What I’m about to show you is very important to learn as it could finally allow you to make a decent income publishing content of all types on the Internet. As great as the Internet is, until now it hasn’t truly allowed those creating valuable content online to get paid an amount equal to the value they’ve delivered. Sure there were those who were masters at crafting sales copy that were able to profit from content, or those who were able to become really popular and mainstream (i.e. buzzfeed.com), but for those of us just wanting to carve a small niche in this world and make a reasonable living giving value to a smaller audience, there weren’t many options.
Trust me, when you realize just how powerful this publishing platform is, and how profitable it can be, it’ll feel like the first day you discovered the Internet. A whole world of opportunities will be open up to you.
The Publishing Platform Barely Anybody Knows About
In this report, I’m going to show you how to use a revolutionary new publishing platform called Steemit.com. I personally made $500+ overnight just by publishing this one article on Steemit.com.
There are 3 ways to earn on Steemit.com; as an author, a commenter and as a ‘curator’. The platform itself is like a mix between Medium.com, Reddit and Tumblr. The main difference? Steemit is a blockchain-based social media platform that generates the crypto-currency called ‘steem’, currently at a rate of a few thousand dollars a day. The steem generated is then rewarded to miners aka ‘witnesses’ who support the network, similar to bitcoin, but unlike bitcoin, rewards are also distrubted to authors, commenters and curators on the Steemit.com social media platform.
On Steem.io it explains, “Collectively, user-generated content has created billions of dollars worth of value for the shareholders of social media companies, such as Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter. Steem supports social media and online communities by returning much of its value to the people who provide contributions by rewarding them with virtual currency.”
The important part to know is that you can earn serious cash by posting great content and this guide is going to show you the quickest route to publishing and cashing out your steem rewards to USD cash in your hand. Cashing out to USD is optional of course, but I’m sure you’ll want to liquidate some of your steem if you earn enough.
So how exactly can you earn rewards? The following image is a quick breakdown taken from http://steem.io:
Here’s a great cheat sheet on how the rewards break down created by steem user @worstdevever.
Step-by-Step
Visit http://Steemit.com and click ‘Sign-up’. Important note: You will be given a password that is also the private key to your steem wallet, which means that if you lose it, there is no password recovery and staff can not help you get back into your account. This is for security purposes since steem wallets can have a lot of money stored in them.
Click on the “Submit a Story” link in the top right corner of Steemit.com.
Start writing and publishing your article. You can use http://steempower.org/ which makes it easier to format your article or just use the built in editor.
When you’re done writing your article, you’ll want to tag it. No commas are necessary for tags, a space in between tags is sufficient. The tags you use will also be the ‘sub-steems’ your article will show up in. You can view a comprehensive list of ‘sub-steems’ here showing how many replies each sub has had along with how much money has been paid out per sub.
If your article makes any steem, you’ll have it deposited in your steemit wallet within 24 hours of posting. You can then spend your steem using a virtual and physical Visa debit card using E-coin as Charlie Shrem explains here. You can also sell your steem for Bitcoin using ShapeShift.io or Changelly.com, which you can then sell for USD using any number of Bitcoin exchanges like BitSquare. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to sell your steem for USD directly yet.
Steem vs. Steem Dollars vs. Steem Power
At this point, if you’ve already created an account on Steemit.com and have taken a look at your wallet, you maybe be confused by the 3 different types of steem mentioned. It’s really quite simple once it’s explained in detail.
Steem
Steem is the default form this cryptocurrency takes. It’s the most liquid of the 3 meaning you can easily send steem to other people or exchange it for other cryptocurrencies immediately. You’re exposed to normal price volatility of steem, which can be good or bad depending on which way the price is swinging. You can see the current value of steem here.
Steem Dollars
If volatility makes your stomache turn, you should hold your steem in the form of steem dollars, their value is much more stable than steem itself. Each steem dollar is worth aproximately $1 USD, which is where they get their name. You can see the current value of each steem dollar here.
Just by holding your steem dollars, you can accrue a 10% interest. You can calculate your steem dollar interest using this nifty calculator here.
Rewards paid out to authors, curators and commenters is paid out 50% as steem dollars and 50% as something called ‘steem power’ which I will explain next.
Steem Power
If you’re looking to invest long-term in the steem/steemit ecosystem then you should hold your steem in the form of ‘steem power’. Steem power is a system designed to inspire more long-term growth and commitment due to it being less liquid. Once you ‘power up’ your steem and turn it into steem power, it can take up to a total of 2 years to ‘power down’ your steem or turn your steem power back into steem or steem dollars. Powering down will release your steem power in the form of steem at a weekly rate determined by how much steem power you have invested.
So why own steem power? For starters, it gives you more voting power and increases the rewards you can earn by authoring content, commenting or curating on the steemit platform. Half of the rewards you earn as a author, commenter, or curator is paid in the form of steem power too, so if you use steemit at all you’ll probably end up owning some. You have the choice of having all of your rewards paid out in the form of steem power too if you want.
The price of steem power is tied to the price of steem itself, so it’s more volatile than the steem dollar FYI.
Still having trouble understanding the different forms of steem? Maybe this power plant analogy will help you understand it better:
The Fastest Way To Turn Your Steem Dollars Into Cold Hard Cash In Your Hand
As explained earlier, your rewards as an author, commenter and curator is paid out 50% as steem dollars and 50% as steem power. If you want to cash out your steem dollars for real dollars, you’ll first need to convert them into steem.
Converting your Steem Dollars into Steem
Visit the steemit market here and place a buy order for steem. Steemit gives you the lowest asking price for steem so you know where the market is at price wise. So for example, at the time of this writing, the lowest asking price for steem is .5660, so I’ll put .57 in price just find a seller faster. After you enter a price, you’ll just input how much steem you want, or how much steem dollars you want to exchange and the other field will auto populate. After the order looks right, click the “Buy Steem” button.
At this point, you just wait for a seller. In my case, it took less than a minute.
After you have converted steem dollars into steem, now it’s time to convert steem into bitcoin so we can cash out for USD.
Converting Steem Into Bitcoin
When I first converted my steem into bitcoin ShapeShift.io didn’t have support for steem yet, so I had to use a similar service called Changelly.com. This part is super simple and straight forward too.
Simply join Changelly.com, it’s as easy as connecting via Twitter or Facebook. After signing up and logging in, enter how many steem you want to exchange and it’ll let you know how many bitcoin you’ll get.
Next, enter the bitcoin address where you’d like to have the bitcoins sent:
You’ll be sent to a page to confirm the details of the transaction and finally where to send your steem to make the conversion.
Converting Bitcoin Into USD
I personally use Coinbase since I’ve been using them without issues for a couple years but if you’re more into decentralized platforms you should checkout BitSquare.
For Coinbase or Circle you just add your bank account like you would with say Paypal, and click “buy/sell” to sell your Bitcoin.
If you’re looking for cash in hand, then your best bet is to use LocalBitcoins.com. You can meet up with traders in public that live in your city and exchange bitcoin for cash.
What Kind Of Content Should I Publish?
Not all types of content do well on Steemit.com. This should change over-time as it picks up a more mainstream audience. Currently some of the most popular topics are crypto related as you’d expect, but there are plenty of topics that aren’t tech related doing well as you can see on this page. This tags page is a great resource when deciding which topics or ‘sub-steems’ to target.
My successful article was on the topic of sustainability. It seems to be popular on Steemit, but I wrote about it cause it's an interest of mine.
Ultimately, I think it’s best to write about what you’re most passionate about first and foremost as that’s always the best route to stellar content IMO. Feel free to test different content strategies however!
Conclusion
That about covers the basics of Steemit and should be enough info to get you started making money on this exciting new platform immediately! If you have any further questions or concerns feel free to address the Steemit community, or comment below. Oh yea, don’t forget to follow me here on Steemit.com!
this is a really informative post - explained a few things to me in layman terms, appreciated
thanks for the share - booked marked for future referene:)
Thanks! Glad you liked it! :)
thanks for sharing this information is helpful to know how to make content and tools to keep in mind, good work
The "how i made money" to make money posts are kind of pathetic.
Luck and whale taste is a huge factor. How you made money?
mostly luck or because you touched one the whales taste. That's it really.
It basically was just to serve as an introduction to steemit for those that are unfamiliar.
Good information, thanks
But i have a question, what are the witnesses, and what usefulness has to vote them?