The Power of Repurposing

Do you want to know a super-fast way to get your first draft done? It is the power of repurposing!

In this training, I share a few ideas on how you can use repurposing to get your first draft done really fast.

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I have repurposed content over and over again, and it surprises me how many people do not use this technique. So I want to share with you a few ideas, just to get the ball rolling, to get you thinking, about repurposing.

Blog Posts

The first thing that you can use is blog posts. I have written several of my books this way.

I published my first book “Mirror Mirror, Am I Beautiful” from blog posts on my website. Before I was an author, I was a speaker. So over the years, I wrote contents based on the most asked questions on my speaking engagements. Then, I turned that content into a book.

I added more information, transitions, and a valuable fill in the blank bible study in the back. I also added a leader’s guide. So it’s not just the blog posts, but I added other valuable contents as well. Yet, the blog posts helped me get my first draft done a lot quicker because I already had the content done.

I also did this with my book, “Self-Publishing Books 101”. It is a perma-free book on Amazon. A perma-free book is able to bring new customers who are interested in your topic 24/7 on Amazon. It is amazing. I teach about perma-free books in Author Audience Academy in the Author Automation System. So you can check it out if you want to know more about it.

Until now, that book continues to get downloaded about a thousand times a month and it came from content on my website. It’s amazing! It brings me new buying customers, new email subscribers, and new Author Audience Academy members, on an ongoing basis.

I was at a speaking engagement recently and I talked about repurposing. Someone told me that she has around 500 blog posts and it’s an amazing amount. The thing is, you have to choose and take the best blog post that you have.

You have to choose the blog posts that;

– People have shared

– Got commented on

– The contents are loved by people

Some of you may ask, “Shelley, why would I sell something that is free on my website?”

People love convenience. They love speed. If it’s going to save them time from having to dig through all your archives and have everything in the right order, it’s going to be a win-win for both of you.

Transcripts

The second step is transcripts. I love transcripts because I’m a speaker. Now, you may not be a speaker, and that is cool, but if you have any kind of spoken content you can repurpose that into a book by having it transcribed.

I like to use the service Rev.com but now I have hired somebody on UpWork.com, and she works for me on a regular basis. However, Rev.com is awesome, very fast and super accurate, so I definitely recommend that.

When doing this, you can get transcripts of any videos you’ve done. I use Facebook Live to record these training for you and then I have them repurposed in multiple places. One of the things I do is have them transcribed and put on my website ShelleyHitz.com.

So if you prefer written content, you can go to my website and usually the transcripts are there seven to ten days later. It depends on my team and how fast they are able to get to everything.

Another thing you can get a transcript from is your podcasts. If you don’t have videos but you have podcasts, then you can have the contents transcribed if they can be used as part of your book. If you have audios from speeches or sermons, you can do this too.

Now, one thing that you should remember when using transcript is that they need to be heavily edited but this is an amazing way to get your first draft done fast.

Just recently, I was able to take a transcript from one of my webinars. It’s a webinar that I did earlier this year called Prolific Publisher, Seven Strategies I Used to Publish 50 books in 7 Years.

I did that webinar as so many people are asking “How have you published so many books?”. So I shared valuable information during the webinar. Then, I thought, “OK, that was really good content. People loved it, they responded really well to it. How can I use that content in another way?”

I decided to have it transcribed and I had one of my VAs just do a basic edit of it. I took that transcript to my in-person writing retreat, ColoradoWritingRetreat.com just a few weeks ago, and I was able to work on it, edit it, add more information, and from that one hour webinar I able to create a short Kindle eBook. It will be available for sale on Amazon soon.

If you’re on my email list, watch out because I have a very special bonus during the launch of that book. But isn’t it cool? I was able to finish that book in two days, it was just amazing!

Transcripts are powerful. I have done this over and over again. I actually did this as I was working on a book with my co-author, Heather Hart. It’s a book about Book Launches. I took several transcripts from my podcast that I did on book launches and they were really good content training podcasts.

If you guys know, my training is always jam-packed and we’re using that as the base on book launches. Later on, we will add information. My Author Audience Academy members are also able to add in their tips so that they can get exposure by sharing what works for them. So I’m also able to share what’s working for other authors, and I love that.

But the amazing thing is that the base of the book came from transcripts of my podcast.

Powerpoint Presentations

When my husband and I were first publishing books, we had some presentations that we gave on forgiveness. They were so well received, people always got a ton of great content from them, and God used them in powerful ways to bring breakthroughs and transformations. One day, I think it was in the shower, I got the idea for our book Forgiveness Formula.

Do you know how sometimes your best ideas happen in the shower so you want to write them down? Well, I now have Aqua Notes in my shower and I’ve gotten some amazing ideas that I was able to capture.

If you guys don’t have those, they’re just $7 on Amazon so go get them. I love how they say that “Now your ideas don’t have to go down the drain.”

So I got the idea for our book Forgiveness Formula in the shower. I was thinking, “Wow, those presentations have been so well received. What if we create a book?”

So my husband and I coauthored it and the base of the book came from our PowerPoint presentations. Those PowerPoint slides became the outline, the chapter titles, and we were able to go from there.

Now, what you could also do is combine step two and three. So you could use the PowerPoint slides as your outline, and then you could have an audio from one of your presentations transcribed. That then could become your first draft!

Journals

Now I am not really a journal type of girl. I have never been that way, although I’m an author of now 40 books and the list keeps growing. I’m a prolific communicator so you would think I would be really good at journaling but I’m just not.

When I journal, I just do it during the intense seasons of my life; the times when God is really teaching me a lot, when I’m really growing and when I’m really learning. I’m so glad I have those journals because those journals have become parts of my books that I have published.

There is a book that came primarily from my journals and it’s a book I wrote about my dad’s assault. He had an assault and then had a brain injury. That book is primarily my journal entries and then I added a section called “from my heart to yours”, application, and things that you can apply to your life.

Journals can be so powerful. Not only does it help you have content, but it also helps you with accurate and be able to remember what you’re sharing.

Social Media

The fifth and final thing I’m going to share today is your emails or social media.

You are writing things every day. Some people say, “Shelley, I’m not a writer, I’m not an author.” But think about it.

Do you write emails?
Do you write text messages?
Do you write social media posts?

Yes, of course, you do. So what you can do is you can go back and take some of those best social media posts. I’m a Facebook girl and I post a lot to my Facebook profile. I post my best content most often on my personal profile.

If you’re not friends with me yet, you can connect with me at Facebook.com/ShelleyHitz. Make sure you message me or something and tell me how you know me because I don’t always accept people who I don’t know. If you follow me and you’re an author, just let me know, private message me, and I would love to connect with you personally.

I’m on Facebook a lot and sometimes, I write really long posts. I’ve even repurposed some of those Facebook posts into a blog post and that’s something that you can do. You can use those posts that people really respond to, react to, and comment on and repurpose some of that content into your book.

For one of my books going back and I remembered sending personal emails to some of my friends about some of the things that God was teaching me and some of the things that I was going through. Those emails were very applicable to the book I was writing at the time.

So I searched in Gmail and found those emails. The contents were so in-depth so I was able to take that email content for my book. I just had to edit it, change it up, and delete the stuff I didn’t want to share with the world but that made the first draft of my book.

Facebook also has all sorts of ways to search although I haven’t really gone through all that. If you go to your profile, you can search certain topics. You can just use the search bar, make sure you keep your name in there and then put whatever phrase or whatever you remember writing about and you will find it.

You may be able to do that on other pages and stuff too. Put the name of that page and then search for the content on that page.

From this point on in your writing, make sure that you’re thinking about that. If you have a really in-depth response, copy, paste, and save it. If you’re using Google Docs, Dropbox, or whatever you’re using, save it and capture it for later.

Free Training

The other thing I want to share with you is a free training, WritingWeek.com. This is my free seven-day nonfiction writing challenge. So if you want to get some writing done, whether for your blog posts, your next book or whatever it is, I’m going to teach you some very specific strategies that can help you get that first draft out of your head and on paper in record time.

It’s self-paced, so you don’t have to do it in a week. You can do it in whatever time frame works out for you, but that’s another great resource I have for you.

My book Prolific Publisher will be coming out soon, so make sure you’re signed up to one of my lists. If you get either of those free training you’ll be on my list, and you’ll get to know the moment that book is ready. Plus, I have a really good bonus for the launch that I don’t want you guys to miss.

Another thing I also recommend is to create your own systems. I share all the systems that I use for publishing and marketing inside Author Audience Academy. I have systems that I set after publishing many books, and that’s one way I’m able to get things done so fast.

A system is basically a checklist of the things that you have to do. So, when you have that system and you have your team together, you know exactly what you’re going to do, and you’re able to do it on a small budget. This way, you can publish more books in a shorter amount of time.

I still have all my books professionally edited so some of them take longer than others. But there are definitely ways that you can not only save time, but also save money so that you can publish more books that create impact, and bring you more income.

One of the ways to really earn money as an author is to have multiple books, and products. Again, I teach all of that inside AuthorAudienceAcademy.com.

Take Away

We are writing stuff every single day. So I want you to start capturing some of that and start reusing it. I want you to be a prolific publisher. You can publish your books without waiting for years.

What do you think? Did you learn one new thing today that you could implement?

If you want to go deeper I have a full training that you can listen to. It’s a 90-minute webinar titled “Three Proven Book Writing Formulas Every Nonfiction Author Needs to Know”.

You can sign up for it for free at ShelleyHitz.com/Formulas. That way we can go deeper and I can help you pick your topic, outline your book, and help you go through this process getting your book done by working smarter not harder.

You may already have that content out there that you can publish. A content that solves a problem, is helpful for your target audience and is going to help someone. It does not need to take forever to publish it. It doesn’t have to be hard so let it be easy.

The Power of Repurposing – A Super-Fast Way to Get Your First Draft DONE

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