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Product Creation Advice – The 12 Free (or Very Low Cost!) Resources of Christmas…

It’s Christmas and I’m spending it in a beautiful 3 story cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains with Jeff, the boys and our dogs!It’s great (& necessary) to take some well-deserved time off to spend together and appreciate all the blessing we’ve created over the last years…

One of the things that have helped us both is the ability to create several online businesses, so I thought a great gift for my subscribers and readers would be…

The 12 Free (or Very Low Cost) Product Creation Resources of Christmas!

free product creation resources

12. My favorite place to get ecovers, ECoverArt.com has rolled out a brand new website called http://MyEcoverMaker.com You can make beautiful Ecovers for all kinds of products and ot’s 100% free! I played with it and the service later emailed me a brand new ecover I designed.

11. I’ve been using Photoshop for many years. I purchased it (expensive!) because I couldn’t afford a designer to create the labels for my bath & beauty products so I decided I would learn it and it has been one of the best things I’ve ever done. There’s a fabulous online service that allows you to do most of the same things to create and edit graphics… http://Pixlr.com <== What a resource! Have fun creating your own “add buttons like the ones I have on this site, or editing your photos to fit your website, or add your website name to your graphics!

10. In 2010, if you’re online… you MUST learn to use video. It is simply not an option any longer… AND there are several ways to do video at low cost. You can always use your computers webcam, the video option if you have one on your phone or buy a low cost flip video at http://TheFlip.com (or google/Ebay for a slightly used one. You don’t NEED the HD version to create great video infomercials or trainings.

9. A FABULOUS resource when you’re first beginning to use video is http://CuePrompter.com I was very nervous in the beginning when using video and I would always forget 1/2 of what I wanted to say, until I found this online teleprompter. Just tape it (yes, tape it) to the cover of your laptop, where the “eye” of the camera is directly above the screen, cut and paste your copy into this website, when you’re all ready, hit F11 on your keyboard for an “extra trick” to make it even easier (you have to try it to see what I mean) but this can make you go from looking like a video newbie to an online broadcast professional.

8. Once you’ve created your video, PC users can use Windows Movie Maker which is on most PCs free. Sometimes it’s a little hidden, just look carefully in all your Programs to find it. If you’re on a Mac, you can use iMovie to do editing! It’s free.

7. Once you’ve finished your awesome video, now what?! Well, you have to get it in front of people! Upload it to your You Tube channel AND use Tube Mogul to send it to even more video sharing sites. http://YouTube.com and http://TubeMogul.com

6. To create Audios or do Teleseminars there’s http://FreeConferenceCalling.com This is a free conference call service that allows you to record what you say. If you’re the only one on the call, it won’t record, but just use your cellphone to call in and allow recording or get a friend to call in. You can do group calls and create products with this service. I’ve got a course called Teleseminars Made Easy that shows you how to use Instant Teleseminar (a paid service) which gives tips on why & how to use Teleseminars AND shows you step by step video how to use FreeConferenceCalling.com Here’s my special page for the course at a Christmas price!

5. If you have an iPhone, you must get this fantastic (and Free!) app called Dragon Dictation. It lets you dictate and gives you the text to email. Great for sending messages easily and I even experimented last week dictating my “tweets”!

4. WordPress. It’s amazing that you can get WordPress allowing you to have a website, just like this one easily and without needing to know html, that super tech-geek language that can be scary and confusing to us regular folks… Get a low cost domain name, low cost hosting like Host Gator (that is my affiliate link!) and voila! You can have a website up in the few clicks of your mouse…

3. WordPress plugins! A must have (that’s also Free!) is the WP Easy Uploader. I also love My Page Order, Backup to name a few! All you have to do is “google” those names and you’ll find them.

2. Once you have your website up… what else do you need? Well, against popular belief, simply putting up your website does not guarantee you’ll have traffic. Use services like http://EzineArticles.com http://ArticlesBase.com http://Twitter.com http://YouTube.com http://Facebook.com to send targeted traffic, people interested in what you have to offer to your site…

And the # 1 Free Resource you have to create your money-making products is… *drumroll*

1. YOU!

You creativity, your resourcefulness, your passion, drive, ability to learn AND your willingness to get out of your comfort zone and do whatever it takes…

and stop talking about what you will do and actually do it…

even when you feel the fear.

Courage is like a muscle. The more you use it, the more you have. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy 2010!

15 Comments

  1. Jeff on December 24, 2009 at 2:54 pm

    Gotta love that picture of Santa

  2. Maritza on December 24, 2009 at 2:55 pm

    Sooo.. I got a little excited there at the end! Many of you, my subscribers, my students have taken this kind of advice and done great things… and some of you still haven’t.

    Take this as my 2010 challenge to you! 🙂

    Love, MAritza

  3. Eric Lee on December 24, 2009 at 3:00 pm

    I discovered your homepage by coincidence.
    Very interesting posts and well written.
    I will put your site on my blogroll.
    🙂

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  6. Marilyn Gordon on December 24, 2009 at 5:51 pm

    Fantastic, helpful tips! Have a happy holiday!

  7. Eric Fontaine on December 24, 2009 at 6:23 pm

    Hi, I am the Marketing Director at HeySpread.
    Thanks for this good article.
    That is true, Tubemogul is a good service.

    But you should really have a look at HeySpread for Professional Video Analytics and Video Distribution – http://bit.ly/5mD1CL. Far cheaper, with exclusive features such as YouClone (copy/paste your YouTube videos to any other platform automatically and in one shot), powerful and user-friendly interface, REST API for an easy and fast white label integration.

  8. Linda Keller on December 24, 2009 at 6:35 pm

    Leave it to you to take the time to send this out to all of us!! You are a wholehearted blessing! Will eventually use most of this stuff….maybe not tomorrow, but you WILL (I promise) see results. Here’s to a happy holiday and splendid new year for you and those you love.

  9. Stephanie Treasure on December 25, 2009 at 3:34 am

    Great post Maritza! Since I am in the beginning stages of growing my online empire, I have been very frugal until I get to a point where I can have a good ROI for paid resources.

    Here are a few more I think your readers might like:
    http://www.jingproject.com and http://www.smallvideosoft.com/screen-video-capture/ Both are free screen capture resources for instructional or tutorial type videos.

    I have used freeconferencecalling.com too, great resource as well.

    Happy Holidays to you and yours as well.

  10. […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Maritza Parra, Tito de Morais. Tito de Morais said: RT @maritzaparra Product Creation Advice – The 12 Free (or Very Low Cost!) Resources of Christmas… http://bit.ly/8FSkF6 […]

  11. Mirko Gosch on December 28, 2009 at 12:04 pm

    Hey Maritza,

    this is an extraordinary valuable post and a splendid reminder of some free services I have come accross but haven´t implemented yet. I have been “playing” around online for a couple of months now, trying to cut through the abundance of information and to find my own path of online success.
    Keep on doing the great stuff, Maritza and may you and your family have some brilliant holidays and a perfect start into a prosperous year 2010.

    Mirko

    PS: Writing this comment I got interrupted by the postman who delivered the book “How did you do that” to my door. Looking forward to read the chapter featuring…You. 🙂

  12. Maritza on December 29, 2009 at 3:13 pm

    Eric, Thanks for posting about Spread, hadn’t heard of it but I’m always on the lookout for new services!

    Thanks Linda, and a Happy New Year to you too! I’m excited to see you begin to fly with your new websites!

    Stephanie! Thank you too for the other great resources! I’m looking forward to seeing what you create with your online biz! Let me know when you have your next event, either via twitter or commenting on the blog!

    Thanks for your kind words Mirko! I hope you enjoy the book – it was great fun to be asked to be in it along with my mentors Mark Victor and Barbara De Angelis. (And yes… sometimes it seems there can be too much of an abundance of information out there. Be sure to stick to it, overdeliver and make offers OFTEN. – don’t keep your light under a bushel!)

  13. Suzy Weiss on January 1, 2010 at 5:16 pm

    Maritza

    Thanks so much for the resource list.

    http://CuePrompter.com the online teleprompter is ‘just what the doctor ordered.’

    I’m in the process of creating a 28 week video based training, “Dating Secrets for Divorced Women” and the teleprompter has helped a bunch in taking the stress out of shooting the videos.

    Thanks again.

    All the Best & Happy New Year!

    Suzy Weiss
    DatingSecretsForDivorcedWomen.com

  14. Kelly Rudolph on January 5, 2010 at 2:49 am

    Thank you so much for the resource list, Maritza! I’ve been looking for solutions you put in this collection. You’re a life-saver! 🙂

  15. James Cleveland on August 5, 2010 at 6:24 pm

    Hi! I think that I had already contacted you recently about translating your blog so that more people can read it. TransDeluxe.com just released (August 5, 2010) a WordPress plugin that will translate your blog into 50+ languages. That means your will get traffic from people who are searching for keywords in 50+ languages – plus it means that you will be able to get 50 times more pages indexed in search engines! Please take a look at it here: http://www.transdeluxe.com/wordpress.html

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