Would you believe that it took me a little less than a day to write the 5-Day eCourse you’ve been reading? Well, it’s true. And I don’t even consider myself to be a writer!

How it all happened…

I was in the middle of writing a 20+ page report when I realized that I needed an eCourse on how to create products to make my report complete.

Everybody’s seen the “Make Your Site Sell” eCourse on how to come up with great product ideas so that was out of the question. I haven’t seen too many other similar eCourses out there that would suit my needs so I had to write one myself.

So, Here’s what I did…

I created an outline for the eCourse. A 12-Day eCourse. I did this for a couple of reasons.

=> I wanted to make sure I had enough subject matter to write about. A 12-Day eCourse was surely more than enough.

=> I wanted to make it easy to write the eCourse. A 12-Day eCourse may not seem easy to write, but I had no intention of writing a 12-Day anything.

Let me explain…

How many times have you thought about something you had to do and just sat there wondering how you will ever get through it all? If you’re anything like me… Too many times to count.

The tendency to get overwhelmed is a tendency I used to my advantage and you can too. Preparing to write a 12-Day eCourse takes planning and it also required me to force myself to get into the right mindset.

I started writing my 12-Day eCourse and by the time I was on the third or fourth report (out of twelve) I scaled down my 12-Day outline to make it five days.

Instead of looking at eight or nine more reports to write… I was looking at only one or two.

Halfway to my mark of five days!

In other words… I purposely overestimated the amount of writing I was going to put into this project with the intention of scaling back to make things seem easier.

Getting into the mindset needed to sit down and write twelve reports made writing five reports simple. There’s a natural urge to want to do less than we plan.

Planning to do more than you need to do helps you push through what you would normally think you can’t do.

If writing even one report seems too hard for you… Plan to write three of them. Make three your goal. You’ll find that it’s a lot easier to get the first report out that way.

The one thing that stops most people from writing is the fear of all the work that’s ahead. Knowing that I didn’t HAVE to write eight or nine more reports to create a 12-part series made the process of creating five reports an easy one.

That’s the reason why I was able to churn this eCourse out in a matter of a few hours instead of a few days.

Of course it also helped that I know the subject matter because I actually use the techniques outlined in this eCourse to grow my own business. Didn’t have to spend hours researching anything.

I’ll leave you with a Martial Arts example…

Have you ever seen a martial artist punch through a couple of boards or bricks? Ever wondered how they do that? Here’s a little insight into what it takes to do those things.

When a martial artist is looking at an object that he or she is going to strike and break… They aren’t really looking at the object itself. Basically they have to learn how to see through their target and visualize hitting something on the other side of it.

If not, they would end up not hitting their target hard enough to break it and hurt their hand instead. If a person is trying to break through 5 boards… They have to imagine 10 of them in order to strike 5 hard enough to break them.

So, if your goal is to write 5 reports, you have to get in the mindset of having to write 10 or more in order to push through the 5 you need.

The Power Of Byte Sized Pieces

Another way to make writing reports easier is to start small and expand. Create a ‘mini-article’. Write your report like you’re writing a short ezine article.

==========

TITLE

Opening Statement - Point out a problem people are having.

Agitate - Make the problem seem worse than you originally stated.

Solution - Offer your remedy.

Closing - Make your solution seem like THE solution.

==========

After you create your basic outline, hit the search engine and find relevant resources and point to content that reinforce your writing. By doing this you can focus on each piece of your report separately.

Your “TITLE” for example. Spend time only on that aspect of your report until you feel like you’ve got that nailed down.

Your “Opening Statement”. Focus on identifying the problem your report is going to help people solve.

And so on…

The point is to focus on your report in pieces. That makes is so much easier to write. Worry about editing later. Just write and write and write. Let it flow.

I spent more time rewriting this eCourse and correcting mistakes that I did actually writing it. As it should be. With writing and editing there’s about two days worth of work in here.

Writing becomes hard when you critique your writing as you’re doing it. Until I stopped doing that… Creating even a simple article took forever. Writing and editing are like oil and water.

They don’t mix well. Do one or the other, but never both at the same time. Trust me it doesn’t work.

In Summary…

=> Create more work than you actually need to do so that when you scale back… What you now have to do compared to what you thought you had to do is simple by comparison.

Getting geared up to write 20,000 words makes it simple to write 6,000. I’ve used this technique over and over again and it never fails to get me through any writing project.

=> Write in small chunks. It’s easier to write a 1,000 words if you write it 200 words at a time. Believe me on this one. This eCourse weighs in at nearly 6,000 words and it only took a little less than a day to create using just this one technique.

You don’t even have to write an entire eCourse in one day like I did. You could write just one report a day broken up into smaller pieces. Nearly every person who writes a lot does this because it keeps you from becoming overwhelmed.

Steven King has written so many books it boggles the mind and the reason he can do this is because he writes a little every day. The little things add up.

Do something every day that you don’t want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain. Mark Twain

Set aside a little time every day to do some writing. Even if it’s only thirty minutes. That’s three and a half hours a week. Fourteen hours a month. Use the time you have to your advantage because in the next few weeks while your competitors are still selling other people’s products… You will have a product of your own.

Let’s suppose you had a bank that each morning credited your account with $ 1,440 — with one condition: Whatever part of the $ 1,440 you had failed to use during the day would be erased from your account and no balance carried over. What would you do?

Of course you’d draw out every cent, everyday and use it to your best advantage. Well, you have such a bank and its name is TIME. Every morning the bank credits you with 1,440 minutes. It writes off forever whatever portion you failed to invest to a good purpose. INVEST WISELY

Everybody gets 24 hours in a day. It’s how you use those hours that matters. If you want your own product and you’re serious about it you’re going to have to prioritize.

What’s more important to you? Creating a few extra income streams or watching TV? The people who you see on TV are getting paid to do what they do. You aren’t being paid for watching them.

The biggest obstacles you have to face is the fear of getting started and the (untrue) belief that what you write won’t be good enough. I’m not worried about what people will think about what I write and you shouldn’t be either.

Put your heart into writing something that you truly believe is worth reading and what others think will take care of itself.

Ideas for products are literally everywhere. You just have to stop thinking and start doing. I could have put this eCourse off, but what good would that have done? It would still need to be written. My competitors sure aren’t sitting on their hands wondering what to do.

They’re out there taking action. The question is… Will you?

People who have attained things worth having in this world have worked while others have idled, have persevered while others gave up in despair, and have practiced early in life the valuable habits of self-denial, industry, and singleness of purpose. As a result, they enjoy in later life the success often erroneously attributed to good luck. Grenville Kleiser

Do what you know you have to do. The techniques I’ve outlined in this eCourse (while extremely effective), still take work. People who have what they want always have purpose. They have focus. They know what must be done and they simply do it.

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How To Crank Out Powerhouse Information Products In 5 Days Or Less!

Written by Allen Brown on Saturday, June 28th, 2008 in Content Creation.

What I’m about to share with you now is something that some of your competitors are just becoming aware of. More experience marketers have been aware of this powerful little technique for years and now… You’ll be able to profit from it too.

COLLABORATION - Get More Done With Less Time and Effort!

It’s so much easier to write half of an information product instead of facing a whole project that has to be written from scratch.

Usually what happens is two people get together and decide who is going to write what then they part ways and start writing periodically checking on each other’s progress if need be. Another reason this is so ideal is that two people can bring more to a project than one person can alone.

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishment toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people attain uncommon results.

You see, I could write a report and some people wouldn’t get any- thing out of it, but a marketing friend of mine could write about the exact same thing and get rave reviews and vice versa. Co- Authoring a project helps you to reach more people. Two different perspectives in one product gives it more depth than anything you may be able to create on your own.

If you’ve never created your own product before you can start with a simple eCourse like this one. A 7+ day eCourse split between two people shouldn’t take more than a few days if you know anything about your subject matter.

eCourses are really popular now for a couple of reasons…

Marketers love them because they give them the chance to keep in touch with potential customers over an extended period of time which allows them to make more sales.

People love to read them because they get byte sized bits of information spread out over a couple of days instead of having to sit down and read an ebook.

You may already know someone who’d be willing to co-create an eCourse with you, but if you don’t… You’ll have to track down your co-author and CHARM them into working with you.

Always keep this in mind…

Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, “Make me feel important.” Never forget this message when working with people. Mary Kay Ash

Naturally you should be writing about a subject you know about. Since you are a part of the target audience you’re trying to reach… It stands to reason that almost anything that excites YOU will excite your target audience.

With that in mind… When you send out emails looking for a potential co-author, take a step back and ask yourself if someone had sent you the email you’re planning to send out if you’d be interested in the offer.

If you can’t honestly answer yes… Rewrite it until you can.

The writers you’ll be contacting are a part of the audience you both write for so put together an email that would make YOU jump at the offer you’re putting out there and you WILL get your project up and running.

Speaking as someone who has written more than a few email offers, you should ALWAYS speak to the other person’s interests. Show (in your email) why a person should even consider what you’re proposing.

What’s in it for them?

You need a solid answer to that question.

Your offer must be completely WIN-WIN or you can forget it. This isn’t the time to be selfish. Look at the big picture. If you co-create an eCourse with someone this week… Why not create another next week?

If you offer up a one-sided deal where the benefits YOU get far outweigh those of your writing partner… It will be hard, if not impossible to get that person to work with you.

Ask yourself what would it take for you to get the other person to wonder what YOU will get out of the deal because you’ve presented so much of what they’ll get from working with you.

Always think WIN-WIN and you will have no problem finding people eager to work with you.

No man will work for YOUR interests unless they are his. David Seabury

I used eCourses as an example of what can be done with the power of Collaboration only because an eCourse is something that you can put together quickly and profit from fast by selling access to it or by selling the reprint and master reprint rights.

Besides, ebooks are losing their appeal. Everybody’s got one and the sad fact of the matter is that many people who create them could care less about providing solid content. Once people have downloaded their share of worthless ebooks they won’t even look twice at yours.

Don’t call your ebook and ebook. Basically anything else you can think of is better. Special Report, Course, Manual… etc.

You could easily (instead of an eCourse) get together with another writer to put together a ‘hot’ special report in 7 days or less. It all depends on how much writing you want to do.

Other marketers are going to be creating products anyway. Why NOT work together?

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