Writing Short Content Reports

People want information, they want it quick, oft in short form, and straight to the point. Its no wonder that they go straight for a computer connected to the cyberspace to find thing from how to grow tomatoes to choosing a web host.

As a house business owner, this "information revolution" as I like to call it, is only to your benefit. After all, you are in the business of trying to give folk what they want time and again. So, give them the information they crave.

Now, e-books are a extraordinary way to , but in the spirit of the Infopreneur, short high content reports which I like to call info-reports are maybe even as better. If developed carefully, they can even as be put to use to virtually explode the size of an opt-in list of subscribers. To proceed you just develop several high content short reports, targeted at a specific market which you would-be like to add to your subscriber base, and give it away free just for subscribing to your newsletter. With content, and the word "free", many a folk wish flock to subscribe. Better of all this is a win-win situation: You pick up valuable subscribers to move with on a weekly basis, and your subscribers obtain valuable information from you.

So, how is it done you ask?

Report Ideas

Almost any idea you have can be ready-made into a short report. However, not every idea is in demand.

Try this out.

Sit down with pen and paper in a quite location. Yes, you see correctly. I aforementioned pen and paper. It is easier from a activity perspective to sit in front of your monitor, but past experience has educated me that the creative side of my brain works better with pen and paper. Of course it is up to what ever works for you.

Now, write down a short list of topics that you are semi-familiar with. I say "semi" because you can always perform a bit of research to discover more. These topics can be on anything: gardening, cooking, computer programming, specific hobbies, construction, research, medicine, etc.

After you have ready-made your list, weed out the topics that are not associated with your business. For instance, if your business is computer programming, you probably don't want to focus on creating a short report on gardening. The reasoning here is to target your market. Agriculture content is not targeted to the computer programming market.

Now pick one or two topics, open a word processor, or even as your notebook, and start writing every little bit of information you cognize on the subject.

Putting It Together

I recommend structuring your report similar to a book report. Remember writing those in school? Why a book report? The focus here is short and informative. This isn't creative writing. You don't want to go off on several tangent just about literary prose. Short, concise, and extremely informative information to manual others is what works here.

Format And Packaging

Format is somewhat of a personal preference. But, support computing platform in mind. There are many e-book compilers, many a free, that can be used to create a small exe file of your report. The advantage here is that it can be created in web page format and then compiled with links that once clicked wish really open in the e-book window. One side however is that as far as I have been able to tell they only compile in PC format. So, anyone with a Mac wish not be able to view the file.

I have used Easy e-Book Creator for several short reports. It is simple and easy to use. I create the pages in Html format mistreatment Microsoft Frontpage and then compile. If you want the full version without the Easy e-Book Creator trademark and with additional safety features, you can purchase a license for just about $20. The ensuant e-book is in exe format. e-Book Compiler as well has a free trial version. I however was not as happy with it.

PDF is au fond universal. Simply just about anyone these days can open a pdf. The problem is that pdf file creators are rather pricey. An alternative is the Microsoft Reader plug-in for Word. Microsoft is attempting to contend with Adobe in creating a new standard. The code is free to transfer from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/reader/developers/downloads/rmr.asp .

Distribution

After all else is done, its time to get your report to market. Now, there is not a single definitive way to do this. I use e- zine advertising, classified ads, pay-per-click, and traffic exchanges to advertise short reports in the hopes of actuation interested readers to sign up for the e-Kinetic E-Zine. What is great just about this know-how is that it truly is win-win. I gain new subscribers who I get to share move with through the e-zine, and subscribers obtain valuable information at zero cost.

Dan J. Fry ©2004, All rights reserved

About The Author

Dan J. Fry is an independent investigator and owner of e-Kinetic.com, a site devoted to providing resources for small budget house businesses. He has a PhD in Physics and is wedded with two daughters and two cats. Subscribe to his free E-Zine on house business resources at mailto:e-kinetic@GetResponse.com or by visiting his Infopreneur site at http://www.e-kinetic.com. He can be reached at mailto:comp@e-kinetic.com.

This article was denote on Gregorian calendar month 01, 2004