Resources to Help You Write Faster
Writing your book doesn’t mean you have to come up with tons of brand new content. Most online entrepreneurs already have a large collection of material they can draw from, they just don’t know it. Before you start work on your book, roll up your sleeves and start looking through your archives.
Start with old blog posts or articles you’ve written previously. Is the information evergreen? Could you tweak it just a little to fit with the theme of the book you’re writing? Are there points in your article that you’d love to expand on?
If you find a few you like, then use those old blog posts. These can save you hours of time writing your content. Even if you decide to rewrite an old post, you’ll still have the bones of your next chapter already outlined for you.
Don’t stop with your blog posts, though. Look through your old podcast or radio episodes. Did you interview an expert and get some quotes that would be helpful to readers? Did your rant on a certain topic inspire your listeners to share their own thoughts? That’s even more book fodder!
Once you’re done with your podcast, re-watch some of your old videos. These videos may be on websites like YouTube or Vimeo. Or perhaps it’s newer content that you recently shared in your Facebook Live videos.
Take notes as you watch so you’ll know what you want to salvage from each podcast or video. Be sure to list the source for your own records (e.g. from Facebook Live Video on 9/13/2017). This helps you save time if you need to review your previous content.
Next, look around at events you’ve participated in. Did you give a popular presentation during a webinar? Was your speech at a local networking event met with rave reviews? Were people impressed by your information?
These are all signs that you shared some awesome content. You can use this content again while writing your book. But if your content was part of someone else’s event, you may need to talk to that person before you use your previous remarks.
For example, if you were the presenter during a webinar for Jill, you could say, “Hey Jill! I had a blast doing the webinar with you last summer. With your blessing, I’d like to use this content in my upcoming book.”
Most event hosts won’t be bothered by the fact you’re using previous content. In fact, they may be delighted to see you repurposing your awesome content to share with even more people.
There’s another type of content that some online entrepreneurs like to use when writing their book. This is private label rights (PLR) content. If you’re not familiar with it, PLR content is content that’s specially licensed so an online entrepreneur can use it as if he/she wrote it.
However, be careful about using PLR content in a book. Some publishers, such as Amazon’s Kindle program, don’t want this type of content. If you don’t plan on publishing your e-book with Amazon, you can still use PLR and go on to publish your e-book on other platforms.
Don’t get bogged down by thinking you have to write hundreds of pages of new content. Instead, look around for resources you’ve already created and see if you can repurpose them for your upcoming book.