Collecting Ideas For Your Online E-Book Business
If you're going to have a successful online information
marketing (e-Book) business, you have to have something to
market, and usually that something begins in the form of an
idea.
Ideas can be like fireflies on a hot summer night. You never
know where they're going to be when they light up, and you can
only hope that you'll be in the right place to catch it when it
comes your way. But unlike fireflies, you can greatly improve
your odds of catching the random great idea by preparing for it
and being ready to catch it at any time.
Once an idea flits through your cranium, you've got to do
something with it or it will die before it gets out of your
head. You may feel like you don't have enough ideas, or at least
that you never have any ideas worth marketing. But
realistically, most people have more and better ideas than they
give themselves credit for. Usually the problem is that you
don't realize when a usable idea is going through your head. You
can't let any ideas slip by without recording them, because you
never know which one will be the big one.
That's why you have to catch them on the fly as they happen. If
you don't, then they will probably be gone forever. You might
think that you can keep them in your head and remember them
later, but if you're like most other humans on this planet,
something will come up before the end of the day that will bump
that million-dollar idea off the top of the heap. Then before
you know it the most important thing rumbling around in your
head is your grocery list.
You need a way of harvesting or collecting your ideas as they
happen. I usually carry a small notebook around with me wherever
I go. Of course you need a pencil or pen too! Or, you could join
the 21st century and keep your ideas on a palm or pocket pc or
one of the many small electronic devices that's all the rage
these days. Each method has it's advantages and disadvantages.
The benefit of the electronic method is that once you've jotted
your ideas down you can easily transfer them to your workstation
or laptop without having to type them all in again. One word of
caution, though...keep your batteries fresh (or charged), and
keep your device synced so you won't lose all those great ideas.
The benefit of the paper method is obvious...no batteries, no
back-ups, and no operating system to learn. Personally, even
though I'm a big fan of technology on my desk and in my home,
I've found that I'm quite the luddite when it comes to
electronics that I have to carry around. So for me at least, it
will always be the pen and paper.
Once you get in the habit of jotting down all the ideas that
come through your head, you'll be surprised at how many ideas
you actually have. Granted, most of them won't really end up
going anywhere, but like everything, it's a numbers game...the
more you have, the better your chances of coming up with a
winner. Even the princess had to kiss a lot of frogs before she
found the prince! Sometimes your ideas will come faster than you
can jot them down, which is frustrating, but you have to look at
the big picture: at least you're recording some of your ideas
now, which is way better than how it used to be.
You'll find that ideas began to come more easily, because now
you're on the lookout for them. Common everyday occurances that
used to just slip by unnoticed can become the catalyst for the
next idea that might just be the big one. Plus, once you're in
the habit of paying attention to your creative side, you might
find that sometimes multiple ideas will begin to ping-pong
around in your head and synthesize into a single winner of an
idea.
And after all, isn't that what it's all about...catching the
million-dollar idea?
Till next time...Success to you!
-Ted