Hillary DePiano's Blog, page 15

The last few days of NaNoWriMo: becoming the writer you want to be

There is less than a week before we emerge, blinking, into sparkling December. While a handful of you have already finished your novel and are now winding the month down, adding finishing touches and picking out the sweater you’ll wear in your author photo, the rest of us are scrambling, writing down to the wire, still not sure if we’re going to be able to make it.

Believe it or not, you CAN still hit 50,000 words at this point, even if you only started writing the minute you finish reading t...

It’s NaNoWriMo Week Two so take quitting off the table and just keep writing

Wrimos, to be on pace, you should be hitting 20,000 words TODAY. If you’re not there yet, do not fret! There’s still plenty of time to hit 50,000 and beyond, you just gotta stick with it! We’re due at the halfway point by Wednesday and then it’s all downhill to the 50k finish line!

But it’s probably getting harder, isn’t it? If you’re starting to struggle, you’re not alone. Week Two of NaNoWriMo is infamous because it’s the time when most people give up.

Why? Well, there’s a lot of reasons. Y...

October 2017: (figurative) flaming pineapples

A theme in these monthly writing status updates is me saying, “I feel like I accomplished nothing this month!” and then posting a really big word count and this month is no exception. And I mention it because I’m starting to suspect this is not just a hang-up that I have but rather something that all creative people struggle with. How do you really measure progress in the creative arts? If you worked on things but didn’t put anything out that you could publish or sell that month, isn’t that s...

NaNoWriMo: Write fast. Outrun your fears.

Mere hours stand between us and the beginning of National Novel Writing Month. Whether you’re about to attempt your first novel or your fifty first, it’s going to be a wild ride of fun and productivity. As soon as the clock ticks over to November 1st, it’s time to start writing like the Flash on 20 Red Bulls. There are a lot of ways to write, from the slow tweaking of the difficult work email to the herky jerky stop and go of writing that research heavy non-fiction piece.… Read more

This post...

What is Hillary doing for NaNoWriMo 2017?

“What are you doing for NaNoWriMo this year, Hillary?” Is a thing people keep asking me and I keep answering something along the lines of, “Haha, just trying to survive!”

And they laugh. But I am not joking.

Like, can I get real for a moment? I’m the lone ML for a pretty big region with a packed calendar, I have an infant and a four-year old home with me and my husband is going on a business trip for a whole week of November. Oh, and I am literally writing this right now dancing in place at...

Guest Post: Why You Should Be Selling With Amazon [Infographic]

Today we’ve got guest whiner Karen Smith from Dpack with a cool infographic about why you should consider selling on Amazon. Take it away, Karen!
-The Whine Seller

You Already Sell Online, then why sell on Amazon?

If you have an e-commerce website and sell your products online, you must be aware of the popularity of Amazon. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos as an online bookstore, the website has an active customer base of over 300 million. More than 3.5 million products sold daily range from d...

September 2017: rocking the boat

Here’s what September 2017 looked like in writing…

Total Words Written This Month
31,753 words

Average Words Per Day
1,058 words

Monthly Goal
didn’t set one

Yearly Goal
477,587 / 500,000 (96%)

Things completed:

did an abridged version of Pintosmalto aka  Arm Candy  for a school doing it in competition an abridged version of  The Complete Novels of Jane Austen: Now New and Improved! wrote up a family story (one of many I’ve been meaning to do for ages)

Other Works Actively in Progress this Mon...

September: rocking the boat

Here’s what September 2017 looked like in writing…

Total Words Written This Month
31,753 words

Average Words Per Day
1,058 words

Monthly Goal
didn’t set one

Yearly Goal
477,587 / 500,000 (96%)

Things completed:

did an abridged version of Pintosmalto aka  Arm Candy  for a school doing it in competition an abridged version of  The Complete Novels of Jane Austen: Now New and Improved! wrote up a family story (one of many I’ve been meaning to do for ages)

Other Works Actively in Progress this Mon...

Shorten & simplify your item listing text for the TL; DR generation of buyers

This is post 23 of 23 in the series “eBay Marketing Makeover”

Simplify your terms and conditions

You know that huge chunk of text in your default listing template? It’s time to trim that monster down to make it less intimidating.

Here’s what to do:

Read over all your terms and conditions that you list in the listing itself. Keep in mind that your buyers are less likely than ever to actually read your description text and see how much of it you can trim down. You can often consolidate mult...

It’s true! A good return policy is a marketing strategy that courts word of mouth

This is post 22 of 23 in the series “eBay Marketing Makeover”

Create a generous return policy

Offering a return policy won’t just increase both your sales and visibility on the eBay marketplace, a generous return policy can even decrease the number of returns you get overall.

Here’s what to do:

Set up your return policy on your eBay listings. You can revise the return policy on all your listings at once using the bulk edit tools. Make it as generous as you can both in terms of time and wh...