Writing Short Info Reports

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

As a home 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 people what they
want time and again. So, give them the information they crave.

Now,
e-books are a wonderful way to , but in the spirit of the Infopreneur,
short high content reports which I like to call info-reports are
perhaps even better. If formulated carefully, they can even be put to
use to literally explode the size of an opt-in list of subscribers. To
proceed you simply develop several high content short reports, targeted
at a specific market which you would 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 people will flock to subscribe.
Best of all this is a win-win situation: You pick up valuable
subscribers to interact with on a weekly basis, and your subscribers
receive valuable information from you.

So, how is it done you ask?

Report Ideas

Almost any idea you have can be 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 read correctly. I
said pen and paper. It is easier from a work perspective to sit in
front of your monitor, but past experience has taught 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 learn more. These
topics can be on anything: gardening, cooking, computer programming,
specific hobbies, construction, research, medicine, etc.

After
you have 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.
Gardening info is not targeted to the computer programming market.

Now
pick one or two topics, open a word processor, or even your notebook,
and start writing every little bit of information you know 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
some tangent about literary prose. Short, concise, and highly
informative information to guide others is what works here.

Format And Packaging

Format
is somewhat of a personal preference. But, keep computing platform in
mind. There are numerous e-book compilers, many 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
when clicked will actually open in the e-book window. One downside
however is that as far as I have been able to tell they only compile in
PC format. So, anyone with a Mac will 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 using Microsoft
Frontpage and then compile. If you want the full version without the
Easy e-Book Creator logo and with added security features, you can
purchase a license for about $20. The resulting e-book is in exe
format. e-Book Compiler also has a free trial version. I however was
not as happy with it.

PDF is essentially universal. 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 compete with Adobe in
creating a new standard. The software is free to download 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 pulling interested readers to sign up for the
e-Kinetic E-Zine. What is great about this method is that it truly is
win-win. I gain new subscribers who I get to share interact with
through the e-zine, and subscribers receive valuable information at
zero cost.

Dan J. Fry ©2004, All rights reserved

About the Author

Dan J. Fry is an independent researcher and owner of e-Kinetic.com, a site devoted to providing resources for small budget home businesses. He has a PhD in Physics and is married with two daughters and two cats. Subscribe to his free E-Zine on home 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.

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