I can’t even begin to tell you how many times the toddler has made me watch this video in the last few weeks. It all started when I couldn’t remember the words to Ladybug Picnic and went to listen to the song on YouTube, clicked the wrong thing and the rest is history. From 1972, it’s catchy as heck and one of those great classic Sesame Street sketches though I can’t help but think the poor Martian lady’s life would have been revolutionized by e-commerce since then she’d be able to go shopping without having to bother with hopping. 

But the real reason I’ve gone and got this song stuck in your head this morning is because there are only NINE days left before Sell Their Stuff is officially available. And you’re already sick of hearing about it, I know, but selling books equals money and I kind of need that to pay the bills so I have things like internet because without internet HOW would I play Number 9 Martian Beauty a zillion times a day for the toddler? Won’t someone please think of the children!

As promised, I will be blogging the entire book for you readers to enjoy for free starting next week. In the past, when I’ve blogged a book, I’ve chopped the whole thing up into blog posts and posted them somewhat randomly. I’ve also, in many cases, modified them to better match a normal blog post or to make them standalone a bit better out of the context of the rest of the book. I’m not doing either of those things this time.

I’m going to post, in order, the entire book bit by bit unmodified from how it will appear in the published version. There will even be a new chapter structure in those posts to make them easier to browse and read in order. For the first time, you’ll be able to truly read the book, in it’s entirety, on the site for free. Sell Their Stuff is a full length book so it’s going to take A LOT of posts to get the whole thing on the site so it will be months to maybe even a year or more before you see the entire text. But you will, eventually, see the whole thing and be able to read exactly what the paying customers get without paying a dime. Of course, even so, I would still greatly appreciate your purchasing a copy to support the site if you have the means.

The reasons I wasn’t doing it this way all along was, frankly, because I was afraid people wouldn’t buy the book if they could read the entire thing for free but I’ve come to realize that a) it’s sort of a pain to read an entire book of this length on a website and most will prefer the book format and b) it will take many posts (and thus clicks and ad views) to get the entire thing up on the site which should translate into enough extra traffic/ad revenue to equal any sale it would have made anyway. Also, practically, it will be a heck of a lot faster for me to get posts up if I can just copy and paste directly from the book and not have to do any rewriting.

But I’m worried about overwhelming regular readers with STS stuff so I’m going to have to ask you to speak up if you’ve got issues with my new way of blogging my book. While I’ll try to split the love between excerpts and standalone posts, whenever I don’t have anything written, I’ll put up an excerpt just so I’ve got something for you. The one thing I do think will work out nicely is that a lot of the book applies to all sorts of selling, not just consignment selling, so I don’t think you’ll mind the majority of the excerpts even if you aren’t a Selling Assistant.

And if you think you’re tired of hearing about this book, how do you think I feel? Book releases are exhausting and I’m doing two at once!

Anyway, while we’re talking about Sesame Street, what’s your favorite vintage sketch from when you were a kid?