First Steps to Writing your First Information Product

You’ve read all the benefits about having your own information products and you’re ready to get started.  Congratulations, but where do you actually start?  It can be a daunting process to write and put together your first info product but by following a few simple steps you can save a lot of time and effort. 

Here are a few tips to help you on your way to your first information product:

Do Your Research: Before spending a lot of time putting a product together, you should research to learn if there really is a need for it.  You can start by visiting online forums related to your target market.  Other websites which offer similar products or services to yours are also a good place to start.

You can also ask your customers what they need.  If you have newsletter subscribers send an email out asking what they would like to see more of.  You can even give them a free giveaway in exchange for their feedback.  A poll on your website also works well.  No matter which way you do it, just make sure you do your research before starting your writing.

Write an Outline: The easiest way to get started is to write an outline of what your product will include.  Go through the outline and brainstorm each section until you’re happy with the results.  Then you will need to go through each section and research that specific topic. 

You can easily get help with the research part by hiring a VA (virtual assistant) to help you.  An outline breaks the process down into attainable steps and once you have the outline you can start writing each section.  You can also record your thoughts or you have another person interview you, then have the audio transcribed and you should have a big portion of your product.  Of course, it won’t be completely ready, which leads us to the next part.

Putting it all Together: Once you have your research, it’s a matter of sitting down and doing the writing.  With your research already pre-written then it won’t be too difficult to go through (following your structure) and put the first phase of the product together. Once you have that very, very rough draft go back through the book again and start editing, changing things around, omitting things here and there and so on until you have a finished draft. 

Leave it aside for at least 24 hours then go back to it and repeat the editing process all over again.  And then keep doing this until you feel comfortable and happy with what you have produced.  The final step is to hand it over to a trusted relative or friend who can look it over and give you constructive criticism.

And finally if you really don’t feel like writing your own product, you can consider outsourcing the whole job.  You can find experienced writers at elance.com or guru.com.  You can also search online for qualified or recommended ghostwriters.  With a project of this size you may want to have the person write a trial chapter before committing to the complete product.  No matter how you decide to go about it, finishing your first information product should be a very rewarding experience.