Hi @aaarif, my answers below:

1. I used many methods before, but I would advise you to use resteem bots, not bid bots just purely resteem bots. They can help a lot to disseminate your posts to others. You can use any one of them. There are many type of these bots in the platform to select from.
2. Yes, you still get your author reward, but I am not sure how much. I can remember last time when I was very new here. On my first month most of my posts ended up with 0.00, but I saw that I do get 0.001 SP for all that posts. So yes.
3. Very difficult. I can still remember that when I started and posted long posts and looked sadly at my quality posts that went unnoticed. But as I am a very stubborn person... at the verge when I felt giving up. I started to study this platform and make my own research. Then I started to see bots. Those days, my wallet don't have money, so I waited till I got like 0.02 then I sent to @drotto, and then many other small bots that actually helped me to build up my wallet. I can remember when one senior Steemian messaged me for replying to all bots that upvote my posts, lol so funny. I can remember that I replied him telling him, I felt so lonely because no one come to comment on my posts hahahah.

Beside that, I started to learn about contest and participated in so many contests. I got much SBD and Steem from contests. Now I have stopped joining contests, but I would encourage you to try joining contest, who knows your luck right?

I hope you can understand my long-winded explanations. I am happy you wish to learn more, that's a sign of a successful person. Stay blessed and Steem On!