Let Your  Research Suggest Other Possibilities

Every time I research an article, I always turn up more material than I can ever use in the article itself.  In writing an article called the “underground shopper”, I turned up a lot of material on how to shop the supermarket more efficiently, how to keep out of bankruptcy, how to cut medical and automotive expenses, and how to shop for a home loan.  I turned this information into a series of articles that I sold again and again.  Here are some suggestions for doing the same thing with your research material

When you finish writing original articles, make it a practice to go back through your research material and try to come up with as many ideas as possible for additional pieces.     

In doing this, I generally search through my notes and other material several times.  This helps me turn up every possible idea that I might find there.

 I also ask myself if I have a book in this material.  This would be some series with a unified theme.  A group of articles on “how to cook Italian” might well make a good book on Italian cooking.  A series of articles on “understanding auto repair for women, which discuss tune-ups, brakes, changing oil, meaningful noises to listen for and other subjects could well make a book on easy auto repair for women.

Do these articles cover the full range of the subject or do you need additional research?  The articles on Italian cooking may well need to be filled out with more recipes.  Or you might need to do a section on pasta or something similar.  The same is true no matter what subject you’re researching     

Thumbing through your old material often creates many additional sales.  Be sure and make this a habit and spend 30 minutes to an hour looking through your research after you finish your original article.  Thinking about it, and then making notes of what you find, nearly always pays off in the near future.