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Table of Contents
Your Content
Way #1: Your Knowledge…………………………….. 8
Way #2: Your Blog…………………………………9-12
Way #3: Your Email………………………………12-14
Way #4: Your Conversations…………………………14
Way #5: Your Articles……………………………….15
Way #6: Your Journals………………………………16
Way #7: Your Professional Documents…………16-17
Way #8: Your Coursework………………………17-20
Way #9: Your Career Training (or On the Job Training)….…….....20-21
Way #10: Your Notes from Events………………21-23
Way #11: Your Social Media Messages and Updates…………....23-25
Way #12: Your Discussion Forum Posts..……..25-26
Way #13: Your Interviews………………………26-28
Content from Others
Way #14: Private Label Rights (PLR) Material…29-31
Way #15: Public Domain Works…………………31-32
Way #16: Outsource the Work……………………33-34
Way #17: Become a Coauthor……………………34-36
Way #18: Perform Searches Online……………..36-37
Way #19: What’s in the News?....……………….37-38
Way #20: Television, Radio, and Beyond………38-39
PLUS One: The Combination……….…………39-40
20 Plus Ways to Get Content for Your Book or eBook: Simple Self-Publishing
By David G. Newby
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2011 David G. Newby.
Acknowledgements & Dedication
It’s only appropriate that I acknowledge a few individuals who supported me during my creation of this book. First, and foremost, I would like to thank God for His ever-present guidance in my life. God has allowed me to receive blessings from Him, and to use what I gain to bless others. For that, I am thankful. Next, I would like to thank all of my family and friends for their encouragement. Their motivation helped me stay diligent and focused during the writing of this book. Third, I would like to thank the many people who have mentored me over the years and who have helped me develop as a person and as a professional. Lastly, I would like to thank you. You have trusted me and given me the opportunity to take you higher in writing and self-publishing. That alone, is worth mentioning because it’s not easy to confide in people you don’t know. On a final note, this book is dedicated to you, for deciding to step outside the box and become a self-published author. I sincerely thank you for your purchase.
Preface
What if someone told you that based on what you already know and what’s already available to you, that you had the potential to write a book in one day? Would you believe them? Well, regardless of your answer, you should believe them. You see, writing a book can be as easy as pulling a bunch of content together from someplace else. Better yet, more often than not, the content that you actually pull from such places is already in usable form. If you make just the right revisions to the content, you can go from raw material to a finished book in no time.
The sad thing is most people never end up writing a book, for any number of reasons. Some just don’t know where to start. Others may know where to start, but just don’t have the enthusiasm to begin writing. Still, others fail to start writing their book because they may not feel like they’re good writers. In all of these cases, there are some good solutions. The 20 Plus Ways provides you with some great solutions to ending your writing woes and coming up with content quickly.
Using the information in this book, anyone can write a quality book fast. Here’s my promise to you: By the time you are finished reading this book, you will be able to go from having virtually no idea what to write about, to having enough information to publish multiple books.
Are you ready to get started? Without further ado, here are the 20 Plus Ways, plus a special bonus at the end…
There are two basic ways to get content for your book:
Content from yourself
Content from others
Content from Yourself
In terms of book content, you should almost always start with yourself. You probably have a wealth of information about your book topic residing in your brain. Even if you transferred everything you know about your book topic to another place (paper, computer, CD, and others), you will likely still have access to that information. Consider the many content sources that you can get from yourself before having to look to someone else for book content.
Way #1: Your Knowledge
Your knowledge consists of your education, experiences, wisdom, and understanding about a particular field. Use what’s already in your head and transfer the same to your book as sellable content. Here are a few examples of how you can package your knowledge into a book or an eBook:
What is your work experience? What jobs have you held? What industries do you have experience in? How many years’ experience do you have in your particular field?
What is your educational background? What special college or university degrees do you hold? Have you taken any continuing education courses? Have you received extensive on the job training related to your field?
What are your core competencies? What specialized skills have you developed over time?
What makes you the expert that people go to for help? In which areas do your clients, friends, and colleagues defer to you for advice? What makes you the trusted and reliable expert at work?
What is your X Factor, or unique differentiator? How are you unique and different from everyone else? What is that thing that stands out about you that attracts people to you for guidance? What separates you from the crowd? What makes you the primary informational source for others that follow you?
The answers to such questions give you an idea of how much knowledge you possess in your areas of expertise. You obviously know which areas you help people in, whether that is relationship advice, resume building, cooking, personal training, or others. All you have to do is take that knowledge and package that into a book or an eBook. Focus on the topics that your customers, friends, and associates are concerned with, and you can put a book together almost as quickly as you can spell your first name.
Way #2: Your Blog
The gist of my last book was based on the content from my blog, Children’s Bread. I simply took some of the posts and revised them in order to create my book. That’s right; my first book was a compilation of revised posts from my blog. That’s how easily you can get content for your book.
If you write regular posts to your blog, you are likely to have a wealth of content that is just dying to be repurposed into a book or an eBook. Get this: the best thing is that your blog posts are 100% original self-owned content. That’s to say that if you own your blog site as opposed to writing for someone else’s site, the posts that you personally create are yours to do with them what you want. You can reformat those posts and create a book based solely on the content from your blog. If you’ve been writing blog posts for some time, you may have more than just one book in your hands; you are likely to have several. Why not turn those posts into a compilation of blog posts by placing them in your book? You should, and in light of what some people may think, you can still sell your blog posts as a book. Your blog posts may be freely available to people who visit your blog. Yet, they may be unavailable to people who don’t visit your blog. Examples include individuals that are on different sales channels such as Amazon.com, or even those people who are not in your network. Your blog book may be completely new to them, mainly because they have probably never visited your blog and are unfamiliar with you. Lastly, you don’t have to be afraid to sell your blog book to people who are familiar with your blog, such as your subscribers. The reasons are as follows:
People pay for packaging. What’s the difference between tap water and a brand name bottle of water? Packaging—though some may disagree here. In any event, your blog book can be packaged into a pretty book or eBook with a nice cover that compels even your blog subscribers to buy.