How to Turn One Idea Into a Week of Content

This month, we’re talking about creating once, reaching more, and simple content repurposing for authors. Last week, we talked about why most authors are creating too much content, not because they’re producing too much overall, but because they’re constantly starting from scratch.

So today, I want to show you a practical solution to this. We’re gonna talk about how to take one idea and turn it into a week’s worth of content. Because here’s what I know to be true: most authors don’t have a content problem. They have a content multiplication problem. They’re sitting down asking themselves every day, “What should I post?”

Your Core Idea Drives Content Creation

But instead, they should be asking, “How can I get more mileage out of what I’ve already created?” So, we want to start with one core idea. The first thing that you want to understand is that not every piece of your content needs to be completely different. In fact, some of the most effective content strategies start with one core idea, and then you share that idea in multiple ways.

So think about writing a book. When you write a book, you don’t write twenty different books at the same time. You write one book with one central message, and then you develop that message chapter by chapter. Your content can work the same way. You start with your main idea, a core idea. Maybe it’s a lesson that you’ve learned or a common mistake that your audience often makes, a question that someone often asks you, a story from your own experience, or a principle from your book.

Creating Content Flow for Multiple Platforms

One idea. That’s all you need. Now, I want to share with you my favorite content flow. Let me walk you through a simple content flow that works really well for authors. You might wanna grab a sheet of paper for this.

Step one: create a long-form piece of content. This could be a podcast episode, a blog post, a video, or a teaching session.

For me, it’s usually a podcast episode. That’s where I take the time to develop an idea and explain it in depth. That long-form content becomes the foundation for everything else. Think of it as the trunk of a tree. Everything else grows out from that. Step two. So, step one was to create a long-form piece of content.

Step two is to turn it into an email. Once you’ve created long-form content, send an email to your list. But you don’t have to feel like you have to rewrite that entire thing. You can simply pull from it, and you can pull a takeaway. You might pull a key lesson, a personal story, or a challenge for your audience.

Then you will invite the people to listen to the full episode or read the full article. Remember, your email doesn’t contain everything. Its job is to create connections and point people towards your content. So number two, turn it into an email.

That leads us to step three: creating social media posts. Now, take that piece of content and pull out a few smaller ideas. For example, if your podcast episode is called How to Turn One Idea into a Week of Content, your social media post might be about why authors struggle with content creation, the biggest mistake people make when creating content, the benefits of repurposing content, or a simple tip for creating less and reaching more people.

Your Core Idea Provides Multiple Opportunities

That makes four pieces of content, and you haven’t even created anything new. You have simply extracted pieces from what you already have. So those are the three-step formula.

Step one: Create a long-form piece of content.
Step two: Turn it into an email.
Step three: Create social media posts.

Now, let me give you a real example. Let’s say you write a blog post about building an email list. From that one piece of content, you could

Create a podcast episode discussing it in detail
An email sharing your biggest takeaway
A social media post with a statistic
A social media post sharing an author’s biggest mistake
A social media post with a quick tip
A quote graphic
A short video discussing one key point

Those could become reels or YouTube shorts. You get what I’m going with that.

Repetition of Content Builds Familiarity

Suddenly, one idea has become multiple touch points within your audience, and the best part is that everything reinforces that same core message that we started with. Now, let me share why this works so well. One reason is, that this works well is that repetition builds familiarity.

Many authors worry, though, that they’ll be repeating themselves too much. But here’s the reality. Most people are not seeing everything you post. Why do we repeat things? This brought up another story from my childhood, this time in school. I don’t think that they do this with kids anymore, but if you went to school around the time I did, or maybe even before, you probably remember having to learn your multiplication tables, and they drilled those things into us.

We had to repeat them over and over again. We had to write them over and over again. Did y’all do the timed multiplication test? One of the reasons that we did that is because repetition builds familiarity, and you bet your bottom dollar I remember those things. So many authors worry that repeating themselves too much is bad.

But if you go back to those days, I’m telling you, it’s the best thing. Or if you did Bible drill. I did Bible drill in school as well. Well, not in school, but at church during my childhood. And how else did I learn all of those Bible verses? Repetition. So most people aren’t seeing everything you post when you put it out there, and even if they do, it takes people seeing something multiple times before they’re gonna take action.

Think about how many times you’ve heard someone recommend a book before you actually went and bought it or got it from the library. Or how many times you’ve heard a teaching before it really clicked with you. Repetition isn’t a problem; confusion is. And consistency around a clear message actually helps your audience understand what you’re known for. So you wanna keep it simple.

Keep Your Content System Simple

One mistake that I see authors make is overcomplicating the process of repurposing. They think that they need dozens of pieces of content or that they need to be on every platform. If you haven’t listened to last month’s series on Building On Borrowed Land about platforms, you should definitely go back and listen.

They think that they need fancy systems or complicated workflows, but the truth is, you really don’t. A simple system can look like this: one podcast episode or a blog post, one email, and two or three social posts. That’s enough. In fact, it’s often more effective than trying to do 10 different things halfway. So remember what we talked about. You don’t need to be everywhere. You just need to be consistent where it matters.

Put Your Ideas into Action

So here’s your action step. This week, I want you to choose one piece of content that you’ve already created. Maybe it’s a blog post, a podcast episode, a chapter from your book, or an email that you’ve sent.

Then challenge yourself to create three additional pieces of content from it, not something new. Simply repurpose what you already have. I think you’ll be surprised by how much content you’re already sitting on. And next week, we’re going to have a very special guest, and she is going to help us talk about your book, which is your 24/7/365 content engine. Dr. Carolyn Wiley is a book coach, or writing coach, rather, and she is going to talk about this with us, and I cannot wait to have her on.

Also, I wanted to share, if you need help with creating this simple system for your author platform and you’d like someone to help you with this one-on-one or even to offer you a done-for-you solution, please schedule a time to talk with me, and I can let you know how Alyssa Avant and Company and my team can help you to help to repurpose your content.

If you’d like support in building a simple, sustainable marketing system for your book or your business, you can connect with me.