Hillary DePiano's Blog, page 38
June 17, 2015
On vague spam and oddly specific categorizes
You know me, I love a good spam message. Let’s look at today’s entry:
My name is Emma, I was referred over to your company by a blogger that wrote a Book review about one of your books. Does your company offer books to many bloggers to review?
I am just blown away by the research you did before contacting me, Emma. I started swooning when you referred to it as “your company” but then when you busted out such amazing specifics as “a blogger” and “one of your books” I knew I was dealing with...
June 16, 2015
Keep your writing on track and balance multiple projects with a simple project priority list
One very simple writing tool I recently added to the mix was a dry erase board next to my computer monitorthat’s a priority list of all my projects. The board used to be a list of every project I wanted to write somedayand it took me until recentlyto realize that wasn’t motivational… it was a intimidating. Because even when I finished something and crossed it off the list, I’d look at that huge list of projects yet to do and it would really suck all the joy out of that accomplishment.
Now it’...
June 15, 2015
Work on encouraging repeat business and word of mouth before you do any other marketing
Encouraging Repeat Business and Word of Mouth
Before we go nuts trying to get new eyeballs on your store, let’s do a little work to both keep and grow the ones we’ve already got. If everyone who buys from you now came back and bought more, that would mean more sales too. And a repeat buyer is more likely to develop brand loyalty, which can lead to even more purchases in the future. Beyond the additional sales, repeat customers are also your best source of Word of...
June 12, 2015
Are you getting enough Whine in your diet?
I’ve had a mailing list set up for a while but I’m only just now figuring out how best to use it and what features it offers. For example,I set up a neat new feature through MailChimp that regular readers will probably like. Namely, you can now opt in to get a digest of every new post from The Whine Seller delivered to your inbox once a month. I was already offeringdaily email subscriptions via Feedburner and many of you were taking advantage of those and this gives the email weary among us a...
June 9, 2015
Plot bunnies
Working on The Green Bird and my brain sidles up to me, “Forget this one, baby. I’ve got a better idea.”
“Not now. I’m finishing this first.”
“How about this: Wewrite a whole play in Fakespeare!”
“Go away.”
“OK, Plenty more where that came from. Gender flipped Peter Pan.”
“Ugh, no.”
“Two words: Casual vampires.”
“…That’s it? That’s not even anything!”
“A Cinderella story that’s ALSO a Cinderella story. Like, a sports one but ALSO the fairy tale.”
“Now you’re just embarrassing yourself.”
“No!...
June 8, 2015
Writing as a marketing tool: Proofread & punch-up ALL your copy from listing text to form emails
It’s time to go all English class on your marketing and listing text. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Proofread all copy
While you’ll want to make sure your product itself is free of spelling and grammatical errors, especially if it’s a book, so many overlook all the other text associated with selling something. Take a look at your emails, website, social media bios, listing text and any other written words around what you’re selling. Poor grammar or spelling not only turn potential buy...
June 5, 2015
Know your limits
It probably wouldn’t occur to you to open up your skull and take out your own brain tumor. You wouldn’t want to risk messing up something that important. That’s a skilled job and one you’re not necessarily confident enough to tackle without some professional help.
But what about something we encounter every day? Things like writing, proofreading, design and other things we see and maybe even do every day seem simpler because of their familiarity. When you’re running your own business, you’re...
June 4, 2015
The best writing teacher I’ve ever had is two years old
My daughter is about a month shy of two and a half. She’s been telling stories and making up songs since she learned to speak but it’s reached a sort of apex recently. One of her favorite things to do is to pick up a random big book or page of a lot of text, such as the phone book, the supermarket circular, or whatever I’m currently trying to read, and pretend to read it herself. She runs her fingers along the text and uses this slow, breathy storytelling voice (that is probably her version o...
June 3, 2015
Do you really need an eBay store to be a successful seller?
If you’re a satisfied eBay Store owner, you can go ahead and skip this. If you don’t have an eBay store yet or you’re questioning your subscription, this is for you.
While anyone can sell on eBay without any subscription service, eBay offers a variety of upgrade packages called eBay Stores. For a monthly fee, sellers can opt into one of three different store tiers for benefits ranging from cross promotional tools, custom categories and pages and special listing frames for c...
June 1, 2015
Start reading eBay Marketing Makeover for free right here!
Who doesn’t like a free sample? My newest book, eBay Marketing Makeover, is out today wherever eBooks are sold and I wanted to give you a little taste of what’s inside by letting you start to read it for free. So here, without further ado, is the introduction for the book. I’ll be sharing excerpts throughout this launch week to try to start sales off strong so tune back on Wednesday for more!
-Hillary “The Whine Seller” DePiano
INTRODUCTION
You’re selling stuff on eBay but you want to sel...
