Creating Content For Your Info Product

The way that you create your content is directly affected by the format that you have chosen for your digital information product. Again, content may be written or recorded as an audio or video file. Regardless of what it is that you hope to accomplish, there must be some form of content, or you simply have no product.

Let’s look at the various ways that content can be created for different types of information products:

Creating Content for Ebooks and Reports: This is obviously written text. Once you have chosen your topic, you would create an outline, which would then turn into a table of contents. You would write your content based on this, and add images as needed within the ebook or report.

Creating Video: Of all of the content formats, video may be the most difficult to create. You will most often still need to write something, because you will need a script to follow while shooting the video. You will also need a background setting and possibly props for your video as well.

Creating Audio: Audio is fairly easy to create, but it doesn’t take nearly the preparation work that video requires. It does, however, still require something to be written. Again, you will most likely require a script to follow.

Creating Content for a Website: You won’t need a script but you will need content for the website. Content for a website can consist of written content, audio, or video. Once again, writing is involved.

Creating Content for a Teleseminar: Usually the teleseminar recording or transcript turns into content, which means that you are creating the content for the product as you are presenting the product. You won’t want to use a script for a teleseminar, but it is a good idea to have written notes to follow along during the course of the teleseminar to keep things moving and on schedule.

As you can see, no matter what format you use for your information product, there will be some degree of writing involved. You may not be a writer. You may not know anyone who is. So, in this case, what are you to do?

Obviously, you open up a document in your word processing software, such as Microsoft Word, and start writing – even if you think that you can’t write well. Don’t worry about the spelling or grammar – or even the order for now. Simply write thoughts and information pertaining to your topic that you want to get across to your audience.

There are various ways to do this. Some people do better by creating an outline of their thoughts, so that the writing follows a logical format. Others prefer to write without thought to order, and then later arrange the material in a logical fashion.

You have to determine what works best for you. This is not the only way to create content, however. If you want to know the fastest and easiest ways to create content, here they are:

1. You can use material that has already been written. This would include Private Label Rights material and       material that is given away for free. It also includes material that is in the public domain.

2. You can hire a ghost writer. Express your idea to them, along with any special instructions or notes that you may have, and just let them do the work for you. Outsourcing the creation of your information product is covered in more detail later.

Since the second idea for content creation is covered in greater detail later, let’s look at the first option – using material that already exists. Obviously, you don’t want to create an information product that someone can get elsewhere. For this reason, you must change the materials that you are using significantly to make them uniquely yours.

This includes changing titles and subtitles, as well as the body of the text. You may also change any images that have been used. For best results, follow these five steps:

1. Make an outline that is logical. This means that you must determine how your information will be presented to your audience before it is ever written. This may be in ‘steps.’

2. Find material that covers each portion of your outline. This may require a little searching on your part, but it is usually faster than writing the material from scratch.

3. Rewrite the material to suit your purposes. Make it your own. Note that you can also hire a ghost writer to rewrite the material for you, and this is usually less expensive than having them work from scratch as well.

4. Proofread the work – several times. Use a spell checker as well as a program that checks grammar.

5. Use a copyright checking application, such as the one found at www.copyscape.com to ensure that your finished work is not found elsewhere.