Entries Tagged 'Infopreneur Product Creation' ↓

QUESTION: How long should an article be versus a report?

Nice question. There is no definite answer.

Conventionally, an short article runs for 350 to 500 words, while a longer article may be 750 to 1,000 words long.

Very rarely, an article may be 1,500 words (especially on the Web where brevity is often necessary to match the short attention span of Web surfers).

A report is often longer than 3,000 words (or around 10 pages when printed), though there are no norms or guidelines about this. Longer reports can be around 25 to 30 pages, and there are a few that go up to 50 or 60 pages (though at that point they are better called ebooks or booklets).

Got an infopreneur question of your own? Ask me here… and I’ll try and answer it.

QUESTION: What is the procedure for making and selling an ebook based on a book which is in the public domain?

I’ll begin the answer by stating that I am NOT an expert at using public domain content, and haven’t done it before. However I have learned about the method involved, and will share some of that with you.

The first thing is to ensure you are dealing with public domain information. There are many ways to do it - your own research, hiring firms that will verify it for a fee, or buying certified public domain work.

The next is to decide if you are merely going to repackage the public domain work, or modify it significantly enough to make the derivative work your own copyrightable material. You can update, modify, edit, revise or expand upon public domain content, and by doing so will create a work that is reasonably different from the copyright-free original material - and you now own copyright of that derived work.

As far as selling such an ebook goes, the process is similar to how you would promote your own ebook or one you bought rights to resell - find an audience, see what they already are looking for, and position your product as the one offering the solutions they want.

One difficulty might be in convincing someone to buy a public domain work, especially if you are not editing or adding to it in any way. Some infopreneurs may worry it is ‘ripping off’ buyers.

I’ll counter that by saying you are still adding value to your buyers - by doing their research for them.

• How many people could have easily found the public domain book themselves?
• How many knew where to look or how to search for it?
• How much time and effort are you saving them by doing this work for them?
• How conveniently and effortlessly are you letting them access the material?

All of these things carry a value - and your pricing reflects that value. If a book in the public domain is out of print, and you locate a copy in a rare books store, then scan it and make it available electronically to a wider audience, isn’t that adding value? Of course it is.

On the other hand, if it’s a public domain resource that anyone can find and access easily, for free, you probably are going to find it hard to sell it or create value from merely making it available - and there, you can tweak, improve, enhance or compile a collection of similar works, adding value to your package.

Got an infopreneur question of your own? Ask me here… and I’ll try and answer it.

QUESTION: What are the advantages of creating my own unique products vs. using the many “canned” products that are available?

You answered the question - the ‘canned’ products are not unique, distinctive or special in any way… so you don’t get the advantage of being ‘exclusive’.

Your competitive advantage over everyone else in your market will be what you can give your clients and customers that anyone else cannot. In most cases, it will be your unique insights, expertise and knowledge.

Of course, it is possible to become the biggest aggregator, or the most effective compiler, or the lowest cost bundler or the most elegant re-organizer of generic ‘canned’ information - but even there, you will have to put in some time and effort to make the ‘canned’ information unique.

In most cases, and especially if you are involved in a niche where you are an expert, it is easier to add value by creating your own product than editing or revising canned information products.

Got an infopreneur question of your own? Ask me here… and I’ll try and answer it.

QUESTION: How to find the time to develop and create products when I have existing customers to look after?

There are 2 ways of looking at this.

1. Automation and outsourcing, leaving you with time enough to work on your business.

If you run an information business online, most components can be fully automated to run without your intervention (like most of my business is). The few components that need ‘human’ attention can be outsourced to a virtual assistant or a team of them, giving you the time and energy to work on business growth and new product creation.

Alternatively, you may outsource the product development process to helpers.

2. Involving your clients/customers in the product creation process itself.

Survey them about what they want from you. Ask for suggestions, get feedback on your planned solutions. If it is appropriate, get them to contribute sections of your new product - e.g. Mark Victor Hansen’s ‘Chicken Soup’ series of books are written BY his readers… and Mark markets them!

In a sense, that’s what the Web 2.0 environment is about - involvement and engagement of your customers, leading to participation in all aspects of your business, including product development.

Got an infopreneur question of your own? Ask me here… and I’ll try and answer it.