When Gallbladders Attack, Bookbub Ads, Various Chores

 I had a gallbladder attack on January 18, which I wrote about in some detail for the next two days. I took a break from writing this to finally post it, friends-locked because so many medical details. x_x

I felt terrible for several days after the attack: exhausted and dizzy and in pain. This week hasn't been so bad, although on Tuesday and Wednesday, I had weird stabbing pains when I took a deep breath and sometimes while lying down. The weird stabbing pains were mostly gone by Thursday, though. Which is good because it happened every time I yawned. And I was tired all the time so there was a lot of yawning. x_x

Not long before the gallbladder attack, Bookbub had sent me a "hey would you like to learn how to do Bookbub ads?" email, which they do from time to time. I've always ignored it before but decided, eh, what the heck, and signed up for their "week-long course". Which consisted of "sending an email every day for six days explaining each step in the process."

After the gallbladder attack, I wasn't feeling up to doing much of anything, but "reading one email" was generally manageable, so I mostly kept up on the course.

On Sunday, January 26, I was feeling well enough to Do A Thing and decided making a Bookbub ad for Demon's Lure would be that thing. Then I got the price changed for it, which was quicker than I'd expected, so I went ahead and placed an ad.

I spent the next few days tinkering with Bookbub ads: placing new ones, changing designs, changing targetting, etc. My best campaign managed a CTR of 1.11%; given the price differential between CPM and CPC, I think most Bookbub ads fall in the 1-2% range. (Bookbub's business model is "subscribers sign up for daily/weekly emails advertising books in their chosen genres"; their CTRs are high because literally the only people who see the ads are people who opened an email to look at book ads in that genre.)

I made a new campaign based off the most-successful one and planned to keep it running for a few more days to see if I could bump the sales rank for Demon's Lure enough to get some algorithmic support from Amazon. But the CTR for the final campaign was 0.31% and nothing I did seemed to help, so I pulled the plug on the experiment. The early ads mostly did better than the later ones, so it may just be that I hit the "show it to people a 2nd time" thing and that was the dropoff? Not sure what happened. I expect I'll try again at some point. It was not close to profitable but it was fun to try something new with book promotion. Maybe if I keep at it for long enough, I will eventually grow my audience? That'd be nice.

If you've read any of my books and can think of a "you might like [this author] if you liked L. Rowyn [or specific books of mine]", lemme know. I need more comparable authors to target my ads. n_n

Wednesday, I did some adulting. I filed and paid for my business license and city tax on my business, and completed the personal property declaration for my car. I cleaned off a set of shelves in the office, throwing away old software and jewel cases, and putting the music CDs on a spindle to keep. 

I called my mother several days ago and let her know about the gallbladder attack, because usually those mean gallbladder removals and I don't know how this will impact my plans to move. I'm still waiting to hear from the specialist. And answering my phone when it rings during the day, which is so annoying because it's all scammers calling about "your property". Yes, I am interested in selling, but not to some spamming call center. Anyway, I don't know yet if this will be something like "you should get surgery ASAP" or "you should get surgery but maybe wait until after the move so there will be people around you while you recover" or even "you can make dietary changes and roll the dice if you want instead?" The last one seems unlikely given that apparently all the women in my family have had their gallbladders removed. I am doing better than most by making it to mid-50s with mine.

My mother called me Wednesday, a thing she literally never does. When us kids went away to college, our parents told us "you know our schedules and we don't know yours so we'll just wait for you to call us instead of bugging you with phone calls." When I was younger, they used to call on my birthday, but I don't think they've even done that in 20 years. So she calls at 6PM and I didn't answer because I have my phone set to Do Not Disturb outside of business hours so that I don't have to listen to scammers asking about my property. My mother immediately panicked because, I guess since she never calls me, it did not occur to her that I don't generally let my phone ring. Or answer it. (I've mentioned this to her before but I doubt it stuck.)  She called my brother and he emailed me that she was panicking. I  saw the missed phone call at 8:00PM and listened to my mother's message -- which, remarkably, sounded casual and not at all panicky, just "call whenever you get the chance". I called her back immediately and she fretted about the weird stabbing pains and wanted me to call the doctor. Again. I'm not calling the doctor until the two-week window where I was supposed to hear from the specialist is up. I should call my mother and let her know the stabbing pains went away, though. Maybe tomorrow, just in case they come back soon. 

I should tell Mom to call my sister when she's panicking about me, because my sister knows to check my Dreamwidth feed for news. :) Actually, the best place to get my attention is Discord, because I get desktop notifications for it as well as phone notifications. Everywhere else, I only see when I pick up my phone.

I didn't see the email from my brother until 9PM, but I emailed him to let him know I was okay and had called her. I do not think he'd panicked.

Also, I cooked on Wednesday! This is particularly noteworthy because my appetite since the gallbladder attack has been (a) poor and (b) wonky. I didn't get any dietary instructions from the ER, but a friend dug up some medical articles on gallbladder attacks, and these recommended not eating fatty foods and "the Mediterranean diet" and otherwise "eating healthy."  (My actual doctor was just "avoid fatty/greasy foods".)

And then my body went on this whole kick where I just didn't want to eat, like, almost anything that I would normally eat. At one point, I stood in the kitchen looking for the thing that sounded least awful and picked "sardines and crackers". I have not eaten sardines and crackers in 45 years. I only have sardines and crackers in the house because Eliyahu was eating them and didn't finish them all. I don't know why this sounded better than any normal food but, okay. I ate it.

I have mostly recovered my appetite, which is mostly good because forcing myself to Eat A Food three times a day was hard. Alas, now I am getting tempted to eat when I'm not hungry again. I still haven't done much of that because my normal snack foods don't sound very appealing, tho.

I'd bought ingredients a few weeks ago for my mom's spaghetti sauce, and had been thinking on Monday and Tuesday that it'd be nice to have it. I finally made it Wednesday night. Pasta + sauce + parmesan got to 20 grams of fat (mostly because I really love parmesan with my pasta & sauce). That's a little high for one meal, but not into the "fried chicken" range. I've cut back on both parmesan and sauce when having it for leftovers since. I had some for dinner and I kind of want more now that I've finished.

I wanted a snack Wednesday night and tried having some chocolate chips. I got like ten out of the bag, ate three, and put the rest back. Appetite still wonky.

Thursday was pretty quiet; I spent the day playing games, eating meals, and writing this entry. Oh, and I took a shower. I'd meant to do more decluttering before showering but forgot. I took a long nap, too, like 2.5 hours. In the evening, I did a little writing on The Secret Dragon, which was nice since I haven't been doing much creative stuff.

Friday was likewise quiet. I watched Vicorva's stream, played some games, and took a short nap. Post-nap, I decided going for a walk was too ambitious, so I emptied the last shelves of software and CDs, throwing away everything but music CDs. I ran out of space on the CD spindle so now I have two small round boxes full of CDs. The CDs do not fit very well in these so this seems like a sub-par solution but meh. 

I only have one small bookcase left to empty in the office. It's full of DVDs. I might keep a few of the DVDs in their cases, idk. DVDs feel like something I should make at least some effort to donate instead of just throwing away. Possibly they can go to the same kind of places that will take books?

I still need to clean out the closets. The closets are huge and jammed with stuff. I cried when I started to go through Lut's closet and I haven't tried again since. He had this one lap blanket that he loved; it has a print of a big cat in a light and dark brown, and his grandmother gave it to him. It's always felt "scratchy" to me, and I put that in quotes because it's not actually scratchy? There's just something about the texture that irritates my skin and I don't know why. I never liked having it touch me. But I don't think I can possibly bear to throw it away.

I have thrown away many of his things already. Old video games that he loved and kept the boxes as mementos. Boxes of cables and computer components. There's just ... a lot more to go still. I haven't even touched his clothes.

I dreamed about him last night. He was lying in bed, reading a paper book. I didn't know I was dreaming, but I knew it wouldn't last because I knew he was dead. But I thought, "Still, it's so nice to see him comfortable and doing something he loves."

My goal with decluttering is less "get rid of everything" and more "make it possible to identify to movers what I want to bring with me." And/or make it possible to identify what to remove to a junk-removal service.

Emptying the little bookcase took most of my energy. Maybe will read or write a little now.