# How to Write & Sell Simple Information for Fun and Profit ![rw-book-cover](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51uA97uxXlL._SL200_.jpg) ## Metadata - Author: [[Robert W. Bly and Fred Gleeck]] - Full Title: How to Write & Sell Simple Information for Fun and Profit - Category: #books ## Highlights - “Experts don’t necessarily know more than others; it’s just that their information is better organized.” ([Location 294](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=294)) - Publishers and readers prefer authors who appear to have credentials in the subject they are writing about, but, often, neither the publishers nor the readers investigate authors’ credentials to any significant degree. Therefore, you can write a nonfiction book on a topic even if you possess only what I call “thin credentials.” Thin credentials are qualifications that sound more impressive than they actually are. If you are going to specialize in a particular field or subject, I advise you to obtain some credentials, thin or otherwise, to establish credibility. ([Location 310](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=310)) - A how-to writer is a teacher in print. ([Location 320](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=320)) - the age of the generalist is over. In every endeavor, from writing to medicine, specialists are more in demand and higher paid than generalists. ([Location 329](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=329)) - In today’s electronic age, print represents only a small portion of the spectrum of communication media available to writers. The writers who make the most money write in many media, not just books and magazine articles. ([Location 332](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=332)) - The quickest way to add value to content is to become the trusted source for information on that topic—the recognized expert in the field (see www.becomeaninstantguru.com for more information on how to become a leading authority in your field or niche). ([Location 502](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=502)) - 2. Narrow your niche. “Marketing” is too broad, but if you specialize in marketing for chiropractors, your information becomes more specialized and valuable, and there’s less competition. ([Location 508](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=508)) - 3. Write for all four learning modalities. Don’t doom yourself to a mediocre income by thinking of “writing” as “books and magazines.” The wealthiest how-to writers today produce and publish content in many different media. ([Location 516](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=516)) - The four basic learning modalities are: reading (books, e-books); listening (audio CDs, downloadable MP3 files, podcasts); watching (DVDs, TV programs, online video); and doing, also called “experiential learning” (workshops, seminars, courses). ([Location 521](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=521)) - 4. Promote. You can’t just write a book or training program and expect the world to beat a path to your door. You have to proactively, aggressively, and continually market and promote your work. ([Location 528](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=528)) - 5. Keep writing. Unlike Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind) or Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird), you can’t, as a modern-day, how-to writer, produce one great work and coast for the rest of your career. The successful how-to writer is always writing new material and updating existing publications. You must do this because you are always learning and improving your knowledge, and your readers want your latest thinking, ideas, and methods. ([Location 531](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=531)) - Today’s successful how-to authors establish a platform—a reputation and a built-in audience in a particular topic or niche—and focus their writing in just one or two areas. The more you build your platform in your niche, the more money you will make. ([Location 567](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=567)) - “If you want to get rich, target a niche. If you want to go broke, market to all the folks. ([Location 592](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=592)) - Identifying a problem in that niche market is priority #1. Creating a desired solution for that problem is priority #2. Delivering that solution for a profit to your niche market is priority #3.” ([Location 592](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=592)) - Fig. 2.1. A niche is the intersection of an industry and a skill. ([Location 604](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=604)) - A good rule of thumb is that the narrower and more specialized your niche, the more in demand you will be and the more you can charge for your writing, speaking, and other communication products and services. ([Location 605](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=605)) - • You can greatly increase the perceived value of a loose-leaf book by packaging it with a few disks containing audio, video, software, or document files. ([Location 616](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=616)) - People will pay much more for multimedia programs. ([Location 618](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=618)) - I believe that things that are truly engrossing to work on will end up better written than those aimed at grabbing a market. The writer will be clearer, more painstaking, more thorough in the writing of them. The subjects that are powerful to work on are also the ones that are going to pull the richest material up out of the unconscious. Then all that remains is the work of finding out, with the conscious mind, why things are so rich, so powerful. ([Location 630](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=630)) - Here are the ten questions you should ask yourself. As you think of the answers, write them down: • What do I like? • What am I interested in? • What am I good at? • What do I have an aptitude for? • What is my education? • What do I know? • What is my experience? • What have I accomplished? • Which of the above areas affords the least competition? • Which of the above areas pays high rates? ([Location 635](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=635)) - As Aristotle said, “Where your passions intersect with the needs of the public, therein lies your vocation.” ([Location 647](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=647)) - The smaller the niche, the more you can charge for your how-to information. Similarly, the fewer competitors you have, the more you can charge. ([Location 668](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=668)) - rule of thumb that your niche must ideally have 100,000 people in it to be profitable. ([Location 677](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=677)) - Does the industry have an association or trade journal dedicated to it? If so, you can then reach the members easily and affordably. ([Location 681](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=681)) - You can determine the volume of online searches that a keyword or phrase gets by using a variety of keyword research and discovery tools, including www.wordtracker.com and adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. ([Location 686](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=686)) - A rough guide is that you want to see 100,000 to 500,000 or more searches per month on Google. More than 100,000 means there is a healthy market of Internet people searching for information related to your topic. Much more than 500,000 means the niche may be too competitive, with the keyword being too expensive to bid on for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. ([Location 702](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=702)) - Having a “fan base”—a group of people who follow you and faithfully buy everything you write—is an important part of your success strategy as a how-to writer. And your fan base does not have to be huge for you to earn a handsome living from your how-to writing: If you have 10,000 online subscribers who spend on average just $100 buying your books and other information products a year, your annual gross income would be $1 million. ([Location 760](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=760)) - Yet reflections on inner thoughts and feelings are precisely what many writers focus on, to their detriment. ([Location 769](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=769)) - Readers should learn something they did not know before reading your book. If they already know what is in your book, but aren’t doing or using it, your writing should motivate them to put the methods and ideas into practice. ([Location 774](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=774)) - “Content” is the facts and ideas in your writing—the knowledge, strategies, and wisdom it conveys. ([Location 777](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=777)) - Information consists of facts; ([Location 779](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=779)) - Reference books largely contain information. ([Location 780](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=780)) - reference books are becoming archaic and obsolete. ([Location 787](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=787)) - Knowledge is a deeper understanding of the facts. ([Location 788](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=788)) - Wisdom helps the reader determine a course of action or a choice. ([Location 791](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=791)) - The content hierarchy—information, knowledge, wisdom—should not be obvious in your writing. ([Location 792](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=792)) - One of the main causes of poor writing I see in students is that they do not have enough information about, or mastery of, the topic they are writing about. ([Location 800](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=800)) - 1. Research and knowledge accumulation. ([Location 802](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=802)) - When you read a piece of weak writing, the likely cause is that the author either did not understand the subject, or that he did not have enough information about the subject to write a composition of the desired length. ([Location 806](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=806)) - 2. Organize your content. ([Location 810](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=810)) - 3. Teach your subject to the reader. ([Location 813](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=813)) - In fact, teaching a class is a pretty good way of assembling the content you need to write a book, manual, home study course, or other information product. ([Location 815](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=815)) - Use frequent heads and subheads to break the writing up into short sections. Use bullets and numbered lists to make the text easier to scan and read. ([Location 824](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=824)) - Writing in general and how-to writing in particular is a four-step process: (1) research and acquire knowledge, (2) organize your information, (3) present it in such a way as to effectively teach the reader, and (4) polish the writing so it is clear, crisp, and concise. ([Location 826](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=826)) - I virtually never do live interviews because they take too much time. I simply do not have the time to travel. In addition, SMEs express themselves most concisely in e-mail; somewhat concisely in phone interviews; and least concisely in live interviews. I can get as much information from an SME in a half-hour over the phone as in an hour in person. ([Location 871](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LB49II&location=871))