Many of the subscribers now are bots. I’ve had a bunch of new followers but most of them spam.

Evidently you need to find something more equitable than the boost that works. It’s not right to take money from other writers for a popularity contest.

Also, some transparency would be nice. Defining what personal writing means would also really help. Most of mine is personal but it doesn’t get much in the way of distribution so the least you could do is define what is meant by that.

And why the heck are you paying people to recommend stories? The writer wrote it and deserves to make money. It’s not like it takes any effort at all to nominate a story.