Being active/engaged and posting high quality content at regular intervals (not everyday but every weekly, twice monthly, a consistent amount), while may not give instant success but those are the starting steps to becoming successful on any platform.
ALso, by engaging on the forums and building a network, that increases chances of being noticed by multiple readers/creators or even tapas staff. Now that tapas has the community picks, I think that engaging the forums is even more important, but that's just my opinion.
Yeah I agree here too. It could be that maybe they have a small library or do this full time thus would rather spend what little free time they have doing something else no tapas or social media related.
To the topic at hand...I admit, I used to cringe seeing the top page and worry a lot about whether my work would be noticed. However, when I read some of those works by top creators...it's not at all effortless. There is really good stuff there and while I know BL and romance is a big trend right now, I also see a lot of fantasy, some thriller and stories that fit the spooktacular season. To call it 'effortless trash' is super hurtful and undermines the amount of time it takes to create and promote these works.
It kinda undermines what Tapas IS doing to promote smaller creators as well, at least for novelists; the subcount limit is removed to apply for premium, community picks is done regularly, hiring on new moderators, editors, etc, all of these are giving fresh eyes and different interests that could help with variety.
That's not to say that there isn't a problem with visibility and one advice will fit all creators, but there just can't be bashing. There should be something constructive that doesn't undermine the amount of effort that is put on the works that do get front page.
/long rambling post
Edit: a typo done due to lack of sleep.