Writing Short Info Reports
People want information, they want it quick, frequently in shortform, and straight to the point. Its no wonder that they gostraight for a computer connected to the internet to findanything from how to grow tomatoes to choosing a web host.As a home business owner, this "information revolution" as Ilike to call it, is only to your benefit. After all, you are inthe business of trying to give people what they want time andagain. So, give them the information they crave.Now, e-books are a wonderful way to , but in the spirit of theInfopreneur, short high content reports which I like to callinfo-reports are perhaps even better. If formulated carefully,they can even be put to use to literally explode the size of anopt-in list of subscribers. To proceed you simply developseveral high content short reports, targeted at a specificmarket which you would like to add to your subscriber base, andgive it away free just for subscribing to your newsletter. Withcontent, and the word "free", many people will flock tosubscribe. Best of all this is a win-win situation: You pick upvaluable subscribers to interact with on a weekly basis, andyour subscribers receive valuable information from you.So, how is it done you ask?Report IdeasAlmost any idea you have can be made into a short report.However, not every idea is in demand.Try this out.Sit down with pen and paper in a quite location. Yes, you readcorrectly. I said pen and paper. It is easier from a workperspective to sit in front of your monitor, but past experien...
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...cehas taught me that the creative side of my brain works betterwith pen and paper. Of course it is up to what ever works foryou.Now, write down a short list of topics that you aresemi-familiar with. I say "semi" because you can always performa bit of research to learn more. These topics can be onanything: gardening, cooking, computer programming, specifichobbies, construction, research, medicine, etc.After you have made your list, weed out the topics that are notassociated with your business. For instance, if your business iscomputer programming, you probably don't want to focus oncreating a short report on gardening. The reasoning here is totarget your market. Gardening info is not targeted to thecomputer programming market.Now pick one or two topics, open a word processor, or even yournotebook, and start writing every little bit of information youknow on the subject.Putting It TogetherI recommend structuring your report similar to a book report.Remember writing those in school? Why a book report? The focushere is short and informative. This isn't creative writing. Youdon't want to go off on some tangent about literary prose.Short, concise, and highly informative information to guideothers is what works here.Format And PackagingFormat is somewhat of a personal preference. But, keep computingplatform in mind. There are numerous e-book compilers, manyfree, that can be used to create a small exe file of yourreport. The advantage here is that it can be created in web pageformat and then compiled ...
...with links that when clicked willactually open in the e-book window. One downside however is thatas far as I have been able to tell they only compile in PCformat. So, anyone with a Mac will not be able to view the file.I have used Easy e-Book Creator for several short reports. It issimple and easy to use. I create the pages in HTML format usingMicrosoft Frontpage and then compile. If you want the fullversion without the Easy e-Book Creator logo and with addedsecurity features, you can purchase a license for about $20. Theresulting e-book is in exe format. e-Book Compiler also has afree trial version. I however was not as happy with it.PDF is essentially universal. Just about anyone these days canopen a pdf. The problem is that pdf file creators are ratherpricey. An alternative is the Microsoft Reader plug-in for Word.Microsoft is attempting to compete with Adobe in creating a newstandard. The software is free to download from Microsoft athttp://www.microsoft.com/reader/developers/downloads/rmr.asp .DistributionAfter all else is done, its time to get your report to market.Now, there is not a single definitive way to do this. I use e-zine advertising, classified ads, pay-per-click, and trafficexchanges to advertise short reports in the hopes of pullinginterested readers to sign up for the e-Kinetic E-Zine. What isgreat about this method is that it truly is win-win. I gain newsubscribers who I get to share interact with through the e-zine,and subscribers receive valuable information at zero cost.
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