Research forms the major part of my working day, indeed I spend far less time writing than I do surfing the internet for material to support my scribbling.

Delivering good quality content and copy requires good research. I frequently read articles that demonstrate a clear lack of understanding of the subject matter, and this comes through even with those pieces on subjects I have practically no familiarity with to begin with. If I can identify a poorly researched piece of writing then so can other readers. If you are seeking to persuade a reader to adopt your point of view, or indeed, buy a product or service, then you need to deliver well researched content.

So as far as I can see, I have a two-fold imperative - I must deliver content that is credible and reads like I know what I'm writing about (even if I don't) and secondly, I need to keep the time it takes to perform the research under control as it eats into valuable writing time.

Adopting a disciplined approach to conducting research will help you get the bones of what you need out of your efforts for minimal time spent doing it. Though my research is almost 100% internet based, I try not to fall into the routine of surfing the same old sources time after time. Wikipedia and Google are my mainstays for research, but it does not hurt to venture further afield and look at other resources that are available on a topic. This is like walking a tightrope as you can easily succumb to the temptation to follow links through to other resources, chasing the research tiger's tail, and satisfying personal curiosity rather than getting what you need to deliver the goods.

Research is also not just about getting acquainted with the subject matter, fact checking or looking for an idea; it is also about getting your references, if you are using them, so you can avoid being labelled a plagiarist. I always have my hardback notebook by my keyboard whenever I'm conducting research so I can jot down references and provide a citation where necessary. Don't be afraid to quote someone else's work, especially if you are using a medical or scientific study to support why your readers should buy XYZ product; this is as much about lending your message credibility as your writing.

Another tip; always keep your research. My clients come back repeatedly, and more often than not they want another 10,000 words on "Why Your Business Needs a Merchant Account" or whatever it is that they are promoting. Arranging your files so you keep research that supports your writing saves you having to go hunt for it all over again.

Research is a very satisfying activity, but I have to remind myself continuously why I am performing research or waste time. Jobs like the one just completed are fantastic both in terms of the pay and the subject matter, but unless someone is going to pay me to be a full-time researcher at these rates, tomorrow is another day hitting the keyboard and delivering 10,000 words on hotels in Thailand.

Related posts:

1. Monday, Monday !
2. Generating Interesting Articles and Titles – Part One

I'm scoping out a project which is a personal one, indeed a deeply personal matter which I sincerely believe needs to be told.

The medium I have chosen to put this story together with is an eBook.

eBooks are cheap to produce and to prepare and this probably accounts for the huge number of works that are produced. As a ghost writer of some of these dubious works, I've been paid anything between $150 to $1,000 for works ranging in size from 10,000 to 25,000 words. Given that an advertisement in a local paper can cost a business anything from £30 for a small inch by inch box on tomorrows fish and chip wrapper and in this light, paying £100 is chicken feed for something someone can put their own name on and claim as their own.

If you wish to promote yourself as an "expert" on anything, write about it and even better, write a book on it.

An eBook gives you a great deal of kudos out of all proportion to what actually goes into it. This is why it is very common to see free eBook giveaways on web sites as they are a very powerful marketing tool in establishing credibility very cheaply.

Like any other piece of work, you need to plan it out and research your subject matter. The time required is going to increase substantially if you are to do this properly compared to writing a series of articles running along the same theme. You'll need to take this into account when considering delivery times for yourself or your client.

Structure takes a greater significance with eBook writing and here's why I think that is.

A friend of mine is currently getting crispy with the fires in California but when he's not putting out fires, he's a writer/director/actor with some decent credits to his name. My sprogs think he's "Da Bomb" because he played a Klingon in the Star Trek The Next Generation series but he's also handled film. Josef believes that while film making is exciting because you have the kudos associated with putting a film in the can, he prefers a series when dealing with more interesting subject matter. With film, you get 90 minutes to tell your story but with a series (or season as he calls them) you get 60 minutes to deal with a chapter and typically 12 episodes to tell the complete story.

So, if you have 1,000 words to tell the story of Hoodia Gordonii then you are going to have to gloss over the interesting bits of the story and focus on what it does and why the reader should buy it. If you get 10,000 words to tell the Hoodia story you can cover what it is, who first used it, how the discovery was brought to the west, the effect it has and the problems it may solve and the problems it may create, how this has affected the indigenous people who control it...

The main issue to address is identifying the salient points of your story around which the chapters will form themselves and organising them sequentially so, just as paragraphs should flow one to the next, so do the chapters. This does not mean that you have to write in a sequential order and frequently I write the last chapter first and work towards it.

Writing an eBook takes more time than keybashing out 40 articles on Thailand or whatever the topic is. I find I need to plan my writing time in a more structured way in order not to become stale with the subject matter and to avoid running into that scribbling brick wall known as writers block. That does not mean to say that when the juices are flowing I don't get stuck in because I do but tackling 30,000 words is not something you do in leap and a bound. You really need to discipline yourself far more than churning out the odd article for mass consumption.

Publishing an eBook is pretty simple stuff. Simply convert your completed document to a PDF format and there you have it. You need to be sure of the layout, though I rarely use pictures unless the client instructs otherwise and make sure the work is proofed and edited before conversion. One tip for all the Microsoft Word users; I have found that performing the PDF conversion from MS Word leads to some formatting errors in the completed product. An easy way to get around this is to write your eBooks using Open Office which is a free download and provides you with all the functionality of Word and MS Office (I use it almost exclusively now). Converting an Open Office document to a PDF seems to avoid all the nasty little problems with spacing, unwanted character insertions and so on that I experienced with Word. You can find the download here at www.openoffice.org and as I said, it is completely free and gives a Microsoft office experience without the price tag or problems.

Now you have the eBook produced what are you going to do with it?

Most of the time that will be a question for your client who has commissioned the piece and honestly, I have not a clue yet as to how I will market my own work. Perhaps that is a topic for a future posting.

Related posts:

1. Producing Information Products – eBooks
2. Writing the Professional Project Proposal
3. Writing the Dynamite Project Proposal