Info Product Faux Pas
August 13th, 2007 by Cristina Favreau
I’m biased, but I think my guidebook, Designing a Compelling 30-second Intro, is kick-ass. (Then again, what would it tell you if I didn’t think that?)
It came about from a few workshops I gave last year. I wanted to leverage those presentations by turning my script into a guidebook. However, I didn’t want it to be a simple transcription of my presentation — I wanted it to be professionally written, laid out, designed and formated so my readers would know they’ve just received a carefully thought out, high quality product. I make no money from this guidebook (it’s my free, “pink spoon” offering when signing up for my newsletter), but I was not willing to skimp on quality and content just to say I had an information product out there.
Converting my script into a high caliber written product wasn’t the job for me, so I researched different writers who could do the job. I was immediately sold when visiting Linda Dessau‘s site, so I hired her on the spot. She did an amazing job of taking what I had written (which was in my informal speech format) and turned it into something I’m extremely proud of.
Why am I telling you this?
I recently purchased an information product on how to create and leverage teleseminars. It’s a 90-minute audio/40-page ebook bundle with extra resources for $97. I have to preface this by saying, the information was complete and I received exactly what was promised — the content was great, the steps were easy to understand and the additional resources were very useful. BUT, the ebook is practically a word-for-word transcription of the audio — it’s written the way the author speaks… Plus, the ebook is riddled with errors. It wasn’t edited and “optimized” for a written product.
OK, so it was only $97 — I can’t expect to have the same quality as a $500 product… but this person claims to be a 6-figure entrepreneur. You’d think she’d have no problem paying the couple of hundred bucks to have her ebook professionally rewritten, edited and proofed; besides she would have made that money back in no time.
Speaking of more expensive products, I found the same thing in a $497 12-week self-study program. A few spelling mistakes (like “fine-tine your project”) and unclear instructions is all it takes to make me feel like I’ve been gypped.
So what I’m trying to say is, if you’re into leveraging your knowledge as much as I am by creating informational products, don’t take shortcuts, and don’t skimp on quality and content just to quickly turn something out. If you do, you’re going to pay in loss of credibility and maybe even refund requests.
What do you think? Am I being too harsh? Am I being too pretentious or overly self-righteous? Are you as sick and tired of hyped up web copy turning out low-quality (or too quickly produced) information products as me?
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Cristina:
I thought I was alone!
I have often come across the same as you – transcripts of someone’s first teleclass being sold as a stand alone product.
In fact, there are many out there who have built up their own practice by touting this exact process as the way to make money “on line”.
Unfortunately, what the eager beavers miss is exactly what you state – rather than earn income from the class, build their credibility with those who pay for their products and thereby increase their recurring sales and presence – they leave their customers feeling more like “I paid how much for this?!”
Also, the same people who provide their unedited transcripts as books also have a tendancy to offer up their unedited teleclasses as a “podcast”.
Just like a transcript is not a book or guide, recording a teleclass and posting it on line does not make it a “podcast”. A podcast is professionally produced with music, an appropriate intro, all the filler words (ums, ahs, etc.) edited out, etc.
I hope your readers realize that with the investment of a few dollars on editing – informational products can be wonderful practice building tools for service professionals.
Cheers!
Andrea Cannavina, MVA
LegalTypist, Inc.
http://www.legaltypist.com
Once again – Brilliant!! You have caused quite a rant in me, which I have posted over at my blog, and linked to you
I totally agree. I am so sick of this mega-leverage game. Now, I’m all for leverage – but it HAS to be quality.
If I’m spending money with you, I don’t want typo’s, and I don’t want something thrown together.
I agree – if you tout that you’re making that much money, spend some of it to produce something sans the typo’s and transcripts.
Well said Christina! I am fairly new to the blogging world and am learning all the time. Being faced with so many ‘experts’ out there is a challenge, and sorting the wheat from the chaff is a time consuming exercise.
I have bought several ebooks over the past few months and have also been quite overwhelmed with what is offered for free – Chris Garret’s ‘Killer Flagship Content’ – is a great example, but I too get incensed with poorly written, and overpriced material.
[...] I wanted to post about this last week, but I hadn’t finished formulating my thoughts around it quite yet – until this morning… when I received a blog post from Cristina and she just added fuel to my fire Cristina and I are definitely on the same wave-length and I ADORE her post. She talks about an info product that she purchased for $97, and it had typo’s… and some other issues. [...]