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How My Steemit Journey Began

I can hardly believe my Steemit journey started exactly 365 days ago tomorrow. I had attempted to open a Steemit account in June of 2016 after reading a post by @stellabelle on Facebook but had issues getting my account activated. I forgot about it for a few weeks but decided to give it another go in early July. I emailed Steemit support, they reset my account, and my life changed forever.

This photo was taken just before I found Steemit. We were on a vacation and I remember watching every dollar we spent because we were on such a tight budget

I did things a bit backwards before knowing the rules of the platform. I wrote my introduction post a day after my first post on July 5, 2016. Luckily for me, that intro post caught the attention of both @ned and @dan. That intro post made exactly $489.62, nearly equivalent of almost a week’s pay, my mind was blown. After my introduction post I experienced a long dry spell. I was struggling to figure out and find my niche on the platform. Weeks went by and I was getting limited engagement and I only made pennies per post. I became very frustrated as I expressed in this post.

In retrospect, this period of frustration was a pivot point. Instead of quitting I made it a mission to learn more about Steemit. I realized this wasn’t like Facebook where you could post pictures of your dinner or witty one-liners and get engagement. Suddenly, I stopped using the shotgun approach in terms of content creation and focused on what I considered to be my strengths…poetry and fiction. I also began networking, engaging with others. This is when the votes came.

I woke up one morning to realize one of my Steemit posts made multiple hundreds of dollars while I slept, I celebrated this in my post the following morning, “I Made $300 Last Night While I Slept.” This is the exact point where I realized what a waste of time and energy other social media sites were for my writing career. This was also the post where I learned the markdown code to insert a .gif which has kind of been a sort of trademark of mine ever since.

I look at some of the comments in these older posts and realize how much has changed in just twelve months. If you haven’t yet realized, you will soon, a month on Steemit is like a year in the regular world. Since July of last year so much has transpired, we had the infamous hack last summer, the huge rise in the currency last fall, followed by the currency’s lows this past winter. We’ve had hard forks and the whale down-voting saga (which I’m glad is over). Some users left the platform for good, others took a break and returned. One thing has remained throughout it all and that is the cohesive community that makes Steemit the best social media platform in existence.

My participation in SteemFest last November solidified this for me and was as one of the most memorable experiences of my entire life.

In the past year Steemit has become the hub of my online life and writing career. As I reflect on the past year I still sometimes can’t believe all of these wonderful things have happened to me. Aside from the success I’ve found (which has been incredible), interacting with all of you has taught me some incredibly valuable lessons. Things change so quickly here that I’m not sure what the next year has in store but, as I’ve learned, the unknown is the exciting part. We’ve seen such an influx of new talent here within the past few months, admittedly, sometimes I feel like the old man here. Still, I hope I continue to have something of value to contribute to this community. The moment I feel like I can no longer add value to Steemit will be the day I sign off.

The Road Ahead

(This is my new mantra.)
I'll be doing a lot of adjusting accordingly in the next year. I’ve very excited about a few things coming up within the next few months which include:

• Transitioning into the life of a full time writer and traveler. After working for someone else continuously since I was fifteen, this will be a welcomed change.

• I’ll very soon be teaming up with Leon Logothetis of The Kindness Diaries (Netflix) to offer two of his autographed books and a few signed copies of mine exclusively on Steemit to the highest bidder. All proceeds of this will be donated to the Make-A-Wish foundation.

• Installments of my newest novel, Truth Is Stranger, will also be posted in installments on Steemit later this year.

• I also plan on taking on a larger role in curating and mentoring other authors on the platform within this next year. I also want to promote Steemit to the outside world and take on a role in it’s future development. My goal is to eventually reinvest money back into the platform and become a whale.

I'll always refer to my Steemit anniversary as my personal Independence Day. Why? Because the platform (and all it’s taught me) will soon afford me to live a life purely of my own design. Soon, I'll be free from existing in a world where I felt like I didn’t belong. It was a world where I was working extremely hard but barely breaking even. That old world was full of limitations, constraints, and inequality. This new one is quite the opposite but having the privilege of occupying this space means having an obligation to help as many others as I can.

I’d like to express my sincerest gratitude to Ned and Dan for conceptualizing this platform. Thank you @steemed for the priceless mentorship and support. Thanks to Johie ( @fairytalelife ) and Adil ( @the-alien ) for the guidance and friendship. I would also like to thank you all, truly, for your support over the past twelve months. You’ve made so many of this middle-aged author’s dreams (that I nearly gave up on) come true.

With Much Gratitude,
Eric

(Gif compliments of Giphy.com)

*I am an American novelist, poet, traveler, and crypto-enthusiast. If you’ve enjoyed my work please sign up for my author newsletter at my website. Newsletter subscribers will receive exclusive updates and special offers and your information will never be sold or shared.

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www.ericvancewalton.net