Yeah, I have been busting my ass for about a year and all I have earned 5 real followers who would come and read my post...
I don't mind upvotes but I love especially when someone puts a decent comment under my post, even a sarcastic one, it really makes me feel honored.
I admit, I sell votes but to a certain extent. To avoid the loss, when I am away from steemit. I use smartsteem to vote for whitelisted users only...Thereby making sure that my sold vote goes to some one awesome(whitelisted users usually make genuine contents).

And my dream of getting a whale attention remained a dream...Even best of my posts never got the deserving attention...
This situation implies to me, that there is no use of putting your sweet in those long post, as there is no appreciation.
PS
I did an analysis of trending page 3 months ago...
Paid/Bid Bots Ruling The Trending Page: The Message It Sends