Planning The Outline & Content

Since this series of posts is about creating products fast, you’ll notice me offering you some amazing shortcuts throughout this report that will help you get your ebook written super fast!

To get my outline and content setup, I just go back to the sketch pad  and play with it. I’m one of those people who likes to see everything laid out in front of me if I am to arrange them in any kind of order or sequence.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be done on a large sketch pad, like I do. Find out what method works best for you and do that.

You can just as easily create a document on your computer and start jotting down ideas for the book there.  Basically, you want to make a note of all the sub-sections you will want to talk about. Then, when you’re done listing these sections/chapters down, just arrange them in a sequence/order that makes sense. You’ve now got a table of contents, or at least the first draft of one.

Here’s an easy way to get some ideas on creating an outline for your book: just look at the existing books on the subject! Whenever possible, try to use what’s already out there, there’s no point in reinventing the wheel. Go to the library and pick out a book on the subject you’re writing about and see how they have it all laid out.

I’m not saying “copy” it word for word. Just get “ideas” on what to do. If the book you’re looking at has a good outline, you can model off of that. If the outline (table of contents, etc.) are hard to follow on that book, you can improve on it when creating your ebook! (So, you’ll get ideas on what to do and also what not to do by looking at existing samples of work.)

That should be the core mindset for you while you’re creating your own products:

Make your product better than what’s already out there!

I can’t tell you how much time to spend per day on each chapter because I don’t know what your lifestyle or schedule is like. Just spend some time working on the chapters, one at a time, and pretty soon you’ll have the ebook completed.

Here’s what I would suggest you do each time you sit down to work on your ebook: Look at the Table of Contents you’ve created and pick a subject/chapter that most interests you at that time.  Work on that chapter!

You’ll enjoy the process a lot more if you’re writing about something that excites you at that moment.

There are many other benefits to doing this as well, which I won’t go into here. Let’s just say that when you’re excited about the subject you’re writing about, your reader will feel that excitement when she reads your ebook. And that’s always a good thing. There are too many boring writers (and books) out there. Yours won’t be one of those if you use the above\ technique.
Avoiding Doubts, Fears, and Writers Block

I’ve been creating ebooks and reports for a while so I don’t find myself doubting or fearing the future too much. But, that can happen from time to time, especially if you’re a beginning writer.

Here’s a simple remedy: do whatever it takes to shift your focus. That’s all there is to it.

Put the project aside for an hour (or even a day) if you have to. Go watch something funny on tv. Listen to your favorite music. Read a motivational book or article, play with the kids, or just go for a walk.

It’s really not as difficult as we often make it out to be. Just change the track your “train of thought” is currently riding on.

Doubts and negative thoughts may enter your mind occasionally. Don’t fight it, just gently nudge your thoughts towards the positive and productive.

Then, go back to the project with a new, fresh attitude and perspective.

It also helps to envision the end result just the way you want it to be.

For example, if you’d like your book to earn you $50,000 per year, keep seeing/visualizing that result consistently, as if it has already happened! This process will burn the “success” image into your brain and pretty soon, doubt will be a thing of the past.

Once you get excited about the end results you’ll achieve, get back on the computer and start writing!

Proper Layout and Design

Again, don’t make it hard on yourself, especially if this is your first ebook. Just go out there and look for the best sellers related to your subject. Study the best ones and find out why

they are the best. What is it about them that’s appealing to you. Then, use those formats as models.

Here’s an easy way to make your ebook easy to read: suck the reader in! Most how-to books are dry and boring, with just a list of facts and figures. Make yours entertaining too, if possible. Here’s something you should always keep in mind…
 
“It’s not the story that makes a hit. It’s how the story is told!”

See, anyone can write a book that delivers facts and figures. But few people can write a book that others would want to read. This is why it’s so important to be passionate and excited about the subject you’re writing about. And, it’s also why you want to write in a conversational tone instead of the rigid formal tone that most text books use.

Inject your personality into the ebook. If you have a great sense of humor, give your readers a taste of that. (Of course, you don’t want to force or fabricate a personality. Just use what comes naturally. Don’t try to be somebody you’re not.)

Pricing Issues

How do you decide what the best selling price is for your ebook. Surprise, surprise. I just look at what’s already out there. Research is your biggest ally in this business. I look at how much the other sellers are charging for their products. I also look at the sales page to find out what they’re offering in exchange for that price. And whenever possible, I take a look at the actual products others are selling, to see how well they’re done and if they are worth the asking price.

Then, there are several ways you can use that information. Here’s an example…

If most people are charging $47 for the standard info on the subject, you should aim on offering:

2) a better product/package, and

3) a better deal/offer.

So, you can either offer the same or similar info for say $39.97… or you can keep the price at $47 but add some valuable bonuses to the package to increase the perceived value of the overall package (or provide additional useful info in your main product that other people are not offering. Make yours better, remember?)

Promoting Your Book To The World

If you have an existing mailing list, tell them about your new ebook first! Offer them the best deal possible - a special offer that no one else will be getting. (You’ve gotta treat your own list the best.)

I would also offer an affiliate program to my customers so they can promote the product to others while they earn a commission.

If you don’t have your own list, the first thing you may want to do is, start sending out ‘joint venture’ offers to other businesses in your field. Offer them a nice-sized commission (at least 50%) and explain to them how they (as well as their customers) will benefit from the deal.

I would send out at least one JV letter, per day!

If all you do is work on striking joint ventures with other marketers and business owners, you will not need any other marketing strategy to pull in amazing profits! Joint ventures are the best thing out there for us writers and marketers — especially online!

You can also use highly-targeted ezine ads to get customers. (Here’s a twist to this technique: instead of targeting customers, target affiliates who will help you sell the product! This strategy can grow your business very quickly!)

Another strategy that can work well for you (if you don’t have an existing customer list) is to write short, focused articles and submit them to targeted ezines. Articles can be a great way to get viral advertising working for you.

There are hundreds of other strategies you can use. However, the ones listed above are some of the best and most effective ones around. You should always go for ‘quality’ traffic verses ‘quantity.’

Ken Mathie
An Easy Way To Create A Popular Auto-Run CD Product For Family, Fun Or Profit - And All It Takes Is Just Two Hours more information click here

Coming Up With Winning Ebook Ideas

The standard way to come up with a winning ebook idea is to study your market. Find out what the problems and frustrations of your market is and pick a subject that people are desperately needing answers to.

You can also simply “ask” people what they want. If you already have a customer base, just ask them what kind of product they’re most interested in and are willing to pay for. Then, create that product for them.

The best way to ensure your ebook’s success is to choose topics that provide solutions to existing problems.

But there’s an easier way!

I’ll be honest… I don’t particularly like to work hard unless I absolutely have to. I don’t see a point to it. So, if there’s a shortcut to be found, I’ll find it - or I’ll create one!

Whenever I want to create a new product, I just look at what’s already selling well out there and I give that product/idea a unique twist.

Just follow the experts and top sellers, watch what’s hot on Clickbank.com’s Marketplace (i.e. what sells the most,) check out Amazon.com and see what’s moving there. Go to forums and look for common problems or complaints people are having.

Here are a few more resources you can use to do research for your product:

Copernic Desktop Search - This is a free software that searches multiple search engines simultaneously to find what you’re looking for.

NewsDirectory.com - Look at hundreds of newspapers all over the world.

Google Groups – See what’s hot and what people are talking about.

Planning The Outline & Content

Since this report is about creating products fast, you’ll notice me offering you some amazing shortcuts throughout this report that will help you get your ebook written super fast!

To get my outline and content setup, I just go back to the sketch pad (from above) and play with it. I’m one of those people who likes to see everything laid out in front of me if I am to arrange them in any kind of order or sequence.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be done on a large sketch pad, like I do. Find out what method works best for you and do that.

You can just as easily create a document on your computer and start jotting down ideas for the book there. Basically, you want to make a note of all the sub-sections you will want to talk about. Then, when you’re done listing these sections/chapters down, just arrange them in a sequence/order that makes sense. You’ve now got a table of contents, or at least the first draft of one.

Here’s an easy way to get some ideas on creating an outline for your book: just look at the existing books on the subject! Whenever possible, try to use what’s already out there, there’s no point in reinventing the wheel. Go to the library and pick out a book on the subject you’re writing about and see how they have it all laid out.

I’m not saying “copy” it word for word. Just get “ideas” on what to do. If the book you’re looking at has a good outline, you can model off of that. If the outline (table of contents, etc.) are hard to follow on that book, you can improve on it when creating your ebook! (So, you’ll get ideas on what to do and also what not to do by looking at existing samples of work.)

That should be the core mindset for you while you’re creating your own products:

Make your product better than what’s already out there!

I can’t tell you how much time to spend per day on each chapter because I don’t know what your lifestyle or schedule is like. Just spend some time working on the chapters, one at a time, and pretty soon you’ll have the ebook completed.

Here’s what I would suggest you do each time you sit down to work on your ebook: Look at the Table of Contents you’ve created and pick a subject/chapter that most interests you at that time. Work on that chapter!

You’ll enjoy the process a lot more if you’re writing about something that excites you at that moment.

There are many other benefits to doing this as well, which I won’t go into here. Let’s just say that when you’re excited about the subject you’re writing about, your reader will feel that excitement when she reads your ebook. And that’s always a good thing. There are too many boring writers (and books) out there. Yours won’t be one of those if you use the above technique.

Ken Mathie
An Easy Way To Create A Popular Auto-Run CD Product For Family, Fun Or Profit - And All It Takes Is Just Two Hours more information click here

Creating Products In A Few Hours!

Creating products is so easy, all you have to do is break away from the limitations of the ’standard’ way of creating products.  In other words, you don’t have to do all the work yourself!

In fact, if you get a little creative, you won’t have to do any of the work! You don’t even have to know a thing about the subject that you’d like to create a product on.

The tips and strategies provided below will definitely get your brain firing on overtime.

Interview An Expert

The fastest and easiest way to come up with a high-value product is to interview an expert on the subject which you want to write about. You would entice the expert by reminding him of the free publicity he/she would get from your promoting the interview. The more well-known the expert is, the more marketable the finished product will be.

You can also interview several experts and compile all the interviews into one product, in order to cover different angles and strategies on one subject.

Or, you could pick a general subject, break that up into sub-sections and then interview an expert for each sub-section. For example, if you’re creating a product on ‘Internet Business

Success,’ you could interview an expert on product creation, another on copywriting, and another on marketing strategies, and so on.

Your interview can include a set of specific questions, or just one question that requires a detailed answer.

You could also ask the expert to offer you a step-by-step plan that readers would be able to follow to get to their goal. (The easier you make it on the reader, the more likely will he be to buy your product.)

There are various formats you could choose to conduct and publish the interviews. You could simply send the questions to them via email and publish the answers into a report or ebook format. You could also choose to meet the expert one-on-one and record the interview, or you could conduct the interview over the phone and record it that way.

If you choose to record the interviews, your product package could then contain the audios as well as the typed up transcripts. Your pricing would also vary depending on which formats of your products you provide.

Heck, you could even video tape the interview and sell copies of the recorded video.

Record Your Own Tips and Advice

If you’re an expert in a subject yourself, you could get a friend or partner to ask you preset questions and record/transcribe those.

You could also do a (free or paid) tele-seminar, record that and turn that into an instant product. Offer it as downloadable audios, an actual CD, or just the typed up transcripts.

A similar strategy can be used on live seminars. You can either video tape the seminar, make a audio recording of it, or both. You could just as easily invite other experts to join you in the seminar and turn that into an instant product.

Of course, these days, you can also do a webcast i.e. a seminar via the Internet, record that and turn that into a product.

Turn Existing Content Into Products

You can just as easily contact a bunch of experts and ask them to submit their best articles or reports on a particular subject. Then, compile them into a larger report or even an ebook.

Each expert gets to include their web links at the end of their content so they get free publicity from the submission.

You could further get instant exposure for your newly created product by giving all the experts who participated the first chance at selling the product to their own customers. (You can also use this strategy with interviews.)

The same idea can be used to borrow/reprint sections of ebooks, audios, or even existing videos. Contact the author and ask for permission to reprint the content in exchange for free publicity.

If you want to create a product for the ‘copywriting’ crowd, you could contact several copywriting experts and ask them to submit a sales letters that they wrote for one of their products. You could compile all the submitted letters into one mega collection of “proven salesletters.”

You got an instant product!

You could take this idea further and ask each expert to break the letter apart and explain the specific techniques they used to create the letter. That added information could easily double or triple the value of your ‘proven salesletters’ package.

Our next post we’ll discuss:
Update/Republish Existing Information
Co-Create A Product
Help Finish Incomplete Projects

Ken Mathie
200+ Untold Work from Home Business Plans and Ideas