In praise of the tips booklet

I first learned of the value of the tipsbooklets in the year 1999 when I attended an international conference for online marketers at Wembley.

Delegates heard presentations from many gurus, mainly American, who had made thousands and thousands of dollars through their online marketing and affiliate programmes.

For me the most important talk was given by California-based Paulette Ensign, the Queen of Tipsbooklets. As a result, I produced a number of them in a series subtitled ‘insider guides’. The series varied from the CV to betting on horse racing. And I wrote the copywriting tipsbooklet: “110 insider ideas to write winning business copy”.
The tipsbooklet provides the reader with a string of individual pieces of advice on a subject close to the author’s heart.

There are probably sections, like mini chapters, and each numbered tip needs to start with a positive action verb.

My book began: “1. Focus on your objective for writing the copy and make sure you fulfil it.” While my penultimate tip, 109, read: “Check, check and check again. Check grammar, spelling, facts, sense, tenses, readability, credibility, style, tone, interest, attitude, aims and your audience”.

Two tips which are still valid today.

Sadly, my tispbooklet lay at the bottom of a draw, abandoned amid a pile of other research and draft articles. The discovery in April this year was a happy event as I have struggled with my novel, loosely based on my book “Feel it as a Man: a fool’s guide to relationships” (Panoma Press, £14.99).

So last week I set myself the task, and achieved it, of rewriting this tipsbooklet. And I have produced 125 tips, even though some sections were omitted, such as ‘Writing letters’ – who writes a letter these days? I’m thinking about the title, but the subtitle is along the lines of “125 winning ways to boost your blogs and books, and put pep into your posts and proposals”.

The first and last tip are similar to the original, but there have been changes in the middle to accommodate the internet (which was still very new in 1999-2000), blogs etc.

So, now I am at the stage of checking my first draft before sending out for proofreading and editing. I, as an editor, cannot edit my own books because I would overlook errors and inconsistencies.

The tipsbooklet is highly recommended to everyone, both as a marketing tool and as a way of constructing an easy-to-read, effective and enjoyable publication on a topic which may be part of your business or your private passion. By the way, I followed the Wembley conference with another internet marketing event in Las Vegas.

Tipsbooklets set you on the road to authorship. So do take a good look at Paulette’s website: www.tipsbooklets.com