my stories are beginning to build an audience

Do you think that's because you've created voting agreements with others or because your content is good and worth being upvoted?

As for the race being fixed, you may be right, but I've always had great success focusing on relationships and have been in the top 100 most followed accounts. I think a relational strategy works and to the extent you're doing that here, I think you'll all be very successful. What I'm not a fan of is "vote for me and I'll vote for you" because it can actually decrease the quality of the content here. Momentum trading is an interesting example... what happens when a bunch of people trade a crap stock and later sell out? We call that a pump and dump. I think you'll agree with me we'd rather have long term quality here and promote the stocks (i.e. the posts and the good authors) who will consistently deliver that long term quality. Creating crony voting groups won't bring that quality.

So yeah, build away! Just be selective who you're building with as some people are only interested votes, not in quality.

blind upvoting

That's what I'm trying to avoid as well. The thing is, if someone consistently puts out really valuable content which is worth my vote, I have more confidence voting for their next new post. I still read everything, but there is something to be said for brand loyalty that is earned through consistency.

my wish is that others build an audience as well

Excellent! I wish you great success!