This week we take a look at creating eProducts. Information products are an excellent way to increase and diversify your income and with the new technologies like LightScribe, it's easier than ever to produce professional looking physical products right from your home computer.

~Gregory

March 13,  2008

Gregory A. Kompes, Editor

ISSUE #169

Writer’s Pen & Grill (Las Vegas, NV) is a social networking evening for writers. Meets the 4th Wednesday of the month at 6:30 PM. Open to all. Visit http://www.PenandGrill.com for location and details.  Next Writer’s Pen & Grill meeting, March 26th.

Clark County Fair (Logandale, NV): Gregory joins a group of Las Vegas authors hawking their work at the Clark County Fair. April 10-13

Las Vegas Writer’s Conference (Las Vegas, NV): Gregory will present Internet ACE: Online Self Promotion. April 17-19.

Internet ACE: Online Self-Promotion with Gregory A. Kompes — learn how build, brand, and expand your writing career using Internet Technology during this 10 week, interactive, online course. Begins May 5, 2008. $147. Register Today!

Willamette Writer’s Conference (Portland, OR) Gregory will present Internet ACE: Online Self Promotion. August 1-3.

Most writers need to create several, diverse income streams if they hope to make a living from putting words on the page. While your main source of income may come from freelance, business, and article writing, there are other options for improving your income: eProducts.

If you're a niche topic writer, creating eProducts is an easy leap. What are eProducts? Sometimes called Information Products, eProducts are eBooks, White Papers, and Special Reports. eProducts are brief collections of information that range from just a few pages to less than a hundred pages. The information they contain fills a need or answer questions for your niche market readers. Best of all, it's possible to recycle a lot of the research and writing that you've already done for other projects into eProducts.

Once created, you can make eProducts available on your website for purchase and immediate download. After you write and set them up on your online sales portal eProducts will begin creating a new income stream for you. I won't claim that you'll be able to quit your day job if you have an eProduct line, but I can tell you that my own eProducts create a steady, ongoing income stream. (For a start to finish process for creating eProducts check out my eBook: Should You Write an eBook.)

Some buyers prefer physical products. Physically publishing a printed version of your eProducts can be expensive and time consuming. An easier option is to make your eProducts available on CD. Physical product fulfillment will involve a bit more ongoing time commitment. You'll need to burn your eProducts to a CD and create packaging, not to mention making those trips to the post office to send off your products to customers. I enjoy making those post office trips because I know I'm making money from them. And, with the advent of the LightScribe technology, it's gotten very easy to create professional looking CD art and covers. LightScribe allows you to turn your CDs over in your disk drive and burn cover art right on the CD itself. (See this week's Fabulist Flash Recommends for more information on LightScribe.)

By recycling your article writing and research into eProducts, there's no reason you can't easily begin creating your own helpful and profitable product line.

LightScribe

LightScribe-enabled disc drives do double duty. The same laser that burns your data (photos, music, backup files, etc.) will also laser-etch your customized CD/DVD labels. Simply burn your data like normal. Then, remove, flip, and reinsert your disc back into the drive. For more information and free templates and software visit the LightScribe website. My favorite external LightScribe disc drive is HP DVD1040. It’s a bargain at under $60!

Includes: External dvd1040e drive with DVD+-R/+-RW with DVD+-R up to 20x, double layer recording, DVD-RAM, and LightScribe direct disc labeling, Software CD including electronic user's guide,? Quick-Start placemat, Getting Help guide, USB 2.0 cable, Power supply. This external drive can Record to all major formats (+-R/+-RW, DVD-RAM, CD-R/RW), plus use LightScribe, on a single drive

You’ll also need LightScribe enabled CDs.

1. Did you choose the writing profession or did it choose you?
It chose me.

2. What is your background? (education, work, etc.)
My college major was history. I attended the University of New Mexico, College of St. Joseph on the Rio Grande and Western States University College of Law. I have worked in the banking and insurance industries and as a motel manager.

3. When did you ‘know’ you were a writer?
I think I’ve always known. Before I could write I made up stories for my amusement.

4. How would you describe your style of writing?
I wouldn’t.

5. What is your writing process?
I write.

6. What was your path to publication?
I wrote for years sending in manuscripts and getting rejections. I joined South West Writers and RWA. I kept writing.

7. What is your favorite self-marketing idea?
I have none.

8. What are the biggest surprises you’ve encountered as a writer?
That the publishers do little if any promoting and the writer needs to do promotion.

9. How do you inspire yourself? What are your sources of creativity?
I have no idea. I just write.

10. What is your proudest writer moment?
I think having my first book accepted. Also, first fan letter from a reader who enjoyed my work,and my book Memory and Desire winning a FAR-Award: Book of the Year 2005 from Wings.

11. What’s the best advice you were given about writing?
Never pay anyone to read your manuscript.

12. What is your most embarrassing writer moment?
This is yet to come. But perhaps when I e-mailed the book editor of the Albuquerque Journal and asked him if he’d mention my boob signing. I hit the send button just as I noticed my typo.

13. What business challenges have you faced as a writer?
Promoting myself.

14. What is your writer life philosophy?
Some people will like my work and others may not.

15. When you’re not writing what do you do for fun?
My husband and I like to travel, I enjoy the penny slots once in a while, used to do a lot of downhill skiing, naturally I love to read and I like needlework. I enjoy playing Euchre with my friends.

16. Who do you like to read?
Nelson De Mille, Jane Smiley, Sandra Dallas, Robert Crais, my long-time favorites: Nora Lofts, Anya Seton, Ayn Rand, Kenneth Follett, Thomas Costain. Colleen McCullough, Susan Howatch and Kenneth Roberts.

17. What’s your advice for new writers?
Write, write, edit and write again.

18. What are you currently working on?
I’m just putting the finishing touches on a novel that goes back and forth between the present and 1484-1487 that I’ve named Wydecombe Manor. I’ve also started a contemporary, actually two contemporaries, working titles: Ties That Bind and A Pleasant Diversion, and I expect the galleys for my historical Daughter of Spain any day.

Bibliography & URL

ISSN 1554-0804

Are you a published author? Take the 18Q today!

Patchwork Path: Grandma’s Choice Deadline: March 31, 2008. Choice Publishing Group  is looking for original stories and essays up to 2000 words about and by grandmothers and the choices they make. Each submission will be reviewed and considered based on creativity, originality, concept, and style. Reading will be continuous and submissions will be considered as they arrive. Not all works will be accepted. There is NO Entry or Reading Fee.
http://www.patchworkpath.com

Queer Collection: Prose & Poetry 2009 Deadline: December 31, 2008. Pays upon publication. Looking for creative original prose and poetry by and for a gay, lesbian, bi, transgender, and queer (GLBTQ) audience.  Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry will be considered. http://www.queercollection.com