I had the "unfortune" of getting trending posts in my first month of Steemit. I figured that it was normal to get 200 -300 on a post. But after that month I hit rock bottom and even had post that earned nothing. It was very frustrating but I stayed at it and kept doing my "thang". I stopped focussing on payouts and instead concentrated on the quality of my blogs and other Steemians. If only I had started with that....