I haven't figured out yet, but it's not there for me. That was my point here, not to slag off Steemit, but to say how much it has changed, and unfortunately for my specific example it has changed for the worse...
I think in this case for sure you should 100% priority in your books. And what you were doing before, combining the wordpress with here..i think that was the way to go. Bummer that it aint working in this way anymore like that. Time is scarce!!
The strange thing is that it used to work, and worked very well. Then for whatever reason it stopped. If it never went well then it would have made far more sense. But I think you're right; far less time is needed on this place and focus on my latest book is needed. I'm 45.000 words in now so if I switch my energy towards that I could have it finished by the end of August
Hey Lewis, we all have our good and bad days and I'm sad you're sad but hang in there if only so you can pat yourself on the back. It sucks not making money when you think you should but it's sort of like wondering why you weren't elected to be prime minister, sometimes you'll never know. I enjoy your posts and did enjoy the free samples of your books so please count me as a fan and vaguely distant friend but not the kind who expects anything in return except vaguely distant friendship X
Oh and a slightly delayed response, I see this post is a bit old...oops
Hey, there's the South African legend!
Yeah, I accepted a long time ago that you can't make money on here anymore, but that's not a bad thing; it is what it is. I came here originally to make more people aware of my books and I can't deny that that has happened. Maybe I saw what others were making money-wise (and what I was originally making before) and kept comparing.
Another cool unexpected effect of this platform is meeting new people that you would never meet otherwise, and I'm glad I bagged a friend who has a similar sense of humour as me, even though most people stare at me like Morty stares at Rick...
Oh, and I'm glad you are a fan of my books. I'm thinking about doing another giveaway soon (Happy Thursday or something less specific...) so if I do I'll give you a heads up :-)
Aww man. I just invested. :( smh
Maybe it will be like bitcoin and surprise everybody. Sure hope so.
Joy