How to Repurpose and Sell Your Old Blog Posts

Remember the ‘Internet is free’ era, when we thought we just couldn’t sell our online content?

“You are charging?” your friend gasps. “You can’t do that. No one will pay for the stuff they find online.”

Well, I think they will.

If people recognize the value, if they save the time they would spend searching for it, and it saves people the time of searching for it, and if it feeds them the step-by-steps they need to make their businesses more profitable.

I’d take out my credit card for something like that, wouldn’t you?

What’s good about repurposing (and selling) your content

If you’ve been blogging for a while, you may be pleasantly surprised at the number of quality posts you have collected over the years.

Repurposing the content you’ve already created into a digital information product can bring you extra revenue streams without tons of added effort.

Creating an ebook or two also lets you to test the waters, especially if you are thinking of launching an Internet marketing business down the road.

And, because there are no printing expenses, information products cost next to nothing to produce.

But what if I create an information product and nobody buys it?

Well, yeah. That could happen.

If you just throw together 20 to 30 posts, slap them up with a Photoshopped book cover and hang a $79 price tag on it, you probably won’t see a reader stampede.

But if you craft your book carefully, narrow the focus of your content and identify the people who most need what you are offering, you may find a ready-made audience eager to consume it.

Because they will recognize the value.

No more searching the Internet or your blog archives for all the juicy posts you’ve written on a particular topic. You have packaged it all up for them in an instant, digital delivery format.

5 Tips for Repurposing and Selling Your Old Blog Posts

1. Choose the right content.

Find your most helpful posts—how-to articles are always popular—so your reader sees the value in terms of improving her business and/or her life. If you can make her laugh and entertain her at the same time, all the better.

2. Niche it down.

Identify a theme and gather the posts that fit it.  Be relentless and don’t include any posts that don’t fit your focus. One of my friends, a rural business consultant, wrote a “Social media and Tourism” book. Another, an inbound marketing consultant has an ebook focused on Twitter for nonprofits. Narrowing your focus lets you find the people who are looking for that exact thing—and you’ll sell more copies.

3. Select the most popular posts.

Include only your very best content. Look at your blog stats and collect the posts that had the most page views and comments. There were things in those posts that struck a chord, that made people sit up and take notice. And if that many of your readers loved that post, there are lots of others out there who will, too.

4. Rewrite your shorter posts for deeper, richer content.

If you write in the short range—500 words or fewer per post—that is not going to carry a chapter for you. If your posts run on the short side, figure out what you can add to make them more meaty, richer, more helpful.

5. Play with the order until you have a smooth, seamless book.

If you just do a straight cut and paste, you will end up with a choppy, meandering book. Watch the order you put the posts in. Rearrange and add to, so you have a cohesive piece with the chapters in logical order.

There are other things to think about, of course. Like how to package your book and deliver it to readers. How to find your audience and how to market it in a way that demonstrates its value. But these 5 tips will get you started on your focus and the steps in the writing process.

Have you thought about creating a for-purchase information product from your blog archives? Do you have posts that are crying out for a bigger audience?

Any tips to share?

image: Piez