Rogers Online Business Management for the Agriculture Community

Archive for the ‘Information Products’ Category

How long should an ebook be? What about an audio recording?

Many people have been asking me the above questions. These actually are very common questions and I always respond in the same way. There is no magical formula that determines how long an ebook or other information products should be. Sure you might hear something like a special report would be about 50 pages, and an ebook about 100 pages. I really don’t know how anyone can come to that determination.

Your ebook, handbook or other product only needs to be as long as it needs to be to fulfull your promise in your marketing message. If you are offering step-by-step instructions on how to maintain a certain piece of equipment on your farm then you just need to provide the instructions, maybe some photos or a video and that’s it. You needn’t talk about the history of the machine and talk about other manufacturers, unless you’re making those a bonus offer on your sales letter. All you have to do is give them the information that you promised them.

When I purchase products related to my business, I don’t like the long books if I’m only looking for a method on how to do something. I’m not a beginner and don’t necessarily need a step-by-step guide. But if the information product covers a subject that I’m not familiar with, then I do like a more in-depth ebook that tells me everything.

You may decide to write a big ebook that tells you everything, or you may decide to do a 10 minute video showing step by step. These are always good to help someone who is brand new. But again, it’s whatever you need to do to fulfill your marketing message.

I think people worry about how long the ebook or other information products should be because they think that people won’t want to pay for the information if it’s not long enough. But realize that people are lazy…if you can show them in a very quick way how to perform a seemingly complicated task in 10 pages, that can be a great selling point.

In order to outsell your competition your marketing needs to blow them away.

Create a hook, market your product in a different way than your competitors. Find out what the hot topics are in your market. What complaints do they have and how can you offer them a solution.

For example, if you’re going to offer a webinar on a new method you discovered for fertilizing your grape crop that saved you money, even though you are not selling a physical product, your hook should convey that you’re going to help them save time and make more money with a better product on an ongoing basis.

You need to be creative in how you market this. Let them know that you may not have a degree in this area but that you learned from trial and error on your own farm.

People want to know that you share their pain and frustration.  So by you letting them know that you are a real honest to goodness farmer just like them then they will automatically share a bond with you and will be interested in your informational product.

I have been receiving a lot of questions about how can you research a subject for your Ebook before you spend a bunch of time writing something that no one may be interested in.

The fact is that you want to tap into people’s greatest desires. People like to make money, save time and are passionate. Your goal with your Ebook is to help people pursue their goals.

One of the easiest ways to do your research is with your own readers. If you are already doing business online and have a website and a mailing list, you have your very own research center. Get to know your readers and what they want…and then sell it to them. Ask them questions and really get to know them and how they respond to different mailings and bits of information you give them.

It is so much easier selling to someone who is already a customer then to go out and look for other customers. That is why I limit my products to my main market. I already have a decent list of customers, why would I go create an information product on something completely different when it would be just that much harder to sell to them?

But if you don’t have a list or a website with much traffic, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start creating information products. We all had to start somewhere so if you’re just getting started there are plenty of research tools available.

Tools:

Google Suggest: http://labs.google.com/suggestfaq.html
 - As you type into the search box, Google Suggest guesses what you’re typing and offers suggestions in real time. Google Suggest uses data about the overall popularity of various searches to help rank the refinements it offers. Just write down the suggestions that come up and then later enter them into a spreadsheet to keep track of them.

Google Zeitgeist: http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist/index.html
 - Several tools that give insight into global, regional, past and present search trends. These tools are available for you to play with,  explore, and learn from. Use them for everything from business research to trivia answers.

After you’ve done some keyword research, you should:

1. Look for other products on the same topic. If there is no other information product or book on the same topic, don’t get discouraged. Usually this would mean that the idea may not be profitable but in our case the agriculture industry has been untouched by this new way of marketing. Think of how you can blow your competition right out of the water by creating information products in this way.
2. Promote similar products as an affiliate. Sign up for the affiliate programs for these type of products and sell them on your website, blog, or through a Google Adwords campaign.

I really want to encourage you not to be afraid of this new way of marketing. The agriculture industry needs to look for ways to make things better than what has been out there. You need to make yourself stand apart from the rest of the crowd…differentiate yourself from the competition and outsell them!!!

The most frustrating call I receive from a potential client is when they say they have this great product that they want to sell on the Internet. After asking them a few basic questions, it becomes clear that they are trying to enter markets where they think there is massive profit potential, but they know little about the subject.

What they don’t realize is that it’s going to take them more money to get things going. They will probably need to hire writers and work with other experts just to make it look like they themselves know what their talking about.

I personally have fired clients who wanted to market themselves as an expert with a product they knew nothing about. Why? Well for one I don’t want my name to be associated with someone who lacks honesty and credibility. I see them as misleading the public. They are lying about their background, their knowledge, and about the product.

If you are going to claim to be an expert in something you must be able to share your experiences and opinions. For example, back in January my house flooded. After six months of a tug of war game with the insurance adjuster, my house will be under construction in about three more weeks. Now after going through this process I know a lot more about insurances, and adjustors, then I did before the flood happened. But I would never consider myself an expert in this area because I have no other experience, nor any background in this field. Granted I do have car insurance, medical insurance, and of course my house insurance, but I can not say I’m an expert on insurance. 

Sure you can always work with writers and other experts in the market you are trying to enter to develop your information products. They can fill in the gaps where your knowledge may be lacking. However I will say that people who hire writers to write ebooks don’t necessarily have that uniqueness unless they go in and add some of themselves to the product.

You also have to keep in mind how will you answer any questions that are thrown your way. Say you decide to give a webinar on a particular product that you market but you have absolutely no experience in using this product. During the webinar, an attendee says that they have been using the product for some time now but seem to always have trouble in one particular area. When they pose the question to you as to how do you handle this particular situation, what are you going to tell them? You now have to answer them with your experiences. If you decide to opt out the easy way and tell them to email you with their question after the webinar you just lost all credibility to the other attendees in the webinar. People want answers now. All this does is create a fast majority of the attendees saying, “Can you email me the answer too!” They don’t want to have to wait for you to answer if you claim you’ve been using the product, nor should they have to wait.

Don’t underestimate the intelligence of your market. They will sooner or later catch onto you and your reputation will be ruined.

In order for you to differentiate yourself from your competition you need to outsell them. One way to do this is to make a better product.

Study your competitor’s product and make a better one. Find out which important questions still are unanswered in your competitors products so you can make more complete information. Find a way to help your customers make more money, save more time or whatever your product does.

If your competitor just sells an ebook–create audios, videos, or a workbook. Anything that can make your product have a higher perceived value and appeal to all kinds of learners. After all, not everyone wants to read an ebook so you are losing a lot of customers who want to listen to an audio in the car or be able to download a recording to their iPod. So if you can make a better and more useful product, you’re way ahead of the game.

The hardest part of writing a book is the first sentence. When you look at the whole project, it seems like an impossible task. That’s why you have to break it down into manageable tasks.

First, figure out your ebook’s title. Jot down a few different titles, and eventually, you’ll find one that will grow on you. Titles help you to focus your writing on your topic; they guide you in anticipating and answering your reader’s queries. Aim for clarity in your titles, but cleverness always helps to sell books as long as it’s not too cute. For example, Remedies for High Energy Bills: twenty different ways to cut costs and save the environment. Or: Get off that couch: fifteen exercise plans to whip you into shape.

Next, write out a thesis statement. Your thesis is a sentence or two stating exactly what problem you are addressing and how your book will solve that problem. All chapters spring forth from your thesis statement. Once you’ve got your thesis statement fine-tuned, you’ve built your foundation. From that foundation, your book will grow, chapter by chapter.

Your thesis will keep you focused while you write your ebook. Remember: all chapters must support your thesis statement. If they don’t, they don’t belong in your book. For example, your thesis statement could read: We’ve all experienced high energy bills, but there are twenty environmentally friendly things you can change right now to lower your energy consumption.

Once you have your thesis, before you start to write, make sure there is a good reason to write your book. Ask yourself some questions:

• Does your book present useful information and is that information currently relevant?
• Will your book positively affect the lives of your readers?
• Is your book dynamic and will it keep the reader’s attention?
• Does your book answer questions that are meaningful and significant?

If you can answer yes to these questions, you can feel confident about the potential of your ebook.

Another important step is to figure out who your target audience is. It is this group of people you will be writing to, and this group will dictate many elements of your book, such as style, tone, diction, and even length. Figure out the age range of your readers, their general gender, what they are most interested in, and even the socio-economic group they primarily come from. Are they people who read agriculture magazines or book reviews? Do they write letters in longhand or spend hours every day online. The more you can pin down your target audience, the easier it will be to write your book for them.

Next, make a list of the reasons you are writing your ebook. Do you want to promote your business? Do you want to bring quality traffic to your website or maybe to your farm? Do you want to enhance your reputation?

Then write down your goals in terms of publishing and promoting your business. Do you want to sell it as a product on your website, or do you want to offer it as a free gift for when they visit your farm or for ordering a product? Do you want to use the chapters to create an e-course, or use your ebook to attract affiliates around the world? The more you know upfront, the easier the actual writing will be.

Decide on the format of your chapters. In non-fiction, keep the format from chapter to chapter fairly consistent. Perhaps you plan to use an introduction to your chapter topic, and then divide it into four subhead topics. Or you may plan to divide it into five parts, each one beginning with a relevant anecdote.

Here is how I usually start: I take an hour of my day and come up with 3 different topics I want to write about. I then think of a bunch of different ebook titles to go along with those topics. My next step is to say the titles out loud and in diffenent tones of my voice. This lets me experiment in how people might read the title so I want to make sure its one that seems to be catchy. When one sounds good to me I choose that one and start my writing.

Next time I’ll tell you how to make your ebook “user friendly”.

Ok I know I’m jumping ahead here but I wanted you to know this before you start asking yourself how this is going to work.

Getting your ebook out to the agriculture community is going to be your focus once you’ve finished writing it, just as it is with print books. People will hesitate to buy any book from an author they’ve never heard of. Wouldn’t you?

The answer is simple: give it away! You will see profits in the form of promoting your own business and getting your name out. You will find affiliates who will ask you to place their links within your ebook, and these affiliates will in turn go out and make your name known in their own marketing efforts. Almost every single famous ebook author has started out this way.

Another powerful tool to attract people to your ebook is to make it interactive. Invent something for them to do within the ebook rather than just producing pages that contain static text. Let your readers fill out questionnaires, forms, even crossword puzzles geared to testing their knowledge on a particular subject. Have your reader hit a link that will allow them to recommend your book to their friends and associates. Or include an actual order form so at the end of their reading journey, they can eagerly buy your product. My favorite in any ebook is a link that allows me to download even more free information related to the topic.

When people interact with books, they become a part of the world of that book. The fact is just as true for books in print as it is for ebooks.

That’s why ebooks are so essential. Not only do they provide a forum for people to learn and make sense of their own thougths, but they can also serve to promote your business at the same time.

Hope this eases that little question running through your head about how this is going to help you make some extra income. If you think that you may want to set up an affiliate program for your products, you can always contact our team of experts for a consultation meeting.

It’s not true that everything that has been said has already been written. Since that unfortunate axiom came into use, the whole universe has changed. Technology has changed, ideas have changed, and the mindsets of entire nations have changed.

The fact is that this is the perfect time to write an ebook. What the publishing industry needs are people who can tap into the world as it is today–innovative thinkers who can figure out how to solve old problems in a new way. Ebooks are the new and powerful tool for original thinkers with fresh ideas to disseminate information to the millions of people who are struggling to figure out how to do a plethora of different things.

Let’s say you already have a brilliant idea, and the knowledge to back it up that will enable you to write an exceptional ebook. You may be sitting at your computer staring at a blank screen wondering, “why? Why should I go through all the trouble of writing my ebook when it’s so impossible to get anything published these days?”

Well, let me assure you that publishing an ebook is entirely different than publishing a book in print. Let’s look at the specifics of how the print and cyber publishing industry differ, and the many reasons why you should take the plunge and get your fingers tapping across those keyboards!

Ebook available at the Ease Your Workload Shopping Center

Submitting a print book to conventional publishing houses or to agents is similar to wearing a hair shirt 24/7. No matter how good your book actually is, or how many critique services and mentor writers have told you that “you’ve got what it takes,” your submitted manuscript keeps coming back to you as if it is a boomerang instead of a valuable mine of information.

Perhaps, in desperation, you’ve checked out self-publishing and found out just how expensive a venture it can be. Most “vanity presses” require minimal print runs of at least 500 copies, and even that amount will cost you thousands of dollars. Some presses’ minimal run starts at 1,000 to 2,000 copies. And that’s just for the printing and binding. Add in distribution, shipping, and promotional costs and–well, you do the math. Even if you wanted to go this route, you may not have that kind of money to risk.

Let’s say you already have a farm business with a quality website and a quality product. An ebook is one of the most powerful ways to promote your business while educating people with the knowledge you already possess as a business owner of a specific product or service.

For example, let’s say that you’ve spent the last twenty-five years growing and training bonsai trees on your farm, and now you’re ready to share your knowledge and experience. An ebook is the perfect way to reach the largest audience of bonsai enthusiasts.

Ebooks will not only promote your business–they will help you make a name for yourself and your business, and establish you as an expert in your field. You may even find that you have enough to say to warrant a series of ebooks. Specific businesses are complicated and often require the different aspects to be divided in order for the reader to get the full story.

Perhaps your goals are more finely turned in terms of the ebook scene. You may want to build a whole business around writing and publishing ebooks. Essentially, you want to start an e-business. You are thinking of setting up a website to promote and market your ebooks. Maybe you’re even thinking of producing an ezine.

One of the most prevalent reasons people read ebooks is to find information about how to turn their businesses into a profit-making machine. And these people are looking to the writers of ebooks to provide them with new ideas and strategies because writers of ebooks are usually people who understand the new cyberspace world we now live in. Ebook writers are experts in marketing campaigns and the strategies of promoting and distributing ebooks. The cyberspace community needs its ebooks to be successful so that more and more ebooks will be written.

You may want to create affiliate programs that will also market your ebook. Affiliates can be people or businesses worldwide that will all be working to sell your ebooks. Think about this? Do you see a formula for success here?

Figure out what your subject matter is, and then narrow it down. Your goal is to aim for specificity. Research what’s out there already, and try to find a void that your ebook might fill.

Today lets look at one way you can have your first informational product–Create an Ebook!!!

I know a lot of people have trouble convincing themselves to simply get started with creating an information product and this really holds true for the agriculture industry. This is one industry that just needs to catch up with the rest of the world who are marketing information products online. So I’m going to be sharing with you in several future posts just how easy it is to create your product that will earn you extra income. Now is the perfect time to create your products as this is the time that people are looking for new ways to save money.

So if you decided that you are going to write an ebook and perhaps do an audio file to go with it, your costs will be minimal to produce this product. Sure, there is time involved, but with proper research you’ll know how to spend your time. An information product shouldn’t be your life’s work…at least not your first one. Get your feet wet with a few easy to put together products and learn from your experience. After all, the worst thing you can do is make a mistake…but that really isn’t a bad thing at all. Mistakes are learning experiences and you will improve your techniques all the time. And the faster you can make your mistakes, the faster you’ll become successful.

Don’t worry if you don’t know how to make an MP3 file or even how to write an ebook. Don’t let the fact that you don’t know how to do something stop you from doing what you want to do. These are all pieces that you can learn along the way. Again, if you make some mistakes, it’s okay. I’ve made several mistakes when I first started too. If you make mistakes and learn from them you’ll become successful more quickly than if you sit and wonder “how can I get started”.

One of the easiest ways to start is by doing research with your own customers. If you already have customers, you have your very own research center. Get to know what your customers want and then sell it to them. Ask them questions and really get to know them and how they respond to different bits of information you give them.

If you already have a website and do business online, then you probably already have a mailing list of subscribers. The same applies here by getting to know your subscribers and what they want. Find out how they respond to different mailings and other information that you send them.

It’s much easier to sell to someone who is already a customer or subscriber than to go out and look for other customers. That’s why I limit my products to my main market. I already have a decent list of customers, so why would I go create an information product on something completely different when it would be just that much harder to sell to them?

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start creating information products if you don’t have a list or a website with much traffic. We all had to start somewhere so if you’re just getting started there are plenty of research tools available. I’ll be sharing with you in the future the most useful internet research methods out there. So until the next post–start thinking about what you want to create for your first information product!