Update - what I've been up to, & what's coming up!

Hi everyone, I'm still here! *waves*

I know I haven't been blogging much lately, other than little quickie posts here and there, and random Facebook and Twitter updates every once in a while... I've been plugging away at all my usual stuff, plus I've had several other projects on my plate too:

BooksFYI.com - I'm still managing the online presence for BooksFYI, and in addition to my usual workload, I currently have a to-do list a mile long for them including adding new titles, fixing every listing on the site so Google will like it again (fun!), and a few other things I can't even remember at the moment. Bottom line is they will be keeping me plenty busy the rest of this month!

My eBay/Google Nightmare - I don't know how many of you have kept up with the recent changes on eBay and Google, but they are causing me no end of headaches at the moment and I'm still not quite sure what I am going to do about it all.

My first nightmare was the change eBay made to its insurance policy - I now have illegal text in every one of my 600+ listings. I tried the bulk editor, but because I use an Auctiva template, it won't recognize my text. After a few sad attempts at other solutions, I resigned myself to manually fixing them one by one, and started working on it when I had some extra time.

Well, Google has now thrown another wrench in my works, explained very well by Henrietta over at RedInkDiary. I know she is right about Google's new stringent guidelines about what text is allowed in an item description that is uploaded to Google Base - they rejected the BooksFYI feed because we had Free Shipping in the description, which they never had a problem with before. I'm working on fixing all their listings now, as I mentioned above.

Of course what it means for me is that my eBay and Etsy descriptions are full of text that Google will most likely reject, if/when eBay and Etsy manage to get our feeds fixed and submitted to Google Base (individual sellers aren't allowed to do it themselves anymore, it us up to the venue). So, either I completely re-work almost 900 listings one by one, or I live with Google not accepting my listings.

And if I am going to spend all that time and energy optimizing for the sake of Google, wouldn't I be better off doing it for my own website where I don't pay any fees? It seems silly to do it for listings that are on a marketplace.

I don't know. It is a tough situation for sure, and I am still kind of up in the air about it all. Of course all this is coming at the worst possible time - my original plan for October was to power list to get my stores filled to the brim for the holidays!

My Super Secret Project - As if all of this wasn't enough to keep me more than busy, I have been working on something else that I am lovingly referring to as my Super Secret Project. I was hoping to launch it on my birthday (this coming Wednesday!) but it is no where near ready for prime time yet, and I have no idea when it will be. But I will get it done, come hell or high water... I am really excited about it, and can't wait to see if other people like the idea as much as I do! :)

Of course I can't neglect my regular Vintage Goodness duties, in spite of all this other stuff... So, it is time for the:

Vintage Goodness Fall Fashion Extravaganza - How's that for an exciting title? It's what I will be working on this coming week - all the great coats and sweaters and purses and hats and whatnot that I've been hoarding all summer will be going up for auction. (I also uncovered a few shirts and dresses that I should have listed in the Spring - oops! I'm going to go ahead and list them now too rather than waiting another 6 months. It's Spring on the other side of the planet, right? So it's all good!)

I was going to include some of the new items I listed this week in this post (I haven't been posting my new listings like I should lately!), but I think I've written enough for one night... I'll try to post them in the morning, after I get caught up listings to my stores, which I am about a week and a half behind on.

Ah, the life of an online seller - never a dull moment! ;)