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Up to 25% of a post's payout is awarded to curators (the people who upvoted the post) as a reward for discovering the content. The other 75% is awarded to the author. If curators vote for a post within the first 30 minutes of it being created, a portion of their curation reward is added to the author payout. This portion is linear to the age of the post between 0 and 30 minutes. Therefore upvoting at 15 minutes old will donate half of your potential curation reward to the author. -FAQ’s

Thanks, I guess Ill have to constantly be watching steemnow with my finger on the trigger

Am I reading this wrong.. Does that not mean that if you upvote too early then you are likely to decrease the curation reward that you may potentially get? @brandonscalera

Nope, not at all. You can upvote yourself without it effecting the post or payment.