This forgets to mention when you vote on certain things Your vote can count for more money than normal. My vote is worth one cent but if I vote on something with value already on the post it rewards the author sometimes even up to 4 or 5 dollars Ive noticed.

Here is a great how-to on curation. This one by @ubg
https://steemit.com/steemit/@ubg/getting-the-most-money-out-of-curation-101-part2