not overwhelmed by earnings...

You only have 18 post. In three or four days you should have much more than that if you are spending a lot of time here. Maybe your expectations are too high. You could be a doing a lot better, but you are still never going to do much better than a dollar or two per day on your own. If you want to really increase your earnings you are going to need to get many referrals.

I can't really say what you're doing wrong, but I will tell you what I'm doing myself. I earn between 20 and 30 cents each day. During that day I write somewhere between 30 and 50 comments, as well as start atleast one discussion of my own on an interesting subject. Each comment is atleast three lines long, as in lines in the comment box, not sentences. I hope this was a little helpful atleast!

Ok I know you are writting good posts. Try to find pics that would go along with the post your making. Places like PhotoBucket.com. Have you been replying to outher peoples post? If you do 5 posts a day then do 5 replys to other peopls posts. The best way to increas your earnings is to get people you know to join using your link on your home page. Then you get some for what they earn. I think if they earn $1 then you would get 25 cents. Tell people that you like it here and tell them how much fun it is here. At cafemom it gets a little slow on weekends and at night. There is always someone here. People tend to be nicer here because they dont want people mad at them and not reading the posts or giving a bad rateing. The rating boxes are to the right of every post and reply. They have a + for a good one, A - for a bad one and a ! if it needs to be reported. I almost always give a + unless someone is being mean. Later you will get a star with a number in it. The more positive you are with your posts and your replys the higher your number in your star will be. When you post or reply don't do 1 word or just 1 line. posts should be about 5 lines and replys should be several lines. They can be more. When someone replys to your post you should respond to each reply. Thanking them for the reply to what you wrote. We like that :)