Make More Money From Your Ideas

"How do I get articles written on my topic? I've written the outlines of some articles, but I don't have time to write them out in full."

Use a service like elance.com to find writers.

I've never had Elance writers do articles, but I have had them write entire e-books for me. The going rate seems to be about US$8-10 per page. So for 15 articles, you're looking at about US$150, though I would be tempted to set a budget of US$200 to get a higher quality response.

If you go to Elance.com, browse the projects and search for articles, you'll see a whole bunch of other projects listed here. Use them as a model for writing your bid.

Attach your article outlines as part of the bid, so that the writers can see what you have written already, and can base your bid on that.

Say something like "300-400 word articles" or "one-page articles" so they know the length.

When you do choose somebody, ask them to feed the articles to you as they write them, so that you can review them as you go and keep track of progress.

Elance.com is a wonderful resource for suppliers in a variety of areas.

Labels: articles, outsourcing

"To have an audio file transcribed does it need to be in mp3 format or will a wav file be acceptable?"

The challenge with wav files is that they tend to be very big, which means that they take a long time to transfer to your transcriber.

For example, I recorded a 1-hour mentoring session today that was 60Mb as a wav file, and only 9Mb when I converted it to MP3. The wav file would take me a couple of hours to upload, even on broadband.

Labels: mp3, outsourcing, writing

"How will I create and maintain my site effectively if I am already "too busy" in my retail store front with the public?"

You can't. You won't. And you shouldn't.

Running an effective Web site takes time. It's not enough to simply slap it up, put it on the Net and hope for the best. You have to be driving people to it (either from your retail store or from other places on the Net), converting them to customers, and constantly monitoring its progress.

I'm not saying that this is a full-time job - far from it - but it does require some time.

If you'd like to get started, forget about the Web site for now and just publish a really, really good e-mail newsletter. Build up a database of subscribers and e-mail them regularly. You'll get more value from this than from building a Web site and then abandoning it.

Labels: e-mail newsletter, outsourcing, Web strategy

"I heard you say that you have your transcriptions done through elance. I have a 40MB mp3 file, but wouldn’t that be too big to email to someone? Wouldn’t it take forever even on broadband, which I have?"

Yes, that IS too big for e-mail!

What I do with mine is to upload it to my Web site and then send a private link to whoever is doing the transcription.

Another option is if the transcriber allows you to upload files to THEIR Web site. One person I worked with had a private upload area set up, and I just transferred the files there for her to retrieve.

I'm sure that most people who do this regularly will come across this issue a lot, and will have SOME way of handling it. So when you submit your job request on elance, I suggest you mention this issue.

Finally, if all else fails, use www.dropload.com.

Labels: outsourcing