One quick way to spruce up your info product is to use pictures. These can be photos, graphics like clip art or even graphs or flow charts. Adding some type of picture or graphic adds interest to the pages of your info product. They also help break up long pages of text.

The key is to avoid using “gratuitous” graphics and photos. This means don’t just randomly add graphics because you want to use up white space, or you just happen to have some laying around and wanted to use them, or you feel they are cute.

The graphics you add must add value to what you are describing in the text. The graphics you choose should do one of three things:

1. Help convey the feeling you are trying to explain. For example, if you are describing stress due to financial troubles, you might add a photo of a young mother holding her head as if suffering from a bad headache while paying her bills.
2. Provide a “picture is worth a thousand words” type of explanation. If you aren’t poetic enough to describe what a tree looks like, then show a photo of a tree. Or if you can’t figure out the best way to describe where to locate a spark plug in an engine, then include a photo with an arrow pointing to the spark plug.
3. Grab your readers attention. Have you ever flipped through pages of a book and a photo caught your attention and you stopped to read that page? Or what about flipping through a magazine? There are lots of photos in magazines, but sometimes a photo of a great looking dish or car just grabs your attention and you stop at that page. So, if there is something really special in your text, you can use an image as an attention grabber.

And just a few no-nos:

1. No blurry graphics!  Make sure they are sharp and clean looking.
2. No watermarks! Don’t take graphics from stock photo sites and plop them in with the watermarks on them. Purchase the graphics or find alternative ones that don’t have watermarks.
3. No stretched graphics!  One of my biggest pet peeves is a distorted graphic.  Usually this happens when someone finds a photo they love, but it’s too small for the page so they streeeeeetttcch  and squeeeeeze it to fit. The result is either a blurry photo (see #1) or a smushed graphic.  Please don’t do that.

Online courses (or ecourses) are my number one recommended product to create!

Today I’m going to do a short post on three services that you can use to create your own online course that you can sell for cold hard cash.  Each offers it’s own benefits in terms of costs, commission and brand-ability.   In a future post I will go into these types of services in  a little more detail so consider today’s post a little teaser

udemy (free)

http://www.udemy.com/teach

Decide on your topic then upload your course content.  Then you will price your course and receive 70% revenue.  You will receive payments monthly in your PayPal account.  Here is an interesting FREE course for entrepreneurs.  Why not check it out to see how it all works.

Odijoo (free)

http://www.odijoo.com/pages/overview/create_online_courses

Create your original online course and then sell seats to access it. With Odijoo you will keep 90% of the course enrollment fee. Odijoo also allows you to create free courses as well.  You can even create your own “campus” which can become your online business. Another cool feature of this services it that you can syndicate your content – you sell your content to other instructors who use it in their classes.

Litmos (monthly fee)

http://www.litmos.com

You can upload your videos, audios and presentations to your course.  Using this service you can even use your own domain name and brand your landing page. Unlike the other two services, you can allow students to enter your course or pay a fee – and  100% of it will go directly to your PayPal account. However Litmos can get  to be pretty expensive once you get more students.

So finally you’ve decided that you’re going to write an ebook. You’ve chosen your topic. You’re an expert. But you just can’t seem to get started!

You just sit there and stare at a blank page on your screen for about 2 minutes. Uninspired, you trot off to Facebook to post that you’re working on your ebook, but get distracted by one of your guru “friends” status that says he’s on the beach while he’s making $1000s on auto-pilot — and he can show you how to do it too! You click his link and now you’re off to purchase his product that tells you what you already know: you need to create your own ebook.  You’re the master of procrastination.

Why can’t you get started writing your ebook? It’s probably just that you just don’t know where to start.

The easiest place to start your ebook is to create an outline. I like to recommend creating an outline because it’s the skeleton of your book and all that’s left to after you have the skeleton is to put the meat on the bones.

Some people like to wing it and just write until they have finished. Some people are good at that, but most people are not.  If you are passionate about topic, you are bound to get many ideas. If you write blindly without a guide, your ideas can get muddled and you’ll end up lost and probably overwhelmed (and so will your customers).   Start with an outline so you can see your way to the end.

First start with a brain dump of all the ideas that you can come up with:

• Write your thoughts on an empty sheet of paper or a blank Word document.

• Write down everything that comes to mind without bothering about the sequence.

• You can use mind mapping techniques where two or three color codes are used to organize your key words.

• It is not important that you are writing only those thoughts or ideas that are directly linked to your topic. You are free to write anything that comes tor mind. Free formed ideas can also be gelled into the main topic later on to make it more interesting.

Next begin to fit the ideas together:

• Read the whole list of ideas and form a few umbrella topics. List the ideas using bullet points under the umbrella topics.

• If some ideas or topics don’t fit into your main topic, then you can discard them (or save them for your next ebook!).

Finally, put everything in a logical order. “Logical” is whatever you feel will make sense to your customers.  Your topics can flow in a chronological sequence or they can go from broad to specific, or from discrete to generic.  You decide.  Also try to think about the order that what will be interesting to you as you flesh out your pages.

Once your outline is complete, you can simply start filling in the “meat” in whatever order you like. One day you may want to work on the last chapter, on another day you might want to work on the introduction. Your outline will always keep your writing focused on the end product.

Don’t you hate it when you’ve finally got moving on creating your product… you’re just about done… and then it hits you.

You don’t know what to call it!

Naming your product is just as important as creating the product itself. Heck, it may be even more important because it’s the first thing that most people will notice about your product.  And it’s probably one of the most important triggers that will get them to buy it.

Are you wondering how to wrap it all up and make it stick?

Here are 5 tips for coming up with a cool title that will help grab the attention of a new customer:

1. Make it clear. It has to make the benefits clear to your customer. Is it going to solve a problem, provide a solution, reveal a secret, or share best practices?

2. Make it specific. To make the benefits clear, you’ll need to be specific. The example below shows general vs specific:

“Gardening Tips”  vs  ”How to Easily Stop Weeds from Growing in Your Garden”

3. Make it targeted.  Take it one step further and hone in on the market you’re targeting:

“How to Easily Stop Weeds from Growing in Your Zen Garden”

4. Make it nice. Make it positive. Avoid using words that could possibly be embarassing for your customers – some people can be very sensitive and pass by your valuable information. Instead, turn it around and write it in a more helpful tone:

“How to Deal with Your Smelly Dog”  vs “Fido Smells Great: A Simple Guide for Bathing Your Dog”

5. Make it familiar. Use words that make it obvious that your product is either going to help them do something or tell them something they need to know.  Use words like training manual, guide, blueprint, etc., as we’ve discussed before. This helps them to understand what to expect.

For those of you already creating your products, have you come up with a title that will work as its own little advertisement?

Note: There is an updated version of this post.  Click here to find out why

Your product’s title is the first thing, more or less, that your customer will notice about your product. Whether some one recommends your product to someone else or whether they arrive at your sales page where you introduce it to them, the title is how others will use to refer to the information you’re selling.  Sure, there will be times that you might not have a title, for example, if your product is a service that you simply refer to as your ‘coaching services’.  But in most cases, like any movie, book, or instructional DVD, you will need a title.

Here are some tips for coming up with a cool, but useful title:

In general, the title must grab attention – it needs to yell out “Read me! Watch me!” to your customers.  That doesn’t mean that it has to be something flashy like “Finally Revealed! The Most Ultimate and Unbelievable Product that is the Corvette of My Niche!”    Nothing like that.  It has to grab attention in a way that people will be curious to take a look.

1. It has to make the benefits clear to your customer. Is it going to solve a problem, provide a solution, reveal a secret, or share best practices?

2. To make the benefits clear, you’ll need to be specific. The example below shows general vs specific:

“Gardening Tips”  vs  ”How to Easily Stop Weeds from Growing in Your Garden”

3. Take that one step further and hone in on the market you’re targeting:

“How to Easily Stop Weeds from Growing in Your Zen Garden”

4. Avoid using words that could possibly be embarassing for your customers – some people can be very sensitive and pass by your valuable information. Instead, turn it around and write it in a more helpful tone:

“How to Deal with Your Smelly Dog”  vs “Fido Smells Great: A Simple Guide for Bathing Your Dog”

5. Use words that make it obvious that your product is either going to help them do something or tell them something they need to know.  Use words like training manual, guide, blueprint, etc., as we’ve discussed before. This helps them to understand what to expect.

For those of you already creating your products, have you come up with a title that will work as it’s own little advertisement?

1. Your Ideas:  The information in the product is your information. It came straight out of your head and from your desire to share. You, and only you, can decide what price you want to ask for your product, the rules for use and whether you want to change it or not.
2. Your Choice:  If you want to turn your information into an 50-page PDF, you do it. If you want it to be a 100-minute long video, you do it.  If you want it to be a 15-minute audio, you do it!
3. Your Price: The price of your product is not based on how much it cost you in time and equipment to create it. The price is based on how much value the product can deliver to your customers.
4. Your Limits: You’re never going to find yourself low on stock. Create it once, sell it forever! If you don’t want to sell it any, just stop selling it. There is no stock to liquidate!
5. Your Freedom: Your customers can get your product without you having to be in front of your computer to do it by hand. You can make product sales while you’re sleeping at 3AM, while you are watching television and while you are on vacation! You will be able to make sales 365 days a year, 24/7, with the right product.

If you still think you can’t create a product, just give it a try.  Start off with something very simple and small:  a 3-page PDF that you give away for free to your site visitors. On the last page, tell them to share the information with others and put in a link back to your blog.  You may not sell it, but it will still help you build your business!

Today I want to talk about what it means, personally, to create a product.  If I ask “What are the benefits of creating your own product?”  Your first thoughts may be the financial aspect of having a product, the ability to live the “internet lifestyle”, having a successful business and so on. But I want to point out some less obvious reasons…

First, once you have completed your product,  you have moved through the phases of idea to concept to vision to reality.  You’re no longer simply telling people that you have these plans of having your own book, you’re now telling them “this is my book.” Your vision becomes real.

With that realness, you gain credibility.  You’re able to prove to your market that you have taken the time to master your topic and here is the proof – a product. Having a product means you put together content and experience – and that is credibility.

Now, you also move from just being just a random person to the “creator” or “author” of a product! Because of this, you’ve opened up opportunities to be cited or quoted, having your product referenced in conversation and…um “flattered” (as in imitation is the sincerest form of flattery).

Of course if you have one product, people will expect…wait for…and possibly even beg for more.  You have fans (or fanatics in some cases) that can’t wait for the launch of your next best thing.

And finally, you’ll have a feeling that you are a product creator! You created something, you finished something. You have something tangible that you created.  There is no better feeling than that!