Thousands of sailors look at the Sailing Texas Classifieds every day, thousands. To get the word out that your sailboat is for sale, Sailing Texas cannot be beat. I prefer to offer Sailboat Ads for free, but I had to start "charging" on Jan 1, 2010. I use the information you send me to build the Sailing Texas Photo Gallery, and people donate to keep Sailing Texas serving sailors.
On the Sailing Texas home page, on the right, is a running total of sailboats sold, new ads, and price reductions. You can scroll down and see figures for last month, and the month before, and even past years. Why don't other sailboat classified websites show their statistics?
Quote from a Sailing Texas Classifieds user:
David,
The Catalina 30 is sold!!!! Thank you for your website; it is fantastic! I
have now both purchased a boat (small trailerable) from Pennsylvania, and
sold my large cruising sailboat to a family in Wisconsin, while living in
Ohio, all on your Sailing Texas Website!!!
Best regards,
Chet
Yes, the Sailing Texas Classifieds sells sailboats across Earth, NOT just in Texas! Your classified ad includes editing, spelling correction, advice, and picture processing. A webpage just for your boat is included, with video and sound if you wish! At no extra charge.
INSTRUCTIONS
Effective Jan 1, 2010, the rules were changed. Nothing radical, so it hasn't been a problem.
1: I had to start charging for ads, but free is nice too. The ad fee is now $25 or 1% of the selling price, whichever is higher. But you pay nothing until you sell your boat, and even then if you want to pay nothing, you pay nothing. So start your ad for free, if you don't sell, the ad is free, if you don't want to pay, the ad is free. Up to you, as it should be. No payment until AFTER your boat sells.
I'm terribly sorry, but ad requests without all required items must simply be deleted. Unfortunately I am not well at present, and while before I could work over 12 hours a day I can no longer do this. I often have to go to bed during the day because of the pain, so I don't have the time available I used to have. I can't save all these emails and then put them together for the ad anymore. I keep it simple, you send me 1 email with all required items and attached jpg picture files of less than 1 MB, all in one email. If it is not complete, I have to delete it, and your ad will not appear.
First, FORBIDDEN, this is just common sense. If you want to sell your boat, then do NOT do the following.
Please, NO bullets, hyphens or anything like that. I put in HTML bullets, but if you put them in, I will have to delete yours and put HTML bullets in instead.
Do NOT put your entire description into a paragraph with the items all bundled together with only commas seperating them. One item per line is more readable and sells the boats better. A paragraph or two is ok, but NOT one made of a bunch of items put together.
Do NOT send me a link to a webpage with your ad info on it
Do NOT send ANY attachments except jpg picture files
Do NOT send me a Word doc, eml file, or other file, only attached .jpg picture files.
Do NOT send your ad in ALL CAPS.
Do NOT send a bunch of extra pictures and expect me to pick the ones you like the best. It's your boat, you decide.
Emails with the above items included must be deleted, I'm sorry.
REQUIRED INFORMATION, a very short list: I have learned over the years that a few items of information are essential to sell a boat, so they are required. Put these required items together so I can find them.
REQUIRED ITEMS, leave one out and your ad cannot be posted.
Honesty
Year, make and length of boat
Location of boat, only nearest town, state
Price (price increases are not allowed)
Your name and phone number
Your ad will contain the email address you send from, not one you put in the email but the one you send from.
Other information and pictures are recommended, but not required.
To place your sailboat ad on Sailing Texas,
Email David at davidluc@earthlink.net with all required items.
Pictures:
Picture files MUST be less than 1MB.
Limit is 5 pictures for boats up through 25 feet in length, 6 for 26', 7 for 27', 8 for 28', 9 for 29' and 10 pictures for 30' and larger. More than this is overkill and not allowed. Do NOT send more than you are allowed and expect me to pick the best ones. I'm terribly sorry, I used to do this, but I just don't have the time anymore.
Attach your pictures to your email in jpg format ONLY
Width at least 480 pixels, 640 or more is much preferable, so I can crop them if needed.
If you take your pictures with most modern digital cameras or scan paper pictures, your files will be too large. They are very bad to put on the web, too large, and buyers do not like waiting an hour for your pictures to download, so don't send me pictures made of huge files. Reduce the width of your pictures to 640 pixels or 6", this will reduce the filesize immensely. If you send me pictures of 1MB file size or large I cannot make your ad.
Things NOT to do with pictures
Do NOT send pictures in a slide show, via other services, webpages or in other documents! Attach picture files to email only.
Do NOT send a link to another site where pictures are.
Do NOT put the pictures in a zip file. Do not put spaces or any characters in your file names except letters and numbers.
Check filesize before you send them. Pictures with a 1MB or larger filesize must be ignored.
Pictures are copyrighted, do NOT send pictures of some other boat or "sistership", NEVER take pictures from a website, it is illegal.
Attach your picture files to email, period.
I will make your pictures fit the ad and reduce the file size so they will display even faster. I may crop the picture and adjust the lighting and contrast to help you sell your boat.
Videos are easier than ever:
Send your video file with Filesend to my email address, davidluc@earthlink.net
File size limited to 120 Megabytes, but I can handle avi, mov, wmv and some other video files. I will edit and process your video for the web and put it in your ad. No charge.
Description: Include the specs for your boat if possible. Length, width, depth, weight, sail area, etc. While you know this for your boat, potential buyers often will have never seen your model. Be complete and brief.
Use only plain text in the body of the email.
Do not use bullets, hyphens or *. I put HTML bullets in where appropriate, just use single space lines and only one column.
To place your sailboat ad on Sailing Texas,
Email David at davidluc@earthlink.net with all required items.
After I build your ad, I will send you a confirmation email with your unique ad code in the subject line. Save that email, and to make changes, just reply to that email. Simple. You deal with a human, David, not a computer.
Ads run for 90 days, but can be renewed and returned to the top of the for sale list at any time by reducing your price 5% or more. You can reduce the price 5% or more at anytime. Price reductions of less than 5% are not done. Ads are NOT removed, even if your ad expires you can still use it to show your boat to prospective buyers, and you can still return it to the top of the Sailboats for Sale list by reducing the price 5% or more. See Sailing Texas terms of use
Sailing Texas is number one in customer service, and my customers are both buyers and sellers. Finding sailboats a new home is what I do for fun. I'm not a sailboat dealer, I'm not a sailboat broker. I am a sailing instructor, which is even more fun. When I turned 50 I decided to do what I loved to do the most, and teaching people how to sail came up #1, helping people sell and buy sailboats #2. This website is to promote sailing, because I love sailing and I have fun doing the website, but it's a sideline to my career of sailing instructor. If you want to sell your sailboat, I want to help you get a fair price for it. If you want to buy a sailboat, I don't want you to pay too much. The Sailing Texas Classifieds are designed to do these two things, help the seller AND the buyer.
Information on sailboats that were for sale on Sailing Texas are saved in the Sailboat Photo Gallery. Ads are dated from early 2003, so you know how long a boat has been for sale and when it's asking priced was last reduced. A wealth of information, have a look. The Photo Gallery contained over 7,000 sailboats in early 2010, that actually were for sale from 2002 to present, and they are all here for you to use in the Sailboat Photo Gallery. Buyers use it to see what people have been asking for a model, and Sellers use it help them decide what to ask for their sailboat. About 1,000 sailboats are added per year.
