Back in the day, aspiring authors hoped to have a book published, get a big advance, and become a best selling author. But that’s old school!

Now you can build your own publishing empire without the help of the “big boy” publishing houses because the birth of the internet and digital printing has now dramatically changed the playing field. In fact, even non-writers are getting in on the action!

If you know information and can write simple articles that would be valuable to another person, then you have the potential to grow your own information-based publishing business quickly, and I’m going to explain how step-by-step.

I’ve designed this article info-publishing product pyramid based on cost to the client. For example, the first product is free for the client, but the cost of each product increases as you continue – making the most expensive product the weekend workshop. As your customers follow along the pyramid, you grow your empire, and best of all make more money. All originating from articles.

Product 1 – Write an ezine or newsletter.

Offer a simple one page electronic newsletter on a weekly or bi-weekly basis and center it around information in your niche. This is important to get right, because subscribers will probably decide whether or not they will want to buy from you based on the quality of the information you provide in this newsletter.

Product 2 – Write a traditional book

It may surprise you that a print book lies this early in the publishing outline, but the truth is that most people aren’t making fortunes writing books. Sure — maybe the Twilight and Harry Potter authors are, but they are exceptions. Traditional books should be used more as marketing tools, especially for folks like us who are in the information business. Think of it as a high-class calling card which adds more credibility to you and your business.

Product 3 – Write an ebook or ecourse

Once you have several articles (at least 5-10) based around one particular topic, you can create an ebook or course that you can easily charge way more for than a traditional book. Think about the last infoproduct you bought? Did you pay for it then a supermarket paperback? The answer is probably – absolutely yes! People will pay more for specialized information. That’s what an ebook or ecourse can do.

Product 4 – Home Study Course

Again you are taking articles, ebook chapters, audios, and video articles and compiling them into a step by step and easy to follow system for your prospects. This is the natural next step for people who have bought from you before, and they are usually ready to learn everything you’ve got at this point. The great thing about this is that you can design your home study system using content that you already have plus any other bonuses or offers you may want to add from JV partners or affiliates.

Product 5 – Membership Program

All membership sites or programs are based around specialized information. In most programs you are giving valuable content plus providing a bit of hand-holding through learning the information. This is a great way to build a closer knit community of people who want to learn from you and want to connect with each other (depending on the type of membership program you provide). I do this in my article marketing training program Articology.

Product 6 – The Weekend Workshop

Who doesn’t love live events? You get to hear and absorb massive amounts of information in a live setting where you can ask questions and understand the material. This is what many of your devoted customers and clients will want from you. More one on one connection with you. Again – all you are doing is taking your existing content and delivering it a more hands-on way. One that you can charge a great deal of money for.

*Optional Service – Coaching

Based on content you already have, you can design a curriculum based coaching program teaching clients how to do what you do or be what you are. These are usually very specialized programs with a lot of access to you personally as the coach, so you can charge premium prices for them.

As a back-end product, you have the option of selling a hard copy of that curriculum once you no longer provide coaching around that particular topic in your marketplace.

Finally, while you may not be able to complete and execute all of these product ideas right away – you can for sure design your product pyramid based on your niche and commit to completing some of your products within that time frame.

**Remember that you do not have to drive yourself crazy creating new content to make all of these products on the pyramid. In fact, all of these products can be created from articles that you have already written and even published – fantastic huh?