Speak and Stand Out!

One of the most prolific writers I have ever met taught me about the joys of recycling. No, not newspapers and cardboard boxes - ideas. He started his writing career by taking tiny chunks - a few paragraphs, a single concept - out of his doctoral dissertation and turning them into conference presentations. These went into the conference proceedings. Two for the work of one! Then he expanded them into articles. Three! Then he put together a collection of related ideas to form a book. Four! Then, of course, he went out to speak about his book, jotted down some notes from the conversations that came up, and, yes - turned those into articles.

It turns out that the secret of being really prolific is not necessarily having a constant stream of new ideas. It has more to do with adopting a "waste not, want not" attitude to what you already have.

So write those blog posts. And when you have enough of them create a short e-book. And use them as teleclasses. And record them as podcasts. And put them on your website for members only. And turn them into e-courses. Or workbooks. Or live events.

Never use anything only once. Combine ideas to make bigger products. Divide them up to make short presentations. Be like a quilter and make creative use of all the scraps.