National Hot Chocolate Day!

I love hot chocolate! It's a decadent treat when it's really cold and/or windy out. It's nice with mini marshmallows. Not long ago, I decided to add enough whipped cream on top of the marshmallows to fill it to the brim. It was amazing! The whipped cream and marshmallows cooled it down enough to drink it as soon as I wanted to. Not much of a wait. I tend to wait until things are at or close to room temperature. (Mainly because cold or hot food hurts my teeth.) Plus, it made it even more decadent. 

I decided for Duolingo's Scottish Gaelic course to not force myself to the next league. It's really competitive. I might add some time before going to bed next week, but I don't think I'll earn enough xp to get to the next league, even with that. Sad. I'm still breezing through the course. Made it to level 4 of Phrases 3. Getting less things wrong. I tend to get it wrong when I forget a letter, or a word that I had in my head but didn't type out. That's pretty good. 

Still doing something related to promoting my books every day. Had a free book one for my memoir on Amazon. It finished at #2 in the LGBTQ+ memoirs/biography top 100 best sellers free kindle section. Not sure how many LGBTQ+ related ones are on there, and free at that, but it was great to see. It was ranked #35 in the general memoir/biography free kindle section. That seems even better, considering I think there are a lot more ones in general. 'Sold' more than I thought I would, too. Yay! I'm just nervous about haters reviewing it, or even finding me. Also, created a facebook page for it. 

My cookbook's ebook is having a countdown deal, at the moment, on Amazon. Soon, there will be a UK one. That one hasn't been as great. Sold one copy, at least. 

Updated my facebook author page, and a bunch of the book pages on there. I'm going to create an author Instagram page soon. I looked up ideas/tips for it, and there's so much I can do. I think I'll link up that one to the fb one, so I don't have to post twice. I do have more ideas for the fb one itself now, too. 

For Instagram, it'll follow themes/genres of my books (like food, horror, whimsy/fantasy, animals, LGBTQ+, etc.), my own pics to give people a view of my world, and stuff about my books specifically. Sounds like it'll be fun. I have a ton of things I can share from Pinterest to it. I'll of course credit anything that I didn't create. They suggested I post something on there at least once a day. That can be easy to do. I'll post book trailers, cover art, quotes, etc. on there, too. Just won't be as often as the other stuff. Some authors really show off their personality on there. Added stuff with fb could be sharing things from there related to my books. Like, memes. Maybe specific ones for each book, and could share posts from pages that those books 'like'. I'll post trailers to Youtube, as well. Pinterest might be good for sharing pics of things I've made from the cookbook. I might create a twitter author profile, too. I can share things from various other posts on there. Not sure about Tumblr. 

Another suggestion was to take pics of stacks of books. For some, that's what they've finished for the year or other amount of time. For others, it's of their own books. Many of them are simple with just showing the books stacked, but others add things related to the themes in them. Like, a skull, fake coins, and fake jewelry on top and/or around it for a pirate series I saw. That's fun. I want to do something like that. Maybe only have the stack...I never ordered the author versions of my books. I want to for other reasons, too. For instance, having the paperback of the cookbook will be better than using the photo album full of recipes it was based on. You can see it better, it's not as clunky, and more. For authors, the price is how much it is to print/make and tax. Cheaper than regular price. I've read some people buy hundreds of (author) copies of their books for things like book signings and giveaways. That seems like a lot of money, however I now have an idea of how other authors might do that. Wouldn't be able to do something like that unless they really picked up. 

I'm going through Alliance again. I'm searching for quotes to share, and setting/building descriptions. With the descriptions, I might draw them out. Maybe I'll use those for the background of its book trailers. It's either using those, or old nature pics I've taken, or free fantasy stock pics online. I'd really prefer something I've made, rather than other people's pics. I'm finding more quotes than I thought I would. I'll do the same 2 things with the sequel. For Sweet Endless Terror's trailers, I think I'll have a description of each story, drawings relating to them (like a heart, knife, ribbon, planets, etc.), and/or maybe a few quotes from each. I can share those parts separately on Instagram, too. I could explain certain terms in the memoir trailer. I'll have pics of what I made for the cookbook one, and the name of the dish. Maybe describe it. I saw something about a site that has free music you can use for vids. (They're legal, and the artists made those tracks to be free to use.) So, there's lots to do for all of them. If I start a vlog on Youtube, that could help, too. 

The mysterious symptoms I've been experiencing since February are getting better. Yay! So, the tapering off of Lialda seems to be helping. However...My colitis symptoms are worsening. More trips to the bathroom, awful abdominal pain, horrible nausea, and more. It's better than having the other stuff as it was before on top of that. It's still difficult to go through. Hopefully, it won't get too severe with the colitis symptoms. 

Youtube:

Boku no (My) Hero Academia:

One Piece:

Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun (Toilet-bound Hanako-kun):

27th of Tevet

For Duolingo's Scottish Gaelic course, I finished all levels of the Colours unit, and started the 2nd level of the Home one. This is the last unit before the 2nd checkpoint. There are only 2 more sections. Ended up at 9th place in the Obsidian League today. Hopefully, I can stay in the top ten by Sunday. 

Yesterday, I updated the description for Alliance's facebook page, made a post about it being on Smashwords again, completely revised, and being free on there. (Here's its facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/alliancebooks/) I changed the name of it today, and posted about Alliance: Dawn, too. It was a page just for Alliance (first book), but I'm turning it into one page for the whole series. Good to have everything in one place. 

I'm trying to do a little of promoting/getting the word out every day. I have a lot of ideas, which seems like it'll be overwhelming. If I do little chunks every day, it won't feel like that as much.  

Today, I also republished, updated, and posted to both Sweet Endless Terror and My Mother's Treasure Trove of Recipes' facebook pages. Here's Sweet Endless Terror, and here's My Mother's Treasure Trove of Recipes. I think I might create a new author page, considering I don't like my current one, and I want to start 'fresh' with that. I still need to make one for More Than Meets the Eye. I also read that another way to get pages noticed is by having your page 'like' another page. That actually sounds fun. I could base it on what the books are about. For example, the cookbook page can like food, cookbook, cooking, etc. related pages. Sweet Endless Terror could like horror stuff. Seems like they can take on their own personalities, which is an interesting concept. 

After I get through all that, I'll make an author account on Instagram, and another on Twitter. Not sure if I'll make separate ones for the books on there. Seems like a hassle. However, I can see making one for the cookbook on those. Maybe one on Pinterest for that, too. I plan to make and share some of the dishes from it. I think a good way to promote that is to let people know what some of it will look like. 

After doing those things on fb, I checked the pageviews on Smashwords. A couple of them really got a boost right away. Very interesting. The more people that see it, the more likely they might buy it. 

My memoir's free promo on Amazon started yesterday. 4 people 'bought' it. That's more than I thought I'd get the first day. None today so far. It's ranked as #12 in the Gay & Lesbian Biographies & Memoirs section. Odd that they don't have an LGBTQ+ one, and cram everyone into that. I'm not gay or lesbian...Pretty cool they ranked that high, though. It's #158 in the Kindle Store's (ebook) Memoirs. That's interesting. Might be interesting to see what happens after I make a page for it on fb.

I just realized, this morning, that many of the symptoms I've been experiencing since February may be side effects of the Lialda. No one has been monitoring me with that. I have a feeling it's changed, my body's rejected it, or something. The side effects I found online line up with a lot of my mystery symptoms. Myalgia (muscle pain), joint pain, hair loss, malaise, sneezing a lot, feeling weak, swelling in hands, severe back pain, and more. It makes too much sense, and I'm wondering why no one (doctors) suggested that some of this could be the Lialda, and looked into it. I've been taking a half dose since Tuesday. The back and muscle pain seem to be getting a little better. I'm wondering if I should just taper off, like I'm doing, and then stop taking it. Not get the next refill. I'd rather have the possibility of having a flare (not sure if I'm in one or not), than feel those other symptoms. Those symptoms combined have been hell. I still suspect a couple of my symptoms are actually related to another autoimmune disease. (I did test positive for that.) Having the other symptoms cleared up might help with pinpointing it in the future. 

Youtube: 

Fairy Tail:

Boku no (My) Hero Academia:



Dr. Stone:

One Piece:




Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer):

Tsuritama (lit. Fishing Ball. Kind of miss this anime. It was so trippy. Not sure if I like the ending song/part of this amv, but the rest of it's good):

Magi (this makes me want to watch more of the series. I think I only watched the 1st season a while ago, and one or two episodes of the 2nd season.):