Creating Your Info Product

Whether you choose to create an ebook yourself, or hire someone else to write your ebook or program your software, you will still need certain tools to put your product together. If you are writing an ebook, you will need to consider what format you deliver it in. There are a few different standards out there.

Many ebooks come delivered in a compiled version. What this means is that you create the ebook by putting each chapter onto its own html page. You then place all of the pages in a single folder on your server. Then, select one of the many ebook compiler programs and use it to compile the ebook.

In selecting the software that you choose to use as your compiler, decide whether you want to make your book brandable or not. A brandable book is one where you allow your reader to either pass the book out for free, or one where you provide your reader with some form of redistribution rights.

To encourage the reader to redistribute your ebook, you allow the reader to include his or her own name and usually URL in the ebook. If you would really like someone to work at redistribution, consider including brandable affiliate links as well. These are things that you should carefully plan out when putting your ebook together.

Another format you can use for your ebook is the Adobe PDF format. There is no need to purchase an expensive Adobe product to do this. You can obtain a great little tool free of charge. It is called PDF 995 and its companion product, PDFEdit 995. You can get it at:

http://www.pdf995.com (make sure you get both downloads!)

This is the tool that I use. Here's how it works. Download all of the separate components to PDF995. Then, install them on your computer. Once they are installed, open up your ebook in whatever program you used to create it (usually Word or WordPad). Next, select "Print". Hit the print button. This will cause a new window to open, prompting you for a file name. Select a name for your ebook file and hit Save. If you are using the free version of PDF995, a small ad window will open. Don't worry - this only happens when CREATING a PDF file ,.. your readers will never see the ad.

Immediately after you have printed the file, you will need to open PDFEdit995. Again, you will see a short ad upon open. Once inside, this is where you can add features to the last file that you printed. You can do things like add page numbers, make hyperlinks clickable, add comments, add bookmarks, etc.

The PDF995 suite of tools is very useful in creating info products. The price is certainly right as well! I would recommend using PDF995 for all of your ebooks. You can even make brandable PDF files with a little tool called Easy PDF.

You should also be aware that you should NOT use DOC (Word) files when distributing an ebook. This is to protect the security of your work. (The only time that you would want to distribute an ebook in DOC format is if you were transferring private label rights to your purchaser.)

Here's the reason. You want to make it as difficult as possible for your reader to steal your valuable, intellectual property. You've put a lot of time and effort into your info product. It would be a shame to have it stolen. The harder you make it for someone to steal from you, the less it will happen. In fact, you should even consider disabling the right click function in your PDF document as well. This doesn't prevent people from copying the text, it just makes it more difficult.