This September 30th, The Whine Seller turns 10 years old! Yes, I know there are posts older than that on the site but that’s because I shamelessly moved them here from my other, older blog when I first started to separate my seller life from my fiction writer life. It was September 30th, 2008 when I started this sometimes angry, usually funny and always ranting little blog about selling, publishing, eBay and everything in between and I still can’t believe it’s lasted as long as it has or that it’s become as popular as it has.

In addition to The Whine Seller turning a decade old, this upcoming March will mark 22 years since I sighed up for eBay. That’s over two decades of selling online! That’s 22 years of being irritated with customers and arbitrary term changes, packing items, knowing far too much about vintage toys and making money from the comfort of my own home.

Seems like all these milestones deserve a celebration! Which is why I’m launching a series I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. I’m calling it Finely Aged Whine: Over Two Decades of Selling Stories.

In 22 years, I’ve had a whole bunch of awkward, funny, annoying and just plain weird things happen to me while building my business and trying to sell stuff online. Oh the stories I could tell… and I’m starting to think maybe it’s time I did.

I’m going to have to vague up the details some so I don’t get in too much trouble and, alas, some of my best stories I probably won’t be able to tell until certain guilty parties are long dead but I’ve got plenty I can tell in the meantime so why not get started? Over the years, I’ve toyed with writing  these as a coming of age story of being a teen growing to an adult while growing into my role as entrepreneur or just playing up the comedy and making them into a collection of eBay horror stories. I’ve held onto these for years because I was trying to figure out the best way to write them when I finally realized it’s better to just jot them down now as I remember them and polish them up for some greater destiny later. So enjoy what are really early drafts of something I’ll probably pretty up later and do something else with. But no matter where they ultimately end up, you’ll be getting to hear them first.

At the moment I’m writing this, I’ve got 30 of these selling stories written up and I keep thinking of more. To keep them from taking over the blog, I’m going to space them out a bit so they last us at least all of this anniversary year and maybe beyond! But unlike my usual posts, there won’t always be a point to the story or some greater reason I’m telling it other than I just feel like it so don’t be too disappointed when it doesn’t turn into an informative article.

The first of these stories will be posted next week and, in honor of eBay Radio having their final broadcast a little while ago, it’ll start everyone’s favorite bearded eBay personality himself… Griff!

Stay tuned!