Start With an Outline



Writing in any form is the process of following a path. An idea forms in your head and thoughts start rolling out; creative chaos follows with a salad of images, fragments of sentences and free flowing concepts. What do you do to make something out of all of this?

Early Brainstorming

Get a pad, notebook , your home computer, or better yet, a white board, and just start jotting down what comes to mind. Your product idea, things that might relate to your product, anything you think will add value. If you have done your market research you will have a good idea of what your potential customer is looking for. Put yourself in his/her place and think up some more ideas of what problems to solve or needs that may arise. Get it all down on paper or into your word processor.

Create an Outline

With your list of ideas and thoughts you are ready to move to the next step. Take what you have and you will begin to see some trends or patterns emerge. You are now ready to create your outline or script. There are some elements that are basic to all written formats. For example, you will want an introduction page; a copyright page is a must to establish your ownership of the product; a disclaimer page to protect yourself from potential liability (you are a business and businesses can get sued!). You will have the body of the product, often broken down into chapters or sections depending on the nature of the product. All this is followed by a Conclusion and Appendix or Resource list.

Sub Sections and Outline Content

With the basic layout of the product on paper, you are now ready to move to the next step; filling in outline content. You can take each chapter or section and begin filling in sub sections that follow your idea flow. For example, if your product is about weight loss, you might start with the need to lose weight, and then follow up with the barriers people face when trying to lose weight, followed by the factors that go into deciding to lose weight, the decision to lose weight, exercise, support and keeping the weight off. I think you can begin to see the process.

Writing Phase

With the sections and sub sections worked out, the writing is easy. It's a matter of filling in the space with material you have already researched. Whether you write it yourself (the preferred option), or hire a ghost writer, by the time it reaches the writing stage, all the hard work has been done. Your internet marketing program is well on the way to full development.

Edit and Re-Edit Phase

Writing will mean multiple drafts, tweaking and changing that go with any written project, but by this stage you are well along your way to completion. Once the final draft is ready, leave it for a couple of days and then go back and take another look. Send out copies to trusted editors to take one final look. There will always be some last minute corrections before the decision is made to roll out the information product. But by this stage you are done and ready to go.

How and when to roll out an information product is the subject for another article. Suffice it to say that your planning should be just as careful and prepared as the effort that went into creating your information product. Unfortunately, that is not the case for many roll outs. So take the time to learn that process as well.

Conclusion

The process of creating an information product does take time and effort, but if you follow a well thought out plan it can actually be fun and very rewarding. So give it a go and see where your creative thoughts take you. You may have the killer affiliate marketing program just waiting to be launched.

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