I believe it was Van Gogh who only sold one painting in his lifetime and was dismissed by the critics of his time. That many of his paintings were left unseen by the public until after his death does not make them less art. The bulk of Emily Dickinson's poetry were left unread by the public until after her death. But they were still poems. While the applause may be nice, it doesn't make the writing (to the author) less valuable for the lack of an audience. The impulse to write should be such that you have no choice to do anything else, you do it whether or not anyone will read what you have written. Not all of us write to the public's taste. Being left unpublished is not, in my mind, a failure of effort. But that's just me.