This past weekend was a flurry of activity. A garage sale – and you all know how much work that is if you’ve ever held one! It’s like going shopping in your own house but finding what you don’t want anymore, hauling it to the garage no matter what size it is, then moving it all again out into the driveway when the big day arrives.
People pull up to your house – they’ve seen the signs you taped on the post at the end of the street. Maybe you’re not even finished arranging those 1980’s coffee mugs or children’s t-shirts, but you need to say Good Morning! and welcome them. That’s good sales, and also polite 🙂 They may be happy and pleasant, but they might be sour – staunch deal-makers and breakers, garage sale scavengers out early with the first sips of their Tim Horton’s coffees.
If they don’t buy, that’s fine. You can’t make them. What you can do is make sure you have something good. You can’t put out junk. Stuff that’s obviously JUNK. Like…garbage, I mean. Edit your stuff. If you don’t want it why would anyone else? You have to know WHY you don’t want it. If you have two of them then that’s a good reason to get rid of one. If you think it’s crap, then it probably is and other people will think it’s crap too. If it’s perfectly good, pretty, or useful, then you can bet someone else will want it, and you might even decide to keep it!
Sometimes you need to get rid of good stuff simply because you have too much. Is your novel 2000 pages long? Long winded but full of good sentences doesn’t work either. You’ve got so much you don’t know what’s what anymore, and there’s no space to move or breathe. Maybe you’ve said too much – let the reader use her own brain a little.
No matter what you’re doing – preparing for a garage sale, or editing your writing, make sure it’s Sale Ready. Here are a few things to look for when you are 
editing your writing.
- spelling and grammar
- clumsy phrases and run-on sentences
- gaps in your thinking
- correct time and flow
- redundancies and repetition
The most difficult thing is to sit back and edit your own work. It helps to print it off and leave it alone for a few days. You’ll read it more objectively then. When you’ve got an object in your hand for that garage sale and you’re humming and hawwwwwwing over it, what do you do? You ask your partner…should we keep this? They might say no, but not realize that you’re holding a Ming vase and not some dollar store flower holder. You can ask someone else to read your work but what if they only like mysteries and you’ve handed them erotica? What if they are biased and say they like it to spare your feelings? Make sure you trust their judgement and experience with reading and editing.
The garage sale went well. $100 was made. Time ran out. People were stingy and wanted brand new $70 items for $1. They actually walked away when we stuck to our $5 price tag. It just goes to show you that you never know who is going to drive up in that short span of 6 hours…the person who really wanted that $70 item for $5 never even knew we were having a garage sale that day.
More on marketing in another post….
Anyone want a BRAND NEW NEVER USED $70 BUG ZAPPER for FIVE BUCKS?? (guaranteed no dead bugs on this item!)
