I'm pretty sure you can still earn author rewards after the 7 day payout. Back when the payout was after only 24hrs you could still earn author rewards that would pay out after a month I think was. Maybe it was only a week, I don't remember for sure. It's super hard to get votes after the first payout because curators won't get rewards for upvoting it. I'm gonna see if I can find an answer in the HF 17 announcement. I'll get back to ya.