In my last post I said I would talk about actually creating products. This can be scary are for many.
Don’t let fear hold you back it can be much easier than you may imagine.
Like everything it works better when you have a plan or a process. You will often hear me bang on about plans and processes but I firmly believe this is a massive differentiator between winners and losers.
So creating products needs a process just like anything else.
There are many media formats you can use to create products.
The easiest is probably and ebook. That is simply a written guide. You can use something like Microsoft Word or the free option of Open Office Writer. Once completed export as a pdf document so that everyone can read it and it is easily distributed.
Another option is video. Again scary for many but actually very easy. There are free options for creating videos but my favourite is Camtasia Studio.
Use Microsoft Powerpoint or again use open office (Impress) to create a presentation with either the full text or just bullet points of the text. Simply record the presentation while reading the text or talking about each bullet point.
A little practice makes this very easy.
OK, with your media format decided you now need to create the content. This is where a process will really help.
In the previous post I decided on a product title ( Overweight Teenagers Lose 10 pounds In 10 Days)
A lot of people will start wit content and come up with a title once that is completed. Personally I find having a title up front helps focus on e content creating as you will already have an overall idea in your head.
Let’s assume an ebook, but the process is pretty much the same regardless of the product format.
The processes to break everything down into small sections and build on each one until complete. Rather than just jump into writing with no structure.
So Just follow these steps.
Step 1: Decide on the chapter titles, in other words what each chapter is about. In this case you have a couple of options. You cold for instance have day 1 to Day 10. Or maybe, if you want have the same regime each day, then each chapter may be part of the regime.
So for instance: Diet, Exercise and Motivation.
Break down each into smaller sections. So for Diet it could be Breakfast Meals, Lunch Meals and Dinner Meals. Exercise may be How Exercise Works, Calculating Calorie Burn, Planning your Exercise Regime. Motivation may be Mind Set Of Thin Person, Rewarding Your Success, Getting help From Others.
So now you will have nine chapters defined. Usually a good number is around 7-10 but you don’t need to be too strict on that.
Step 2: Now you can write the content for each chapter. If you are still not 100% confident or clear on the content then break each chapter down into even smaller sections (just for the purposes of deciding on the content). For instance if you used the Day 1 to 10 as Chapters you could break each chapter down to . Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Low Calorie Sweets, Snacks and Exercises.
Now writing each sub section should be simple.
Step 3: With each chapter completed you can now write a simple Introduction and Summary for each chapter. Just a sentence or short paragraph that indicated the subjects covered in that chapter and brief summary of what you have covered at the end of each chapter.
Step 4: Now just add the Main Introduction and the Final Summary at the start and end of the ebook
Step 5: Format the book to make it look good. If it makes sense add in any diagrams or images that help. Add in a cover image, add in headers and footers with a title or graphics at the top of each page. Add page numbering in the footer. Also add in an Index which can be generated automatically.
Step 6: finally export as a PDF and you have your product.
Remember you can easily create a video using the same content by making a presentation with the chapter titles and reading out each chapter or even creating a presentation using all the text and reading it out.
Keep checking back for more in this series. Next time I tell you how to maximise your income from your products.
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