Have you ever thought about writing an e-book? No, not fiction. They don’t sell well in ebook format. But an information product?

Whatever your skill is, thereare probably people out there who need to learn it. From actuaries to zoologists, and all points between, you have a skill worth sharing with others.

About 30 years ago, when the computerized age was really taking off, someone said that information would be the new currency. They weren’t entirely wrong. Information is now something we spend our currency on. We are more educated now, in this generation, than we have ever been at any point in history. People in their 30’s and 40’s are still in school, getting graduate and post graduate degrees.

The rest of us attend workshops and seminars, take classes and e-courses. We read so voraciously that books are no longer a luxury – we now have big-box bookstores.

People want to learn.

If you can impart some kind of skill, wisdom or hack to them in simple terms they can understand, you can sell that information.

The Well-Fed Self Publisher will guide you through the steps of creating your informational product and marketing it to the world at large.

I wrote more about Peter Bowerman and his brilliant books here. Check out his free report to get started and earn that extra holiday cash right away!

Putting together, marketing and selling an ebook or a print on demand book can be tough, because you’re the only employee in the publishing house. You don’t have PR professionals at your disposal, there’s no agent to fall back on for advice – you’re totally on your own.

Peter Bowerman wrote The Well Fed Writer and marketed it on his own. He made a fortune. I have a copy, and if you aren’t hoping for failure, you should too.

That said, he also has a book called The Well-Fed Self-Publisher which chronicles how he made a living selling The Well Fed Writer. He offers a free report to whet your appetite, if self-publishing is something you’ve been considering.

I bought The Well Fed Self Publisher in ebook format. Again, for the same reason I mentioned above – no extra costs, just the book. Yes it takes a while to get used to reading on the computer, but it’s worth it for the money you save, trust me.

Anyway, check out The Well-Fed Self-Publisher . If you’ve been thinking about it, stop putting it off and DO SOMETHING about it!!

The Web Articles:

• 50 Tips to Improve Your Writing
• Recipe for Blog Success (tasty!)
• Is Online Education More Effective than Traditional Learning?

The Books:

• How to Eat Like a Hot Chick (I’ve read this a dozen times)
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – the only way Austen is palatable to me
• Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom
• The Well-Fed Writer Book – second reading (Bowerman also offers a “ The Well-Fed Self-Publisher Book ” book

It’s back to school time. What’s on your reading list?

So why can’t I just finish this last little bit and start marketing the damn thing?

I’m bored. You see, I’m 32 years old and have moved 30 times. I have written these checklists out longhand dozens of times. I mean, that’s the whole reason I wrote the guide – I know this stuff by rote, and want to pass the knowledge on. Yet when I think of writing it all down again, and doing all the pretty-pretty formatting stuff, I want to cut my eyes out.

So I’m breaking it down. Overall it will take me a little longer to get the e-book finished (though not as long as completely shutting it down, as has been the case), but it will in fact get done.

Today I will make an un-formatted, brainstormed, badly spelled jumble of a list. I will take one hour in which to do this.

Tomorrow I will take one hour to make it pretty.

Wednesday I will take one hour to revise.

Thursday and Friday I will take one hour each day to tie the whole thing up. Over the weekend I will do the cover and convert to PDF. Next week I will begin the marketing.

I will get through this, and I will help other people by completing it. I just have to keep telling myself that.

By the way, many thanks to Tammy from A Mom and Her Blog for the site redesign. Go check her out if you’re in the market for a fresh new blog.

Anyway, it was a Thursday afternoon around 2 o’clock. The bookstore was full. It wasn’t a deep downtown mall location – I live uptown. The high schools hadn’t let out yet by that hour. And the people in the store weren’t just browsing to stay out of the cold, either. There was a line at the till.

What is driving all these people to spend their scarce dollars on books and magazines?

Hope.

President Obama does not hold the trademark on hope. Biz books on managing finances and starting a home based business are flying off the shelves. Books about investing and recovering your investments are gaining popularity.

Books from the bookstore are expensive, yet people are still buying books en masse. Think about that from an internet perspective… If you are marketing e-books with this same investing and home business information, you are selling them for probably half the price of a book from Indigo or Barnes & Noble, and you are getting more profits on each sale than you would be if you sold your book in a bookstore.

Day after day people are scouring the internet looking for jobs, business ideas and most of all hope. Is your marketing in line with today’s needs?

Santa was kind enough to bring me the BlackBerry Pearl I wanted, in pink naturally. Of course, for whatever reason it hasn’t arrived yet, and Santa gets testy when I keep nagging him about it. With any luck I’ll have it tomorrow.

As per my post here on working over the holidays, I’m getting lots accomplished.

Squidoo: I have three pages on various topics already. My dog, free speech in Canada, and Top 10 Valentine’s Day Gifts. As I learn more about Squidoo my pages will be more detailed and my subject matter will be more streamlined. For now I’m just getting my bearings, though I’m rather proud of the Valentine’s Day one.

Relocation Book: Work continues apace. I have added 4 more pages in the last two days, chock full of tips for making any short or long distance move as stress-free as possible.

I have also been able to do some client work in the past couple of days. I mean, since I was stuffed with turkey and unable to move from the couch anyway, it seemed like the perfect time to get a few things done!

I am also thinking about resolutions. I’m not a big resolution maker. Life is too important to save up all your big decisions till January 1. However, now might be a good time to do some business evaluation, seeing as I’ve only been full-time freelancing since August. What began as a hobby became a business, and there are always resolutions that can be out into place.

So as I complete my shareholder meeting of one, I will update you.

As a rule, I don’t like to work on the weekends – who does? However, in my corporate life, I was often called in on weekends to work on large projects. I wasn’t even paid overtime for it. So why would I begrudge putting the hours in for my own clients and my own business?!

I know that the first 6 months-1 year of running your own business is meant to be tough. It is – it’s really tough. However I’m finding resources that not only help me in a step-by-step way, but in a sustain-my-spirit kind of way. When I get frustrated, I go back to resources like Web Writer’s Guide to help me find a new angle and get my heart rate back to normal!

What resources do you use?

In Jennifer Mattern’s Web Writer’s Guide, she details how to draft a business plan for yourself as a freelance writer.

Included in the list of things your plan should cover:

• Your goal
• Your mission
• Your target market
• Budget
• Income projections

I will admit that before reading all this I hadn’t thought much about a plan for my business. I just kind of went with the flow. But by doing that, I wasn’t paying attention to how much I had to be making at a minimum to survive, and I sure as heck wasn’t charging what I should have been based on that information. Not only that, but I didn’t plan for downtime like Christmas and other non-working days.

Her guide provides a basic business plan outline to work towards, along with many other templates to help you set up your freelance writing business. For $37 it was one of the best purchases I made. Maybe even better than the business cards!

I admit that I’m not great at outline writing. When it comes to fiction, I have a tendency to just sit down and hope for the best! However, this year I’ve decided it might be in my best interests to get a few ideas on paper before November 1.

As for my e-book, I think it’s close to half done. I will be offering a few extras beforehand, too, like a list on how to search for an apartment.

What are y’all working on this weekend?