WANTED: Your Participation - The info in this post could make you money

Michael,

Thanks for bringing up a great point.

Also, I feel much of the ideas concentrate too much on What to do and not actually How to do it.

For example: In Skips Free Report he wrote "Use a software program to get the misspellings of those two phrases and use all of them for your keyword list in your PPC campaign."

That is WHAT to do - good What, but still What. HOW do I do this? Who knows? I don't know what this software is called, where to find it, how to search for it, nothing. And so I end up coming off the rails at that point. I know WHAT to do but not HOW.

I agree with you about the "What" and the "How" but let's look at this from the writer's view.

I don't know about others but when I write a report almost every sentence lends itself to the question should I expand on this point. In fact just the point you make above "Use a software program to get the misspellings of those two phrases and use all of them for your keyword list in your PPC campaign." I though about expanding on when I wrote it.

I have to decide what to expand on and what not to expand on otherwise my report gets out of control. I mean I could start every report with how to search the web, how to copy and paste, etc. I have to decide on Who my target market is and write to that crowd. On the point above I thought instead of expanding I could put a link to the information. But that again causes problems by taking the reader away from the report and breaks the flow of the report. ( I know what you might say to that statement. Skip, what is more important the flow of the report or giving me the information I need.)

In most of my reports I try to answer the questions that I think might arise in the readers mind but cannot do that for every level of every person.

Not that one report as much as other reports I write. I wrote that as a quick answer to a post and was not trying to "Tell All". In most reports I try to include the information needed and balance it with what the reader needs to do on their own. If I answered every question to every level the report would not make much sence to me or the reader. And to leave a link to every question would make the report boorrring by them flipping back and forth.

I do leave a lot of links in most of my reports to answer questions and give the information they need and at the end of ALL my reports I ask them to email me if they have a question. Then I take the questions I get the most and update the report to include the answers.

But you would be suprised to know the number of emails I get asking questions. About 1 out of every 500 reports I sell. You see even if I don't answer the question of "how" on one point I give them a source to get that answered. All they have to do is ASK. I have also over looked a "how" question in my reports because of what you say: The writer "Knows the answer and is taking it for granted that all others do to".

When that happens to a reader, if they are really interested in making the program work, they should contact the author and ASK. It help the writer to update the report which will answer the how question to future purchasers.

To balance the report with the readers level is a hard thing to do for me anyway. I try to include the most information on the nuts and bolts of the idea and Yes I do gloss over some points. My Bad. I will have to do better in the future with the help of my readers.

I have some reports on my computer that will most likely never see the light of day because of this very problem. I have wrote so much to make it so detail that the reports have gotten out of control and I would have to charge much more for a report that started as a $10 report. Which means, I will price the report out of the reach of my core customer.

Luckly these out of reach reports are on subjects that I love to talk and write about so I enjoyed every minute of it.

Anyway that is the view from my side of things. I write to my market which I believe is like the knowledgable Sowpubbers here that know the finer technques of searching the web. That way if I mess up and don't give the how details they can do the research on their own and get the answers. If not Please, Please ask.

Best of success,

Skip Rosell