MacGyver Revisited: New ways to create information products for your book promotion

Remember MacGyver? He was the guy who could defuse a nuclear bomb with a paperclip and some used chewing gum. Even if you weren’t a fan of the TV show, or Mac’s mullet hairdo, channel your inner MacGyver to create a few new products from your book.

I tackled this topic a few years ago in another blog post called What Would MacGyver Do? Now, there’s even more ways you can promote your book and make a few bucks selling compatible info products.

The advantage to creating smaller products is that you are leveraging work you’ve already done but making it available in smaller amounts and different formats. This allows you to reach a wider audience of people who may not be ready or interested in getting expertise in book form.

You can sell these products on your website or give them away to promote your book or build your mailing list. Have you created a report or an ebook under 100 pages? Sell or give it away on Amazon’s Kindle Store – with a nice promotion and link to your book at the end of the report.

Producing video interviews and hosting webinars used to be an expensive endeavor. Instead, check out hosting webinars  or stage an interview on Google+ Hangouts. Public hangouts can be recorded and uploaded to your YouTube account. All you need to do to complete your promotion is embed the video on your website and social media profiles.

Sometimes, simple is best when it comes to an information product. For a quick and easy pdf product you can sell or giveaway from your website —

• Use software you already have – Microsoft Word, free PDF converter software, Powerpoint and maybe some used chewing gum and a paper clip. (Okay, I made up the part about the gum and the paper clip.)
• Content could be –
  • Excerpts from your finished book
  • A resource list you compiled while you were researching your topic
  • A tip sheet you compile from material from your book
  • Radio interviews or video interviews you stage yourself
  • A research paper that relates to your topic.
  • Teleseminars or webinars you host on your topic.
  • An instructional DVD

Your delivery system could be to provide a link to a hidden page via autoresponder, or a shopping cart plugin (if you’re using WordPress for your site.)

Think: What would my audience find useful that complements my book? And how can I use it to spread the word about my book? Happy McGyver-ing!

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