Most of the time when I suggest to someone that they write a report or even a book, I get a look of disbelief.

They think that you have to be someone special to be a published author.

The plus point is that this goes for most everyone – including your potential customers.

Writing a report or a book doesn’t have to be hard. You just have to be reasonably organised.

I’d suggest that you start out with a short report. Maybe somewhere between 5 and 10 pages long. That’s long enough to be worthwhile to someone getting the report but short enough for it to seem readable.

If you’re like most people, you could easily write a series of tips to help people, keep them safe from cowboys in your trade, questions they should ask before engaging someone in your trade, common pitfalls, that kind of thing.

Start by list out 7 topics (7 is always a good number!) that you could cover. If you’re stuck for ideas, either sleep on it overnight – which works well as your subconscious mind will process the ideas, just remember to make a diary note to come back to tomorrow – or do some research on the web, remembering that either way you’re just looking for topic headings.

Most people find that this part of the process takes between 15 and 30 minutes.

Then all you have to do is write approximately a page on each.

Since you know your subject, even if you’re a slow typist that shouldn’t take you more than about 30 minutes.

Don’t make this precision writing.

Write as though you were explaining each thing to someone face to face.

Which means that a chatty style is fine. So are sentence fragments and even slang if it’s well known enough.

Write about one topic a day and in a week – with 7 topics – you’re done.

Proof read your work – reading out loud is best for this and won’t take long with this length of report.

Run it through the spell checker in your word processor as well, just to find any glaring errors or typos.

Add in a cover page (maybe done on a site like Fiverr or just in a big, coloured, font in your word processor), a short copyright notice and a resource page.

It’s also worth putting your URL in the footer of each page and link it to your website. Depending on how you like to be contacted, maybe a phone number as well.

You’ve now got a 10 page report.

Export it from your word processor in PDF format.

If your word processor is as old as mine, you may not have that option, in which case download LibreOffice. It’s free and exports PDF files that are properly formatted.

Then upload the PDF to your website or get your friendly techie to do that for you.

You can either link to the report directly or you can use it to build up a list of potential customers by asking for their email address before you give them the link to the PDF. An autoresponder system like MailChimp (which starts at free) or Aweber (which is chargeable but is my preference) will work well for doing this.

Then put the email signup prominently on your website and encourage people to get your new report.

If all that writing is too much for you, sit down with a microphone and a copy of Audacity  and record your free report instead. Some people prefer audios and they’re a lot quicker to create than typing. Just make sure that you have good notes!

Once your report is done, it’s also worth getting it printed up. A short run of ten copies is fine to start with (if you’re based in the UK, I can put you in touch with a good printer for this kind of work) and won’t cost much. Then take the printed report and use it as an upmarket business card.

Longer term, I strongly recommend that you get a complete book written. You can publish your book on Kindle and also get a properly printed version done “on demand” with sites like CreateSpace.

It really helps position you as the expert in your field. And, who knows, you may even get some royalties from Amazon!

If you’d like me to write your report for your business, contact me here,