OK, so now we're going to look at the actual creation of the "innards" of this Iridology eBook.
First question you may have is - so where do I get the information I need to write from? I'm sure you've heard of Google. It's the world's top search engine. Let's say we want everything Google can find on Iridology. You can go to www.google.com and type in "iridology" - use all small letters to get more results (though in most cases it won't make a difference.
I've made it simpler - just click this link which will take you directly to the latest Google results for Iridology. When I last tried it, I got 493,000 results - more than enough. Whatever topic you want to write about, this is a quick way to get research.
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WARNING: Just be careful not to use the copyrighted information from other sites. There is a simple rule of copyright - IDEAS cannot be copyrighted, but THE WORDS AND PICTURES USED TO CONVEY THOSE IDEAS can be copyrighted. This means you may need to rewrite someone else's material in your own words, combining information from several sources into your own single source. |
PLANNING THE EBOOK'S CONTENTS
I will now go through the folder of information I've downloaded on Iridology and review it, organize it and re-write it. You, of course, will do the same for whatever topic on which you are writing your ebook. Before you start going through a folder, you may want to download this free program that does something Windows Explorer doesn't - it's called PrintFolder and it prints out a text list of the files and folders within a folder. It's very simple to use and can also save the results as a .TXT (Text) file. I find it much easier to look down a printed page and select the files or folders I want to open than having to scroll back and forth through Windows Explorer.
These are the finished articles, ready to place into web pages. I downloaded nearly 29 Mb of files, which I am condensing and rewriting down to hopefully less than 5 Mb. The lines in RED indicate main topic headings. As you can see, in the process of looking over my material, I am at the same time creating the actual outline or Table of Contents for the ebook:
- What is Iridology?
- The Concept
- How It Works
- Photos and Charts
- The History of Iridology
- Its Ancient Roots
- Its Modern 'Rediscovery'
- Is Iridology Nonsense?
- Confessions of a Former Iridologist
- QuackWatch - Can It Be Believed?
- A Scientific Study of Iridology Accuracy
- Iridology Resources
- Software
- Organizations
- Links
- Special Bonuses & Offers
- What Really Causes Alzheimer's? by Dr. Harold Foster (PDF)
- What Really Causes AIDS? by Dr. Harold Foster (PDF)
- What Really Causes Schizophrenia? by Dr. Harold Foster (PDF)
That should be plenty and is more than enough to make a hefty, valuable ebook for anyone interested in natural health!
MAKING THE TEMPLATE
The next step is to create a template - or revise one made earlier. A template is basically a blank page with the main elements already created, so basically all you have to do is fill in the blanks and add the artwork. To see a template, just click here. You may notice that I have named the file "000-template.htm" - this is so it always is at the top of my file list and easy to click and open whenever I'm ready to create a new page.
Because I already have my outline (above), I will open the template file, then simply resave it several times under different names to create the new, blank pages - ready to be filled in. Notice the naming/numbering system. This kind of planning is important in keeping everything in order. The first two pages (index and index-2) will need special formatting and coding, but the others are basically all the same in terms of design and layout. The last page (bonuses) will simply contain the blurbs and links to open the bonus products, so I don't need additional HTML pages for that.
FILENAME PAGE TITLE
- index.htm Home Page
- index-2.htm Home Page 2
- 01a-what-is.htm What is Iridology?
- 01b-what-is.htm The Concept
- 01c-what-is.htm How It Works
- 01d-what-is.htm Photos and Charts
- 02a-history.htm The History of Iridology
- 02b-history.htm Its Ancient Roots
- 02c-history.htm Its Modern 'Rediscovery'
- 03a-nonsense.htm Is Iridology Nonsense?
- 03b-nonsense.htm Confessions of a Former Iridologist
- 03c-nonsense.htm QuackWatch - Can It Be Believed?
- 03d-nonsense.htm A Scientific Study of Iridology Accuracy
- 04a-resources.htm Iridology Resources
- 04b-resources.htm Software
- 04c-resources.htm Organizations
- 04d-resources.htm Links
- 05a-bonuses.htm Special Bonuses & Offers
This file organization makes each page of each chapter quick and easy to recognize, and ensures that each file will be listed in the proper order. I now have my roadmap for creating the content. Notice that I keep the file names short, all in lower case, and with no spaces between words; this is important to do, because some web servers don't allow capital letters or spaces in filenames.
For example the filename "a boy and his dog.htm" will be changed into "a%20boy%20and%20his%20dog.htm" - and you have to agree, that is a bit hard to read. It could also conceivably prevent the page from loading.
Also, if you have a webpage called "05a-bonuses.htm" and later in your links creation, you type "05-a-Bonuses.htm" - the page will not load because "bonuses" is not the same to a computer as "Bonuses." Computers are very unforgiving!
The last section will serve as my "container" for special offers designed to create repeat sales from happy customers. At this point, I know what my bonuses will be, but I don't yet know what special offers I will include.
I won't bore you with all the steps I went through in condensing, arranging and rewriting those 29 Mb of research into the final product. You'll see the final result soon as we conclude this course.
Next, we will take a look at some other kind of content - what they now call "Web 2.0" - the audio/video components!
RETURN TO THE TOP - GO TO AUDIO - GO TO VIDEO