The Missing Piece

Some publishing experts estimate there are over a million book ideas in circulation at various publishing houses and literary agencies. From the ever-growing volume of submissions and pitches, I believe those numbers. Yet don’t let those numbers overwhelm you because I believe with training, you can make your story or book idea or book proposal stand apart from the competition. It must be excellent and you must take active steps to learn how to make it stand apart from the others.

Book authors are focused on a longer piece of writing and it takes a great deal of energy and time to produce such an excellent work. I want to tell you about an area that many writers neglect and miss: the printed magazine market.

Yes, a number of magazines have disappeared in recent years yet new publications are constantly entering the marketplace. If you look at it with the right mindset that change can present great opportunity for you and your writing.

Printed magazine articles hold writers to a high standard for their writing yet you can learn the craft of storytelling in a shorter form than a 60,000 word nonfiction book or a 100,000 word novel. Also you will learn how to target a particular audience for a particular audience.

My magazine writing has reached many more readers than my books will ever reach. In one short magazine article, it is easy to touch 100,000 or 300,000 readers. In sharp contrast, the Authors Guild says that it is good if a book sells 5,000 copies in the LIFE of the book. These numbers point out the limitations of most book publishing. Yes, it is a printed book and lasting but limited.

In the writing world, you don’t have to be limited to writing only book or only magazine articles. You can do both. The world of magazine writing will expose new readers to your work. If you feel stuck or stifled with your book writing, open a new door of opportunity and write a few query letters or magazine articles. It might just be your missing piece.

How to Write Articles That Sell Your Short Reports

I wanted to follow-up on my article about 5 Keys to Writing and Selling Small Reports. Some writers create products and then use loosely related articles to sell those products. You might sell a few using that method. But you’ll sell a whole lot more if you use closely related articles to market your short reports.

Here’s how it works…

Step 1: Choose a Topic

If you want to sell a lot of “feature length” articles (i.e., short reports), then you need to choose a proven topic. That means you should sell reports that are similar to solutions that your market is already buying.

You can find out what your market is buying by visiting marketplaces like the Amazon.com marketplace (and their bestseller lists) and the Clickbank.com marketplaces. In both cases, look for products appearing at the top of the search results and/or at the top of the categories when you browse.

These are your most popular, best-selling products. You’ll want to create a short report on a similar topic. Ideally, you should give your report a special twist or make it unique in some way.

Example: If you see a lot of bestsellers on the topic of helping brides-to-be slim down in the three months before their wedding, you can create a report and accompanying article about how to slim down safely and quickly in two months.

Step 2: Write an Article on the Topic

Once you’ve chosen your topic, then your next step is to write a 400 to 600 word article on this topic. Your goal is to provide useful yet incomplete information. That’s because you want your readers to solve their problems by purchasing your report.

Example: In continuing with the weight loss for brides example: You might create an article called “Three Secrets to Getting in Shape for Your Wedding.” Those three secrets will prove useful to the reader, but she won’t be able to lose enough weight unless she knows all the secrets contained in your report.

Step 3: Craft a Compelling Conclusion

Next, you need to craft a conclusion that gets readers to click through to your short report sales page. To do this, offer a benefit to those who click through, such as the quick and easy to solution to their problems.

Example #1: “Who else wants to look stunning on her wedding day? Click here now to discover how to lose all the weight you want before your big day!”

Example #2: “Whether you fit into your wedding dress or not depends on whether you know these seven fat-melting secrets – click here to ensure you too look drop-dead gorgeous on your wedding day!”

Step 4: Create a Short Report on the Same Topic

Next, you need to write a short 7-15 page report on the same topic. While a short report can’t solve all your prospects’ problems, it can solve one specific problem.

Example #1: Your short report could teach future brides how to drop 20 pounds before their wedding day.

Example #2: A marketing report could show people how to make money using Twitter.

Example #3: A dog training report could teach readers how to ease separation anxiety in their furry friends.

Once your report is complete, you need to select a payment processor such as Clickbank.com, PayPal.com or 2Checkout.com. Then write a sales letter, include the payment button and upload the letter to your domain.

Step 5: Submit Your Articles… and Sell!

Now you’re ready to use your article to drive traffic to your site!

You can:

• Submit this article to EzineArticles.com, ArticleCity.com, GoArticles.com, ArticleAlley.com and Buzzle.com.

• Use it as the basis of a HubPages.com or Squidoo.com page.

• Post it on niche forums (where allowed).

• Upload it to your blog.

• Recruit affiliates and let them use it to market your report.

• Post it on social media sites.

Summary

You too can make money online, just as quickly as you can write an article and a “feature length” article. And the sooner you get started, the faster you can use this simple strategy to drop money in your pocket!

In this article, I’ve given you some of the key factors about how you can write and sell small reports. For many more details and dozens of ideas, check out my risk-free Ebook, The 31-Day Guide to Making Money Writing Small Reports. You have nothing to lose and a world to gain in my view—if you take action.

5 Keys to Writing & Selling Small Reports

Almost daily I speak with writers who have great passion for the printed page. These writers have dreams of getting their books published and building an audience. They have invested time in writing their story and getting it on paper. Yet they lack something critical: financial resources to be able to publish their book. They are stuck--and often unable to see that they are stuck and how to earn more money and get out of their situation to move forward and achieve their dreams.

I want to show you a different route to achieving your passion. It might not be an obvious path but it is a tried and true one which will allow you to get your material printed, touch an audience and earn the money to get your books into print.

Your dreams can be accomplished through writing and selling small reports. I've pulled together a new 84-page resource to teach you step-by-step how to do it. This Ebook is called The 31-Day Guide to Making Money Writing Small Reports. If you follow the link, you can immediately go to a page where you can instantly receive this report. It is backed with my no questions asked 60-day guarantee so it is a risk-free offer.

You don’t need to spend months creating a home study course in order to make money online.

Instead, you can make money in as little as 24 hours, simply by creating small reports. You can then sell them quickly to your own list, on your blog, using affiliates, by posting ads on sites like the WarriorForum.com and so on.

Here are five keys to making a fortune with these small reports…

1. Choose a Current Hot Topic

If you want to make a lot of money quickly – and if you want to build your customer list fast – then choose a current hot topic.

Doing so will help your report attract attention on niche forums, blogs, social media sites. You’ll even bring in traffic from the search engines.

How do you find a hot topic? Like this:

• Follow conversations on niche forums to see which ones are getting a lot of views and passionate replies.

• Read niche blogs to see which topics are getting plenty of comments and discussion.

• Keep an eye on the Clickbank.com marketplace to see what types of products are flying off the virtual shelves.

• Go to Amazon.com and look at the bestsellers in your niche.

2. Use “How To” In Your Title

The words “how to” are like a magic trigger that draws people to your report.

Just look at the difference between these titles:

• House Train Your Dog in Three Days vs. How to House Train Your Dog in Three Days

• Make Money Online vs. How to Make Money Online

• Get Rich vs. How to Get Rich

3. Offer Plenty of Tips and Examples

Choosing a hot topic and a great title will draw prospects to your order page like metal shavings to a magnet. But once they crack your report open, you need to wow them.

That’s because satisfied customers become repeat buyers.

How do you satisfy them?

a) First, you better deliver everything you promised on your sales page (and more).

b) Secondly, you should make your content easy to understand and digest by providing plenty of tips and examples.

So instead of simply telling someone to “write a good headline,” you should provide examples of good headlines (e.g., “The secrets of…”). Or instead of telling someone to cut 250 calories from their diet each day, you can give them ten tips and examples of how, exactly, they should do that.

4. Write a Part 2

One way to attract a flood of new buyers for your small report is by creating an enticing “Part 2” that you give away for free to all who purchased Part 1.

If Part 2 is even better than Part 1, you’ll have customers raving about it all around the niche… and you’ll have new prospects lining up to buy.

Example: You create a report called, “How to Get 30,000 Visitors to Your Blog.” You can then create Part 2: “How to Get Make $30,000 From Your 30,000 Visitors.” Part 1 offered your customers a desirable result (getting 30,000 visitors). But Part 2 offers an even more desirable result, because now your readers will find out how to turn those customers into cash!

5. Create a Tiered Pricing Structure One way to increase your conversion rate is by creating a sense of urgency. You can create this urgency by offering a tiered pricing structure.

Here’s an example:

• The first 100 customers get the report for just $10. • The next 100 customers get the report for $15. • Everyone after the 200th customer pays $20.

To make this tactic even more powerful, be sure to use a script that continuously updates the number of copies left. That way people really feel the fear of loss as they see the low-priced copies being snapped up.

Summary

You can make a lot of money by providing solutions to a hungry niche in the form of a small report.

You can further increase your income by using the five tips you just discovered! And the sooner you get started, the faster you can start pocketing that cash! I encourage you to take action on these five tips and your situation will begin to change.

Also check out The 31-Day Guide to Making Money Writing Small Reports. I believe it could be a valuable turning point to achieving your publishing dreams.

A Critical Skill for Every Writer

Many years ago in high school, I joined the staff of the student newspaper. While I was unaware of it, I began to hone an important skill as a writer which I continue to use daily. As a young reporter, I gave each of my stories a headline or title. I learned how to attract the reader with few words to pull them into the story.

It's a skill that each of us use today when when we write the subject line in an email or the title of a blog post or the title for a magazine article or book. In my journalism training, we had instruction about headlines and copyright but it was not a major focus. The majority of those skills we learned by continual practice of the craft.

Copywriting is this key skill that I'm pointing out today. When you are writing a simple email, you want whoever receives that email (whether one person or many people) to open that email. The words you select for your subject line are important. If you are writing a magazine article, the title of your article is important. If you are pulling together a postcard that you send out, the few words that you have for that postcard will determine if someone reads it or tosses it. The skill of coming up with those words is called copywriting.

My friend Bob Bly is a master copywriter. His book The Copywriter's Handbook is a classic text which was originally published in the 1980s--and has been frequently updated over the years. Recently I read Bob Bly's Handbook of Secret Copywriting Formulas: Proven Techniques for Increasing Response Offline and Online.

This 140-page Ebook is loaded with insight for every writer--whether you write fiction or nonfiction. Why? Because every writer needs to learn the persuasive techniques of copywriting. If you need a creative boost to write a headline (and you have this ebook) then you can take a few minutes and read Bob's chapter on Headline Formulas, 10 Headline Formulas That Work Like Magic. In a matter of a few minutes, you will be on your way to crafting that headline which captures the reader (and editor's attention).

Or maybe you are stuck and can't figure out what to write. You could follow the advice in Bob's chapter, Steal This "Works Every Time Formula" which gives an eight step process to jumpstart your work. One of these eight points is to Solve Their Problem With Your Product. Many writers forget the need to persuade with their words. Bob teaches how to use bullets and make life so much better for that reader when they get the product.

As writers, each of us need to learn how to use power words to persuade and touch others evoking a response. I love the teaching and reminders in this Ebook and recommmend Bob Bly's Handbook of Secret Copywriting Formulas.