You bring up a lot of things. The followers thing means very little. I have 800, and earn four times as much as people I personally know on 3-4k followers. They don't understand it. But they don't interact with other writers. And if there is ONE thing I know from Medium if you don't read, comment, the algorithm won't 'let you in'.

I also think over publishing is a mistake. 3-4 a week is fine. If you subscribe to folks' stuff via email, and I get a story a day, I'm not going to read it. No chance. But that's just me.

Thanks!