Frustrating as it seems, that’s the reality. It takes a lot of good blogs before people with reputation follow you. People who want to be paid faster should get a job.
I never did anything to attract a whale. They came slowly.
As for bots, their vote is always worth less than you pay them. Let’s say you pay the bot SBD 2. That’s like paying $8 in real money because SBD isvworth $4 each. The bot now votes you $3. That means you get $1.5 worth of steem and sbd 1.5 worth $6. The total of $7.50 is now split 75% for you and 25% for the bot. Finally you collect only $5.62. Bad deal.