Create The Package

Once you know the niche topic you’re going to write about, and you’ve done your market research, it’s time to put your information product or package together.

Indeed, if you paid attention, you probably even noted what types of packages buyers in your niche are buying. So, you know what you need to create.

To be clear, here’s what you need to put together:

The actual product or package. This is the eBook and any other pieces you’re including in your package, such as articles or a sales letter for your buyers to use to sell the product.

The product price. This is where you decide on how much you want to make per sale, and what you need to include in the package to get that price.

A sales letter.  Finally, you need to create a sales letter to persuade buyers to purchase your product. I covered this in my post about sales letters here.

There are three ways you can create these materials:

Do it yourself

A good choice if you’re a good writer and/or you have special expertise or skills in the niche that you’re writing about.

Outsource it

A good choice if you don’t have the time or inclination to do it yourself.

Outsource some of it, do the rest yourself

Maybe you’re a good writer, so you choose to create the eBook yourself. But perhaps you don’t know much about copywriting, so you hire a professional copywriter to create your sales letter.

Let’s look at the first two separately (which will help you decide whether you want to do choose the third option)…

Do It Yourself

As mentioned, there are three things you need to create (the product, the price and the sales letter). We’ll just deal with the product and sales letter in this section.

Let’s start with the product.

Creating Your Information Product

At a minimum, you’ll be creating a niche eBook. As such, that’s what I’ll focus on for this section, but obviously the advice applies to anything else you create for your package (such as articles, a lead-generating report, etc.).

The most important thing to remember is that ultimately you need to please your customers’ customers. In other words, you need to write this book for the end users – the people who’ll actually be reading and using the information. And that means you need to find out what these end users want.

This requires a little market research on your part. Fortunately, it’s pretty simple.

Here’s what to do:

See what Amazon reviewers are saying about popular products.

Run a search for your niche topic (like “dog training”) and take a look at the reviews for the popular products.

Take note of what reviewers like about the product, because you’ll want to include these strengths in your product too. Also, take note of what reviewers don’t like, because you’ll create a better product by improving on these perceived weaknesses.

Example: Maybe you’re creating a dog training product. If the reviewers complain that existing products don’t have enough info about curbing bad habits in dogs (like jumping up on people), then make sure that your product has plenty of information on this topic.

Look at the table of contents of popular products.

If you’re wondering what all topics you should include in your eBook, just look at which topics the bestsellers have included in their books.

Tip: How do you do this? Just use Amazon’s “sneak peek” feature, which lets you take look at the table of contents for most books.

Read sales letters for popular products.

If you can’t take a look at the table of contents, then the next best thing is to look at the sales letters for popular products. Usually, just about every bullet point in the sales letter will give you an idea for a topic to include in your eBook.

Tip: One good place to uncover popular niche products and their sales letters is in the Clickbank.com marketplace.

Review the bestselling products yourself.

One of the best ways to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the popular products on the market is by reading and using them yourself. Take note, however, that you’re just looking at these to assess the competition and to get an idea of what to include in your product – in no way should you even think of copying these products.

Ask your market.

Yet another way to decide what topics to include is to go to niche forums and ask your market what they’d like to see in an eBook. Ask them what problems they’re struggling with and what kinds of solutions they need.

Once you’ve followed the above steps, it should be pretty easy for you to draw up an outline of what topics you should include in your eBook.

If it’s a “how to” book, then obviously you should organize your content in step-by-step order (Step 1, Step 2, etc). If the book doesn’t detail a step-by-step process, then you can order your content from beginner to intermediate to advanced topics.

The key here is to create as thorough of an outline as possible.

Not only should your outline list each chapter, but it should also detail every topic you want to talk about within each chapter.

Example: Let’s say you’re creating a book on weight loss. Here’s what the “nutrition” section of your outline might look like:

Nutrition

1. How to lose a pound a week.
2. Determining your calorie needs.
3. Guidelines for eating well:
   
   
   • Eat close to nature
   • Eat six small meals a day
   • Eat a balance of good carbs, fats and proteins
4. How to make unhealthy dishes healthy
5. What to choose when eating out
6. Sample weekly meal plans and recipes

The reason for creating such a detailed outline is because it will keep you focused and keep you on track as you create your product.

However, it also makes it psychologically easier to create the product. That’s because a detailed outline breaks down a big book into little “bite size” chunks.

So instead of you having to write a book, you can think of it as writing a series of related articles. Many people find this psychological trick works well to overcome procrastination and/or writers block.

After you’ve completed your outline, it’s just a matter of thoroughly researching your topics and then creating the product. Just be sure that you do your research using credible sources only.

Example: If you’re researching a health topic, use sites like the Mayo Clinic site, WebMD.com and sites run by universities.

Once your product is complete, then you need to create a sales letter.