With modern technology, it’s EASY to produce your own information product. You don’t need a publisher or a printer. You just type a document on your computer and save it in a file which you can email to customers or copy on to a CD and send it to them. You can do that can’t you?

And what’s more, you DO NOT have to produce a completely original information product from scratch. The best way to start is to get hold of whatever information products already exist in your niche. Don’t just look on eBay – search the internet as well. Search for “(name of your niche) ebook”,  “(name of your niche) CD”, “(name of your niche) DVD”, (name of your niche) newsletter” and “(name of your niche) forum”. This is good market research. There is no point spending days and days writing an ebook only to find that one already exists that is better than yours!

Having obtained whatever information products already exist in your niche, analyse them. What’s good about them and what’s bad? Can you re-write them in your own words, but add a unique twist that will give your product a Unique Selling Proposition?

Could you contract an existing ebook in to a “Top Ten Tips”, or expand an existing “Top Ten Tips” into an ebook? Could you re-write an existing ebook in your own words as a “Special Report”?

Could you compile a “List Of Resources” for your niche, i.e. a list of relevant websites, forums, publications, etc. Rather than just compiling a list, you could add value by writing a review on each website, forum, etc. Sure, people in your niche could do the same searches themselves, but now they don’t have to because you’ve done it for them! They will be willing to pay for your List Of Resources to save them the time and effort of researching themselves.

You can also obtain FREE information that you can copy that is in the public domain. You can find public domain information that you can use from many sources. Here are just a couple: www.gutenberg.org and www.wikipedia.org.

You can also obtain public domain information from US Government sites and publications. If you do use US Government information, you will probably need to re-write it in a more interesting way! Another useful technique is to take complex information and transform it into simple to understand language.

You don’t need to be a novelist to write your own ebook. In fact, the opposite is true. A good information product must be up to date and relevant, concise and to the point rather than long-winded. People don’t want to be educated, they just want the answer. They don’t want to print 100s of pages or read 100s of pages from their computer screen.
The best information products are informal, conversational and engaging to read, not boring. They are written in small bite size pieces that are easy to digest, rather than pages and pages of verbose prose.

A question and answer format is good as it is informative, to the point and naturally breaks the information up into small chunks, e.g. “101 Questions & Answers on…”, “Answers To The 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions on…”

It’s difficult to know how to start when confronted with a blank page. A good approach is to draft a table of contents first, then draft each chapter in note form. Keep breaking it down until it’s almost written in note form – then all you need to do is expand your notes to full text.

Once you start writing, just let the ideas flow. Don’t interrupt the creative juices by correcting grammar, spelling mistakes, formatting at this stage. Once the draft is finished, then edit it. Then get someone else to proof read it.

A good idea is to compile a short version (call it a special report rather than an ebook) and auction it on eBay to see what sort of response you get. If you are attracting interest, then it will be worth your while spending the time to compile the more in-depth full version.

You don’t have to produce a masterpiece. You won’t be having thousands of copies printed that will sit in a warehouse if they don’t sell. You will be producing each copy as it is sold, either by emailing a file to your customer or burning it to a disc. So you can keep editing it, refining it and improving it, even after you start selling it.

If you don’t fancy all that typing, just write down bullet points and record yourself talking about your topic. You’ve now got an audio information product that you can copy on to CDs. Or you can have the recording transcribed for you in to an ebook. It won’t cost much. Do an internet search on “transcription services”.

You can record an interview with an expert in your niche market. An expert may not know how to market themselves or how to earn money other than by charging by the hour for their services. Having their name on a CD or DVD may appeal to their ego. You are providing free publicity for the expert being interviewed. If they have their own products to sell, they can promote them during the interview and you can sell them as a back-end product, perhaps as a joint venture or as an affiliate.
You need to find an expert in your niche who craves publicity. The best place to look is www.rtir.com. This site is packed with niche experts who want to be interviewed by the media and may be more than happy to be featured in your information product. If they agree, you can interview them by telephone, record the conversation and you’ve got an instant audio information product that you can copy to a CD or you can have it transcribed into an ebook.
People want choice so the more formats you make a product available in, the higher the chance of them buying from you, e.g. they may not want to read but want to listen to a tape in the car.

If you video yourself teaching someone how to do something, or interviewing someone, you can sell this as a DVD that your customers can watch at home on their DVD player or computer. You can then copy just the audio of your recording and sell this as a CD that your customers can then listen to whilst on the bus or driving to work. And you can transcribe the words used on your recording (or have them transcribed for you at little cost) and make the transcript into an ebook that people can download and read. You’ve now got three products from one recording!

You can turn an ebook, or physical book, into an audio product simply by recording yourself reading the text, or hire someone to read it if you don’t like the sound of your own voice.

Martyn Boaden

This post is based on an extract taken from The Lazy Way To Wealth On eBay