If you want to convert your Steem Dollars into Steem NOW and then sell them on an external exchange then you'll have to pay a steep premium.
However, if you're of the belief like I am that Steem Dollars will be relatively safe for a while you can pick up that premium for yourself, and simultaneously be supporting Steem.
here's how..
We have the internal market which is trading higher for steam and the external market which is trading lower.
The strategy would be to buy Steem on the external market with BTC, transfer it over and then sell the Steem on the internal market for Steem Dollars.
The internal market STEEM/SBD
The external market - STEEM/BTC
Please take note the the price in the internal market is in Dollars, not Bitcoin. We are looking at a price on the bids of $0.387 in the internal market to $0.2389 in the external.
Buy a Steem Dollar for less than a Dollar?
Lets say you have $100 of bitcoin, you go into the external market and buy Steem, you would get 100/0.2389= 418.5 Steem.
You would then transfer over that Steem to your wallet on Steemit to sell into Steem Dollars - looking at the best bid above that would net you 418.5*0.387= $161.9 worth of steem dollars.
Why is this, whats going on?
Some people just can't wait to cash out, they want to get out as soon as possible so are willing to pay a higher price - currently the internal market is the only way to do this. The people who are willing to buy it off of them are providing them with that liquidity as a service and being paid for it. However with this being the first payout, the opportunities are huge.
Give it a go if you have some spare crypto lying around. Free cash anyone?
EDIT:
I gave it a go, transferring over 0.05 BTC to bittrex
I managed to buy 141 Steem on bittrex for around 0.000352BTC
I then sold on the internal market, netting myself $50 steam dollars from bitcoin worth $33.7
It took around 6-7 minutes.