Sitting down and thinking about writing a 100 page book, ebook, course or information product can scare the crap out of anyone – and for years that’s what would happen to me.
I’m not a trained writer, all through highschool and university writing didn’t come easy to me, though I always did get great satisfaction out of the results whether writing a term paper, essay or thesis for university.
When I first started to network with successful writers, I discovered that many who were now making high incomes either freelance writing or writing their own books had a way of breaking projects down into bite-sized chunks that made completing the project not only realistic, but almost impossibly simple.
There are two hugely important rules of thumb I use for writing my own books, that I have taught to many others who now find writing a book to be a simple, painless and fun process despite their phobia about writing in the past…
1. Outline your book first by a) clearly understanding your market and problem you are trying to solve or objective you are trying to reach and b) outline each chapter with a series of questions that you need to answer to achieve the goal of that chapter. Sitting down for 15-minutes of writing becomes dead easy when you are trying to simply answer one question at a time.
2. Commit to a schedule of writing 4-pages each day – no matter what. I like this goal the most because I can easily write a complete 120-page book ebook or a few reports, a course, or the content for a workshop within 30-days – which means I can get 4-5 information products out each year and STILL have time to investigate new markets, teach myself new things, market the product AND spend time with my family traveling. When you first start out, 4-pages may take you 1-hour, but soon you should find yourself writing the 4-pages in 30-minutes or less. A schedule that can often fit the busiest of lifestyles.
In truth, by developing an ebook, book or course outline that targets about 80-pages, you can spend a few days here and there researching pieces of your book that you are a little light on content or experiences making your book that much better.
In fact, we have outlined systems, techniques and strategies that can take almost anyone through the entire process of writing their own book, ebooks and infoproducts in less than 30-days – and that includes getting their business online. We first outlined this system in the Ultimate Information Entrepreneur’s Success Package and continue to support infoproduct entrepreneurs through our monthly resource site Information Marketer’s Zone.
If you are ready to carry through on your dream to write your own book, break your project into 4-pages a day and join us for more tips, techniques and strategies that will get you on the fast-track to marketing your books online.
Jeff
Dear Jeff,
I am totally grateful for your EXTENSIVE assistance for my dollars spent trying to learn and get going here on e-books and websites that make money.
Have to say I am a little overwhelmed. However, of all the references you gave out (and I have downloaded the majority of the free ones to get the mindset and material of what the people are offering) you are by far the most helpful.
Now I need someone to REALLY help me….do I buy the software PRO-ebook?
I read that Willie Crawford just wrote and book on WORD to PDF and made lots of money. But I have sent manuscripts out for years and know there is a futility in this. I read your hot topics page and have several ideas.
Do I buy the pkg from the guy that tells me how my key words are getting hit on google, etc)?
Then, don’t I have to pay someone, the reference you provided, about the company that does killer websites? Don’t I have to have a website to market it?
That company never comes out with the actual cost of doing a website and that could leave me cold….
I want some help as in a real person to coach me.
You don’t do that , do YOU?
Laurie Spencer
Asheville, NC
Hi Laurie, all great questions – and very common.
First, there’s no reason to get into ebook compilers – it’s still the standard to produce your ebook or book in MS Word and change to PDF, you’ll have better acceptance and less support issues distributing your product in pdf if your target product is an ebook (or digital information product)
Second, not sure you need to pay anyone for keyword research, you can do much of it with tools like http://inventory.overture.com – keyword tools can be useful ways to enhance the number of keywords beyond what you may be thinking – but start with the free tool.
Correct, typically you will pay someone to get your website developed and that will cost you anywhere from $200-$500 or even more depending on how fancy you want to make it.
However, for a site such as the one I just launched over at http://www.peak-personal-development.com – I paid about $250
In terms of coaching, yes I do some of that, but my rates are up around $150/hour – a better way to get cost effective coaching from me (and some other infoproduct experts) is through our membership site over at http://www.infomarketerszone.com – it’s only $17/month, is full of tools, video and audio tutorials, expert interviews and a private members forum where we provide answers to any questions that arise.
We also do periodic chats and teleseminars for our members.
Would be great to have you over there…
Jeff