Think IM

First, I went looking for an idea for a product. I wanted to make sure that I picked a topic that I thought would sell well. I did all the market research and was pretty sure that I had located some markets of hungry buyers. That’s right, I decided to do more than one product.

Several reasons for this and if you knew me better, you would understand that this is the usual way that I do things. I am very creative but I bore easily so I prefer to be able to work on more than one product at a time. I also thought it was a good idea to test more than one niche market.

Next, I went looking for the PLR I have stored on my hard drive related to the subject. Once I set up three separate folders, one for each product, I moved the appropriate material to each of these folders. I also printed out the best material for each of the products so that I could read and highlight the information I might want to include. I began to construct an outline for each of the topics. Then I went and did my own research to find material that I felt should be included and would enhance the existing ideas presented in the PLR. Fortunately, I chose topics with which I was very familiar and could infuse my products with a lot of my own knowledge and experience.

Once I had the outlines pretty firm, I began to decide on a name and think about marketing the product. I also went shopping for a graphic designer to help me design the minisite template and ecovers for the digital ebook. Because I was new to selecting a designer, I decided to use three different designers. Boy, what an experience. Each one of the designers got a rough draft back to me in less than 24 hours. One nailed it and there wasn’t much to do, but make a few suggestions and thank him.

The others were a bit more of a chore. One was dead wrong on the first try, but with a little direction, it came together pretty quickly. The last one was a different story. I ended up sending photographs for him to use and pulled the design out of him step by step. It turned out usable, but it was never perfect. I really got a crash course in working with designers and how to give them instructions. I would work with all three of them again and I am glad that I have more than 1 designer to call on. They sometimes get busy I am told and the turnaround time gets longer when that happens.

One of the main things I discovered is that the time it takes varies greatly and that you should be sure to give yourself plenty of time to get your graphics together. I also learned to be very specific about explaining the sizes of the banners, etc.

While I waited for the graphics, I finished writing the three products and getting them ready to sell. The only questions I had while writing was how long should the manuscript be. How long is too long? I tend to be thorough and my ebooks came out a little longer than some others I have seen. Oh, well, my buyers will get their money’s worth. I have heard some people mention the shortness of people’s attention span. I hope this does not cause me a problem.

Because I plan to create products on a regular basis, I know for sure that it would be a good idea to outsource the chores you do not like. However, I am very glad that I took the time to build the squeeze pages and sales pages for the first time myself. One of the best things I did was to study John Hostler’s copywriting tips and learn the technique he calls “chunk copy.” After writing the copy for the first product, the second and third came much easier. Now I feel much more comfortable throwing together a sales page and feel I could repeat it again and again.

Writing the manuscript and creating the product was the easiest part of the project for me. I labored over creating the affiliate tools page and all of the other pages that I needed on the sales pages. Don’t get me wrong. It was not hard–just boring.

Submitting to Clickbank and making sure that I had followed their requiirements wasn’t too bad. I am sure that using CB is definitely the way to go to relieve me of having to keep track of affiliate payments and other bookkeeping necessities.

Now doesn’t it sound like a lot to do. Would you believe this is just the beginning? Now you have to send traffic to your squeeze and sales pages. You have to test and track so that you can tweak them to make them as highly effective as they can be. It is so important to make sure that they are highly converting. As you can see the work and fun really starts now. The fun part is making money when you get your sales rolling in.

Oh, and did I mention that you have to go and find affiliates to help you sell your products? That is one of the most important parts of the Product Creation System.

O.K. now you know the rest of the story. Wish me success, because I am working hard to make it happen.

Technorati Tags: Affiliate Marketing, Product Creation