How Do You Portray Being An Expert In A New Niche?

In this case you will want to hire a Copywriter. This is exactly the reason why one will not write his own copy and go with professional Copywriter who knows how to write any story. He also knows how to bond with the niche since he's making the research for you.

If you want to do it yourself, make sure to research as much as possible and see how your average prospect behaves, where he goes online to find answers for his questions.

Can be easy for one with experience :-)

Mike

No, I agree with you crew. I would use a different pen name. But as far as the storyline goes, etc. that is where it gets tricky. That is why I asked.

1. Do a LOT of research
2. Speak to people who know what they're talking about
3. Show your product to them before you release it & get their feedback
4. Rinse and repeat.
5. Make sure it's 100% accurate before you launch.

You can find out anything through research, although it can become very time consuming. I guess that is why people who are not already well versed with a particular niche tend to outsource content writing to people who have the time and expertise to do ethical research and generate genuine content.

It's okay to make up names, but they have to be based on sound research and potentially real stories. You can of course change them around a little for appeal, but the gist must be maintained for it is important to be honest to your clients

Dayne, if you present yourself as an expert when you're not, you're a fraud.

What happened to telling the truth to customers? There's other ways to sell than just making stuff up. You don't need to BS.

Using your example, do you really need to suffer from migraines to sell a product that can alleviate them? Sure, you might have some nice copy if you can say "I've suffered from migraines for decades, and this is the only thing that has ever helped me," but you're right - that would be totally false (and unethical, IMO).

Instead, why not just research migraines, find out all you can about the symptoms, even visit a few migraine forums to see what sufferers are really struggling with - and use all of that to tell a story? After all, readers don't want to hear all about you; they want to hear how you can help them. If you write the copy from a "you" perspective, it won't matter that you've never had a migraine in your life. Instead, you'll be able to let them know that you know what they're going through - and you have a way to help them. If you come across as honest and chock full of good information, I'd be willing to bet that most of them won't give a rat's patoot that you've never had a migraine before

And, just to touch on one of your other points - there's nothing unethical about using a pen name. Heck, you probably watch news anchors and reporters every night that are using pen names (simply because their real name is too hard to pronounce or too "unflattering" to say on TV every night). Does that make you think twice about their news stories or think of them as being less credible? It's really no big deal.

Please understand I'm not here to say I want to be a scam, or make false claims or ANY of that. I think some of you are thinking that is what I'm wanting to do.

My main question really boils down to...If you hire a freelance writer to write an amazing manual on a subject, and you want to sell it under your pen name, how do you position yourself to sell it.

Some great points have been made. I could always say, for example, I'm a "health researcher" or something if I were to cover something like migraines (which is not what I'm going into, that is just an example).

But I think when it comes to really selling in many niches, people want to buy from someone who really has either solved a problem, made a lot of money online, has proven experience in XYZ, and so forth. Where I get stuck is if I've hired out someone to write on the subject, and I want to sell it as my own...and I don't really fall in any of those categories.

It's a tough question. You may want to pitch it in the first person and it's hard to wax lyrical about something if you have no use for it. So to avoid being 'fake' you hire a bunch of copy writers and they fake it on your behalf - which is just as bad as you faking it.
The best way if you can make it work is to find people who can genuinely endorse the product, then weave their testimonials and feedback into your copy.

I do this a lot when I'm working for people in the health/natural health niche.

Dayne, from my own experience of being a buyer, I couldn't care less about the sellers story. As long as the product does what it says on the tin, then is that not enough?

So you don't need to be an expert or experienced to produce good copy. It's really easy. Most of it has been said above.

Research the niche you're going into. Research the product. Google this and that. Copy and paste all interesting things you wish to say about the product. Copy other people's posts about it. Slap it into Notepad or Word. Go through it and take out about 10 -20 or as many points about your product you need. Aim for about 4000 words.

Write in your own words under different headings. So a heading, then a paragraph of a few sentences, then 6-8 bullet points about that heading. Repeat and rinse until you have an article about 500-1000 words. All your own work, of course.

I did one a few weeks ago from 4000 words to 800 and published on my blog in 2 hours. It's easy to do. Don't be afraid. ALL the information is in Google, Wiki, WordPress, Blogs, Forums, even on here. Just make sure you change the wording to sound like it's you.

Go For It!

Best Wishes
Andy Moore

PS. By doing it this way you really learn quickly what you're talking about.

If you do have the knowledge of "migraines", the best thing to get more ethical / straight forward is if you can either get testimonial from migraine sufferer who used and applied your info product , also you can look for interviewing an expert who treats migraine and this you will automatically become a go to expert in terms of the knowledge shared. hope it helps