Desperate Is as Desperate Does

In a previous post, This Promo Thing Is Crap, I talked about my failed promo attempts on social media for all of my published stories and how Instagram's algorithms are horrible and make everything worse.

That's why I've decided to share a few of my favorite posts for Hurricane Crimes, Seismic Crimes, and Tsunami Crimes right here in this post. They are clickable if you want to see the captions on Instagram.

I hope you enjoy!

Let me know your favorite quote/graphic in the comments. 😊

HURRICANE CRIMES

SEISMIC CRIMES

TSUNAMI CRIMES

How Did the Movie Gothika Inspire Me?

In my Thursday 13 blog post titled Movie Lists Fun (Childhood Favorites, Comfort Movies, All-Time Favs), I shared lists of movies, including my all-time favorite movies. Next to several of those movie titles there had been an asterisk, indicating that those films had inspired/influenced me as a writer. 

The Movies:

Pitch Black 

UltraViolet

Matrix: Reloaded

Van Helsing

Gothika

The FINAL movie spotlight is for...

Gothika

How did it inspire me?

Every single moment Miranda (Halle Berry) is locked up in the psychiatric hospital.

I don't think it's trailer quite does it justice.

I watched this movie so many times while writing Part Two in Book 2 of my Secret Book Baby Series, which takes place in a psychiatric hospital for women and girls. The writing is darker because of the setting and what happens. The dark, grim, spooky mood of Gothika helped to inspire me.

In one scene of Gothika, Halle's character has a possessed moment. Well, my character experiences something kind of similar...but not. LOL

I'm not sure what else to say about this movie except that I simply love it.

This Promo Thing Is Crap

 

The Plan:

Last year, I had the idea to promote one of my published stories each month this year while offering the eBook on sale for 99 cents. I'd create pretty and cute graphics with some of the best quotes from my stories to post on Instagram and Facebook. I'd even planned to create a couple of reels, too.

(I love it when authors I follow do this. There's been many cases when I've added a book to my TBR list or bought it because I continued to see their posts and enjoy the teasers they shared. My hope was to generate the same outcome.)

The Plan Ruined:

Well, my plan immediately unraveled when my publisher said that they no longer mark eBooks on sale for 99 cents UNLESS the author is doing a big advertising push and paying for advertisement during the sale.

Look, I'm single. I live alone. I'm on a budget. I cannot afford to pay for advertising.

Hearing that was such a HUGE disappointment. 

I'd already created a lot of graphics for my stories, so I thought I'd still go ahead with my plan, minus the sale.

The Outcome (so far):

In January, I started with 30 Seconds, my romantic-suspense novella. The first few days, the engagement was decent. Then it dropped.

Lesson Learned: DO NOT do a month-long spotlight. LOL! I had too many quotes that I liked that I'd wanted to share, but that was my mistake. I should've parred it down to two weeks of content, four days per week. 

February, I moved on to 30 Seconds Before, the prequel to 30 Seconds that can be read as a standalone. I thought the engagement would be decent, again, like how it started out with 30 Seconds, but it was well below par. 

March through September I spotlighted a story a month for the Disaster Crimes series. And that was just...brutal. *sigh*

Lesson Learned: Promoting an older published and completed series is HARD, especially if you're promoting each book separately. I honestly have no clue how to promote my series now.

Instagram's Sucky Algorithms:

Now, I know this problem is not just with me, and it's how Instagram's horrible algorithms bury our content and never show us posts from accounts we follow. Ever.

My posts now get a handful of likes. (Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for all of my followers, although I'd prefer it if IG let them SEE my posts, and I am grateful for the likes I do get.)

Sometimes, though, I get just two or three likes no matter what I try. 

And I've tried it all: more hashtags, less hashtags, different hashtags, same hashtags, trying to hit high engagement days/times, Canva graphics, photographs, censoring words that romance authors use a lot so that I don't get put on some naughty list, but nothing makes a difference. 

Instagram just hates me.

It is incredibly discouraging, and I know I'm not alone in this.

Some Content for Fun:

Because my posts weren't seen by many, I thought I'd share a few of my favorites for 30 Seconds and 30 Seconds Before in this post. They are hyperlinked if you'd like to visit the post on IG.

30 SECONDS:

30 SECONDS BEFORE:

Shared Exclusively in my IG Stories.

Shared Exclusively in my IG Stories.

How Did the Movie Van Helsing Inspire Me?

In my Thursday 13 blog post titled Movie Lists Fun (Childhood Favorites, Comfort Movies, All-Time Favs), I shared lists of movies, including my all-time favorite movies. Next to several of those movie titles there had been an asterisk, indicating that those films had inspired/influenced me as a writer. 

The Movies:

Pitch Black 

UltraViolet

Matrix: Reloaded

Van Helsing

Gothika

Once a month, I am going to highlight one of those movies and reveal how it inspired/influenced me.

This month's movie is...

Van Helsing

How did it inspire me?

Dracula and his ball.

In Book 2 of my Secret Book Baby Series, vampires make an appearance. One of them is a vampire king. The Dracula in Van Helsing influenced this character. I do not picture this Dracula as my character aside from the hair and pale skin, nor does my vampire king have an accent, but I created my character during the time when I was especially obsessed with this movie.

And the ball...my vampires have a ball...and my FMC is forced to dance with the king. So, yeah, see the similarities with that? It unfolds all very different, and it's not a masquerade ball, but the influence is plain, and I'm not hiding that.

Van Helsing, for being a low budget film, is fabulous. It doesn't get nearly as much love as it should.

I suck. I'm Sorry.

 

Dear Blog Visitor,

I haven't visited many of your blogs in a very long time.

That is why I suck and why I am sorry.

Since I started my full-time job last June, I've found it harder and harder to visit other blogs.

I work, I go home, I try to write as much as I can as long as I have the energy and motivation, I go to bed, and repeat. Come the weekend, I'm trying to recuperate from the work week and write, write, write. I haven't even had time to read a graphic novel. *sigh*

(This work/life routine may be the same with you, and you still may be able to visit blogs and comment on them, but I urge you to remember that we all have different capacities for things. I am a spoonie and suffer from a lot of chronic pain, more than I did at the start of last year, so that takes it out of me, too.)

At work, there's been times when I could create blog posts (like now), but for some reason, I'm not able to log in to comment on other people's blogs or even to reply back to comments on my own posts, which is less than ideal. I have to do that on my iPad, which is also less than ideal. 

I forget all the time to use one of my own devices to reply back to comments on my own posts, which is sad.

So, I want to say to those of you who visit my blog but maybe don't comment, THANK YOU! I may not see a visible sign that you're here, but I SEE YOU, and I appreciate your visit.

To those of you who visit and leave a comment (there's a few of you who I consider my faithful commenters), I THANK YOU for continuing to visit my blog and to grace me with your thoughts when I haven't done the same for you in a long time.

I am going to do my best to visit more of your blogs, and I really mean that.

For now, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! And I am sorry for not reciprocating as much as I should've. I’ll get better at it. I promise.

Take care,

Chrys Fey

How Did the Movie Matrix: Reloaded Inspire Me?

In my Thursday 13 blog post titled Movie Lists Fun (Childhood Favorites, Comfort Movies, All-Time Favs), I shared lists of movies, including my all-time favorite movies. Next to several of those movie titles there had been an asterisk, indicating that those films had inspired/influenced me as a writer. 

The Movies:

Pitch Black 

UltraViolet

Matrix: Reloaded

Van Helsing

Gothika

Once a month, I am going to highlight one of those movies and reveal how it inspired/influenced me.

This month's movie is...

Matrix: Reloaded

How did it inspire me?

1) When Neo says, "Trinity, I know you can hear me. I'm not letting go. I can't. I love you too damn much."

2) Trinity's pose when she lands after jumping off her motorcycle AND her scorpion kick.

3) The Title

Take a Peek into My Enemies-with-Benefits Story

 

NOTE: If you're a subscriber to my museletter (aka newsletter) this may look familiar, as I took it from the June issue, but you received many more exclusive perks, such as:

Exclusive Only to Museletter Subscribers:

New Pen Name Reveal

Series Title Reveal

An Excerpt for when Paisley and Case Meet

Image Inspo for Case (which I had to black out in a photo below)

The Playlist

Clues as to what's next...

If you'd like these exclusive perks, sign up for my museletter here.

Are you ready for Paisley and Case?

Genre: Paranormal Erotic Romance

Meet Paisley:

Paisley is half-vampire, half-fairy. Because of that, she's been called a freak all her life. That's why she doesn't reveal her wings to anyone. After hearing them described as an abomination and worse, she keeps her wings hidden within her body. Being the only hybrid in existence is not easy. She has struggles that no one will ever be able to understand, including a secret that only her best friend, Aster, knows.

Following the murder of her parents, the former vampire king and fairy queen, Paisley becomes queen for both factions. The day after she is crowned, a mountain of dead bats is left on her lawn next to the daemon faction’s brand. The threat pits her up against Lord Case, an infuriating demon who looks fine as hell in a suit and claims he wants her the first time they meet. And damn if she doesn’t want him, too. Except, he’s the vampyre faction’s greatest enemy.

Paisley's hair is a bit darker than this, a purple-black, but the vibes are here. Even the lip color is pretty close to her favorite shade. Just remove the piercings, and this is pretty much Paisley.

Meet Case: