Thank you so much. This is an inspirational post, one of the best I have read here. So many are quick to give up at

I struggled to find an audience, to be taken seriously, to find content I could write about that was of interest to anyone.

I made 96 posts that didn't earn a penny and hundreds more that made a few cents.

I grew this account, earning pennies at a time.

Not wanting to quote your entire post here, picked those as the best. You understood that perseverance (being stubborn?) was key.

Many of my posts in the early days didn't earn enough to receive a payout, I got mad and yelled at the whales.

And yet you didn't quit, and here you are. One of the pillars of this system that so many of us look up to. All because

I just kept posting.

One observation about the posting. I don't think posting by itself was the key factor. You are real in your posts, love it or hate it (as you mentioned some did early on). That is so crucial. Being real, being yourself.

If I were giving advice, I would tell people this is more about Networking than Content.

I laughed again as I read this. I laughed through the whole thing really, but this one is such great advice, yet for many who are unsuccessful I see this being called voting rings and circles, collusion etc. And it really isn't. You stick to your guns and keep being real, keep posting and commenting, and over time as you said you begin making friends. Others who inspire you to have their back and some of them will want to have your back. Or you for whatever reason have that newbies back now. Then it gets to the point where your voting power is hard enough to spread among those people you have grown with, or have for whatever reason taken an interest in your growth here.

I'm going to quit rambling now as I am turning this into a post on your post. Thank you so much for writing this. With all the raging going on, and the usual suspects hitting that time of the month that they are claiming they are done with this place (yet we can't seem to get rid of them, they just stay and bitch) it is important to show everyone this can be done. Even if there is no whale support as so many claim.

Oh, and editing to say thank you for the kind words. :)