Most everyone gives presentations. But what happens to your content after you’ve given the presentation?
Many speakers simply forget all about it—not the best idea, if you want your content to keep working for you long after your presentation.
Some print and share their slides. Others take their slides and put them on a web site. Yet in both cases, chances are that the slides are the only things reproduced—and chances are, those slides have only the bullet points, or worse, so much text on the slides that the content is hard to read, much less understand.
In any of these circumstances, the content is incomplete and presenters face an opportunity missed to be at their best with audiences and prospective clients.
How, then, should you recast and distribute your presentations in an easily accessible, readable format that takes context into account?
Many people today are taking their presentations and turning them into e-books. These e-books, when finished, can be easily sold through such sources as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Lulu, or Smashwords. They are often made into PDFs that serve as loss leaders or are sold directly through your web site.
Presentations turned into e-books can serve your business in several ways.
1. They use content already created, saving research and development time.
The research you’ve conducted, the content you’ve created, all come into play when converting your presentation into an e-book. You just take what you’ve got—you might need to add to the content, depending on the timing—and make the conversion.
2. They establish your authority on your subject matter.
Suppose a prospective client or boss asks you about your knowledge in a given skill, such as web site design, and you’ve given a presentation on the topic. You can send your converted e-book to demonstrate your expertise.
3. They can serve as a revenue source.
Many writers use e-books as a passive revenue source. That is, they write the e-book, post it on one or more web sites for sale, and then promote it.
In the second part of this article, I’ll discuss the process by which you can turn your presentation into an e-book.
