[Note: I just found an old blog entry that I tweaked a bit and submitted through http://www.ahaarticles.com/, our article submission service. Now I'm posting it in our "Inciter Articles" category, to keep our submitted stuff all together, so I can find it easily when the need arises (and it does, more often than you think). Happiness is finding easy-to-repurpose content on your blog, in your notebook, or wherever decently-constructed rants hang out!]

You have an idea. A business. A passion. Something to say.

The question is: How important is this to you?

“Well, I have a website/blog/brochure/business card,” you say. And that’s a good thing. You should. They’re all part of your self-marketing efforts. They’re all virtually essential these days. You want to have your information retold, repackaged, and reinvented in various forms, to suit your audience’s content consumption preferences.

So why not take it a step further and turn your singular information, concept, strategy, philosophy, process, or knowledge into an eBook?
 
Make it interesting. Make it readable. Give it titles and subtitles, sidebars and sass.

Make it easy to download and email.

Share it with people, groups, websites, and associations that would find value in it, or be entertained by it. (Or preferably, both!)

More than anything, make it available…for FREE.
 
“But, I don’t have time to spend on creating and developing a FREE eBook?!!” you yelp. “Why the heck would I waste my time/energy/billable brain power on that?”

Well, don’t you already?

Don’t you already think about your own passions, ideas, business, systems, or solutions in a fairly obsessive way?

Wouldn’t you like a clean overview of your might and mission to hand off to prospects, fans, clients, consumers, strategic partners, website visitors, email recipients, and accidental tourists so they could sample your wares? Experience your voice and style? Scan over your offerings? Dig into your ideas? Benefit from your expert status?

Essentially, consume a premeditated, decently configured version of YOU?

What’s more, wouldn’t it be valuable to YOU to put your fleeting thoughts and down-the-rabbit-hole analyses into some semblance of order and refined context?
 
Hey - we’re talking a free eBook here. It doesn’t have to be a $20,000 project. Make it neat. Format it nicely. If you can get a designer to help it look good, that’s a plus, but if that’s not possible right now, let it go.

Most importantly - HAVE SOMEONE PROOFREAD IT so you don’t embarrass yourself, or worse, lose business because of grammar, spelling, or blatant nonsensical communication skills.

Earlier this year, we joined forces with Acorn Creative - a top-notch branding firm and our key strategic partner - to create a FREE 18-page Special Report that generated more than $100,000 in new client revenue in less than two months. That little document took us less than two weeks to put together. Not bad on the ROI scale, wouldn’t you agree? (You can check it out at http://www.gonutsin2007.com/.)
 
Don’t make it harder than it is. If you’ve just got 10 pages, turn it into a Special Report or White Paper. You can always expand or add to it over time.

BOTTOM LINE:
People can’t learn to know and love you - your products, services, passion, advice, know-how, brilliance, ideas, insights, offerings, deliverables, voice, style, personality, vision, business, unique promise of value, philosophies, etc. - if you don’t give them anything to know and love.

WANNA USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEBSITE?
Please do! Just kindly include this blurb with it:

(c) 2007 Epiphanies, Inc. As the “Content Lovers” of Epiphanies, Inc., Lani & Allen Voivod help lifestyle entrepreneurs and bold-thinking small businesses ‘A-Ha Themselves!’ in fun, innovative, and profitable ways. For FREE articles, tips, and strategies designed to catapult your content and electrify your business, sign up for their ezine, ‘The Inciter,’ at EpiphaniesInc.com!

Posted in Inciter Articles |

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 at 9:51 pm and is filed under Inciter Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.