Info Product Realized

Once you have your report/ebook in mind, its now time to get started on it, but where do you start?, you may know you want to create a pdf file, and if your like me you researched online looking for a program to do this, and apparently you found a pdf creator to do the job, but the only problem is you have to create the report in another program first, then save it, and then transfer it into a pdf creator to change the file over to a pfd, wow, seems like a lot of work!.

However once you get it over to that new and shiny pdf file format, for some reason its in more parts than the lord of the rings box set!, its a complete mess!, their must be a way to create your report in one program, and then be able to convert it into a pdf after your done writing it, and all without having to leave that screen?. Well their is….. and its free…

Open Source Info Product Creation Tool

Open Source = No charge!. The tool I used for my pdf report is Open Office, you can get it right here http://www.openoffice.org/ , Open Office is fantastic and so easy to use, once downloaded you can get writing your info based product right away, then once you are done, all you need to do is export that document as a pdf and you done, ready to offer it to the world.

Now in many reports I read I like to see pictures, not only do they give you a visual of how things look and work, but they also break up the flow of the text on the page, and if your are trying to convey to your readers how to use something, then picture guides are a must.

Picture This

To grab all the images I needed to show people how to use some tools in my report, I needed a screen capture program, and their was no way I was selling a kidney to get one of them, so again I tracked down a free alternative, and again free does not mean useless, I use this program all the time and love it.

Grab it right here MWSnap http://www.snapfiles.com/get/mwsnap.html

MWSnap will take still screen captures from your desktop, and also take pictures from the web, so this works awesome to take step by step pictures of progress, especailly while explaining how to use a website.

MWSnap is also very simple to use, and also gives you the option to take any size screen capture you want, once you have your capture you just save it, then go back over to Open Office and insert picture wherever you need it in your pdf report, it really is that simple to do.

Info Product Completion

Its a great feeling once you have completed your report, a sense of pride, but dont let that stop you double checking your work, I even printed mine out to see just what everyone else would get, and this is a good step to take, not only can you check font size, layout, and pictures by doing this, but you can also mark with a highlighter if you spot any uh ohs:).

Once the checks are done maybe have someone read it for you, they don’t even have to know anything about the subject, which may be even better, because if they know nothing about it, but from reading your report then begin to understand it, then you have accomplished your goal right:).

Now the next step is to actually sell your report………, and this is where im at right now, so ill keep you updated on my progress with this over the next week, hopefully ill find out some great tips to share with you for when you need to sell your own product, wish me luck:).

If you do want to keep up to date with my progress, you can subscribe to the Flop Idle list to be notified as soon as something happens, I’d be glad to have you as a follower.

How many times have all of us subscribed to someones list to get the free guide, or the cheap report, or that new ebook everyone is talking about?, if you’re anything like me, the answer will be plenty. Now I know you can just give away other peoples products the same way, but having your own products in your own words, and available to your very own readers surely outranks selling another persons work right?.

People come to your blog because of what you write, so it seems strange to me that after all the work we do to build traffic up, we then go and send them to another persons product instead, this might be great for commissions, but in the long run, you might end up giving away some of your hard earned traffic!, and I know how hard traffic is to come by;).

Remember your product does not have to be a book so thick, that after they have read it the only time they use it again is to put the star on top of the Christmas tree, nope, in my own case I’ve subscribed to someones blog just to download a one page list of links, see, even that works, just think back at some of the products you have picked up in the past, I bet they are not all novels right?.

• “But what product topic do I choose?”

This is a question I’ve been asking myself for ages!, and I’ve actually put off trying to write my own just because I thought nobody would want to read it!, what do I know!?, if you have a blog set up, and you have a twitter account following people with the same interests as your blog topic, all you have to do is listen to them, find out what they are talking about, or if they need help with anything?, and you can even ask them too, go on, be bold!;).

Another thing you can try is tweetgrid, I did a video review here tweet grid review . All you have to do is enter the topic of your blog/niche in the search box, then just browse over the conversations taking place, someones bound to have asked a question related to your interest, which could be a possible product topic too. But if you’ve been very involved with your niche, you should have a couple of ideas for a good product anyway.

I’ve heard so many success stories from other bloggers who create their very own product, one in particular took her blog subscribers from under a thousand, to over 5k thanks to her own product, now thanks to creating her second product and having a customer base of 5k to sell it too, she now makes over a $1200 a month from her blog alone!.

I know its not a simple thing to do to create your own product, but its well worth a try, don’t worry about if you think nobody will want to read it, get it done, and then let your blog visitors be the judge of that, if nobody does read it, then learn from it and try again with another idea, at least you now have the experience of someone that has created their own product from start to finish, how many others can say that?.

And remember if you hate writing, you can do video screencasts, audio interviews, podcasts, the list is endless, so now we all have no excuse to get to it right now a create our first product together!, who’s with me?…:)