Hillary DePiano's Blog, page 14

For Sale: an excellent business idea

I’m selling a business idea. Literally, it’s up for auction on eBay right now here and goes to the highest bidder in a week. The domain alone has been appraised for between $650-$800 dollars but the auction sits at .99 with no reserve so it can be yours for almost nothing because I just don’t have the time to manage it anymore. Go get it.

That’s the super short version. Here’s the long version. 

For authors, especially indie or self-published authors, book bloggers can make or break a book wh...

All About eBay: Timeline, trivia, fun facts and more!

I will always hold a place in my heart for good old eBay mostly because of how I have watched it grow and change over the 21 years on the platform (my goodness, has it really been that long??? but I started in March of 1997 so basic math says it’s so!) Those of you that also have a long eBay history will enjoy this neat infographic I found that breaks down the history of the platform and some of the key milestones… as well as some of the sillier parts of it’s history such as the sale of Willi...

My Writing Resolutions for 2018 (aka new year, new approach to my writing life)

It is time, yet again, to set up some goals for the year ahead and I am posting them on my blog as usual to make it real and help make me feel accountable. So let’s just dive into what I’m striving for this year and why. 

Word Count Goal: 350,000

Regular readers right now are looking at that goal and being like…

…because 350,000 words for the year is well below my average for the last seven years I’ve been setting a goal. In fact, I’ve only written less than two out of the seven years. So wh...

Project Status Report

As part of a larger effort to organize my life and make better use of what little writing time I have these days, I decided to do up a massive Project Status Report of everything I’m working on and where it is now. Couple of things before we start this.

I have WAY too many works in progress and unfinished projects. I am well aware of this and trying to remedy the situation. Why it’s gotten this way is a long story but I’m working to break the bad habits and make the best of my erratic writi...

Hillary Writes All the Things 2017: my writing year debriefed

As 2017 draws to a close, let’s take a look at how my year in writing went. I’m going to try to keep this short. I’ll fail, mind you, but that effort surely counts for something, no?

For more details on any of this, you can see my whole writing year month by month here. (Keep in mind that my Writing Year starts in December, ends in November.)

Here are the numbers from December 2016-November 2017…

Goal for the Year
originally 200,000, later upped to 500,000 words

Total Words Written
610,622 (...

November 2017: I’ve got 99 problems and NaNoWriMo is definitely one…

What’s ironic about the fact that this is the latest I’ve ever posted a monthly recap is that I actually wrote most of this post in mid-November and I’m just having such a busy December that I’m only just now having the chance to post it. (Christmas + my kid’s birthday + baby + husband working a whole lot has made for a super hectic month with far too many all nighters and too few moment for my stuff.) But NaNoWriMo 2017 deserves a proper debrief so let’s get down to it.

Here’s what November...

Save Net Neutrality

When the FCC first announced that they were thinking of doing away with Net Neutrality, I outlined a week of posts on the subject for you because this is a BIG FAT HAIRY DEAL for us online sellers. Net Neutrality is essential for us to run our businesses on the web as we do now. But a bad combo of personal stuff and other commitments means we’re nearly out of time and I never got to share any of those articles. But there are a few hours left before they make this decision so I’m going to very...

46 Conversion Rate Optimization Hacks (Infographic)

Looking to convert more visitors into buyers?

You know I’m all about quick little things you can do to increase sales and improve sales so here’s a great infographic with 46 little tweaks you can make right now to increase your conversion rate and optimize your online store from Website Builder. [Source]

This post appeared first on The Whine Seller.

The writing doesn’t have to stop just because NaNoWriMo did

There are so many people on my social feeds right now talking about how much they miss writing now that NaNoWriMo is over and I know this is crazy but hear me out… what if you just kept writing? Like, what if you didn’t stop just because we flipped the calendar page? Kept putting words down even though it’s not the special month designated for writing. What if you stopped treating the end of NaNoWriMo as a finish line and instead as a door to the rest of your writing life?… Read more

This post...

The fantastic premiere production of The Tale of Tales at Rutgers Prep

Since early 2003, you’ve been hearing me talk about my project adapting the Italian fairy tale collection, Giambattista Basile’s The Tale of Tales aka the Pentamerone, into a whole bunch of plays. There are six tales plays from this project finished so (of what I think will eventually be twelve tales total), this fall, I wrote material that connected the tales together into an evening and offered a select group of directors I’d worked with in the past the chance to premiere any combo of them...