If you had clutter, would you respond to this letter?

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by Phil

Since this Thread has come back from the Dead in one form or another...

Twist the Original idea from this thread Into a “Chatelling” Garage Sales business services and consulting Network...

Endless Opportunities & possibilities Simply by Studying, reading and Borrowing Smart ideas and Making them work...

Some Quick food for thought...

When you clean out, this crew cleans up
Two high school seniors are running a business that handles the nitty-gritty of Houston-area garage sales from start to finish
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...s/6754478.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=Grand...ient=firefox-a

Hi Phil,

Thanks - great idea, and also great links too!

I love the article about the high school seniors who will handle everything about a garage sale for you, for $200 plus 30% of the takings... Of course, this is doable by anyone - not only high school seniors!

Another idea is a garage sale/yard sale book, on how to run a profitable garage sale/yard sale... The main problem I see with it is possibly with reaching those who would buy it. I think the idea would work especially if you can do a deal with various newspapers to regularly advertise your book in their garage sale classified section, for a percentage of the profits. Newspapers are hurting nowadays regarding profits, so more of them may be willing to do this kind of deal (especially if the book looks like it is an informative one - they won't do it if the book is "crap")...

There are a lot of newspapers around which advertise garage sales, so I'm sure some newspapers would be willing. You could mail out the book, so there's no need for the newspaper you're promoting in to be located in the same location where you live... You could conceivably have several newspapers in many places, all promoting your book... This could be quite big if you can do deals with enough newspapers...

Or even "license" the content of your book to each newspaper. Each newspaper-specific version of the book could promote advertising the garage sale in that newspaper, so the newspapers have even more incentive to promote it (since it could lead to more advertising revenue for them too)... Then each newspaper could handle orders, sales, and printing the book, and just pay you a licensing fee for the content...

You might be able to promote it in other places where garage sales are promoted too, like Craigslist and other similar websites... (Though you'd have to check their terms of service, etc., to make sure you don't violate them.)

By the way, here's a pretty interesting garage sale website...

http://www.yardsalequeen.com

Best wishes,

Dien