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Friday, September 27, 2013

How Writing in the 'How To' Style Can Make You Successful!

What is the Definition of 
'How To'?

Any person, no matter his or her age, can write instructions in the ‘how to’ style.  That is basically what ‘how to’ is, a simple or difficult list of instructions telling you how to assemble, master, or do something.   

As I stated before, anyone can tell you how to do something, but is what they are feeding you the right way or their way?  Will it make you successful or just stuck deeper in the mud?

How to become an Authority!

To be an authority on the how to style, you not only have to know about something, you have to know it inside and out.  What its faults are, if it fails or not and how to get out of the situation if something goes wrong!

Yes, the how to style is very, very popular, because people don’t like to take chances, they don’t want to waste money, they want to know that they are doing it right the first and every time.

So, if you can become the authority on whatever you do whether it is:
Teaching, Writing, Photography, Computers, Playing computer games, Cooking, Child Care, Affiliate Marketing, or what you are good at, you can do it as an authority.  If you’ve been doing it for a while, and can tell others how to do it, and be successful as you have been, you can also become successful just by selling your secrets.

How to Write ‘How To’s’!

What you write has to make sense to others, as everyone will want your ‘How To’ secret so that they can try it for themselves.  If your idea is too far over some people’s heads, you run the risk of loosing sales and refunding monies.  On the other hand, if your ‘How To’ secret is written like everyone is only five years old, people will think you are talking down to them, and again you run the risk of loosing sales.

The best way to write or create your ‘How To’ secret is to write what you mean to say, and nothing more.  Think of your speech as a long and narrow railroad track.  You want to stay on topic all of the time, if you veer off, you run the risk of derailing the train and loosing customers at every turn and curve.

If you have not written anything in a while, making an outline, may help you gather your ‘How To’ thoughts to make the flow seamlessly on the written page. 

(Example:)


Idea:  I want to write a ‘how to’ on creating 3-D book covers with Gimp

Topics:
1.  How to get the Gimp Image Manipulation Program
2.  How to get a photograph that will be the bases of the book cover
3.  How to open the program, open the templates, and upload the photograph
4.  Steps to manipulate the image
5.  How to transform the image into 3-D
6.  How to add words to the image
7.  How to save the image as a photograph
8.  How to use the image, once created

Outlines, such as the one above, can help you by not allowing you to forget important facts or steps that would prevent someone from completing the task.  If I omitted step number five, my potential customers would not know how to take a 1-D image and change it into a 3-D image.  The reviews for my product would be horrible, and I would loose a lot of money.

Is Your ‘How To’s’ Based on Facts?
You also want to use proven and provable facts.  Most people don’t believe what is read just because it is printed.  Make sure you back up all of your statements with facts.  The more work that you put into creating your ‘how to’, the more believable you become in being an authority on your topic.

Double and triple check your facts.  There is nothing worse that reading something where the facts are off or just plain wrong.  Trust me, people will check the facts, even if you don’t.

Don’t just rely on the internet for your facts, look in newspapers, magazines, ask actual professionals, and reference your work with materials and cite your work.  The more facts you can stuff into your work, the more real you become, and the more real, the more believable, and they you become an authority.

Have You Edited Your ‘How To’?

Whatever you have written, developed, or created, please allow someone else, that has no ties to the project fact check your work or look for mistakes.  If it reads as if a second grader wrote it or it the program doesn’t work, you run the risk of loosing your authoritative status.

Poorly written things do not garner an authoritative status, they make you look like a fool for even attempting to get someone to purchase the product from you.

Closing Statement

If you look on Amazon, or any other bookseller’s website, you will find that ‘How To’ style of products have a much higher selling rate than other products in the same field.  It is your ultimate goal in making your ‘How To’ idea to flow easily and to make you and your customers, successful, rich, and or happy.