"Booklets." "Special reports." These words sound pretty
insignificant, don't they? But the results you achieve with
these little collections of useful information can be
anything but small and limited.
They don't cost much energy or money to produce, but
booklets and special reports can bring you the following
kinds of results:
A big burst of extra money, or a steady stream of revenue
for years, as you prefer - some items have earned as much as
half a million to a million dollars for their authors!
A valuable list of people interested in your topic, to
rent out or use yourself for sales of more expensive
products and services
Possibilities for translations and bulk sales - i.e.,
greater exposure and income
Content that you can resell in other formats, such as
audio or video tapes, articles, books, subscription Web
sites
An inexpensive means of testing the waters for bigger
products
A method of making an end run around the editorial
gatekeepers at magazines and book publishers
An easy, inexpensive entry into the highly profitable
information business
Additional opportunities such as speaking engagements,
consulting, audiotape possibilities, magazine articles, book
contracts and business partnerships
Compared with some other vehicles for selling information,
booklets and special reports have these advantages:
So long as you have a computer and either a high-end word-
processing program or a desktop design program, you don't
need additional equipment to create these products.
Most people will not need to hire a producer or designer
in order to create a salable product.
You don't need the space or advance investment to stock
inventory, but can instead create booklets and special
reports on demand, as people send in money. Hence you can
get started with an outlay of less than $10. Truly!
You can change or update the contents of your booklets and
special reports immediately, as circumstances warrant. This
enables you to scoop monthly magazines and books, which have
lead times of three months to one year.
Although your information must be up-to-date, useful and
valid, it needn't offer content that no one else has.
Buyers pay for booklets and special reports primarily to
have information in a handy, easily digestible form.
You don't need high-level communication skills to produce
salable booklets, although I do recommend that you take
steps to ensure proper spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Unlike newsletters, you don't commit yourself to future
issues on into the future.
You don't need to convince editors that you and your idea
merit space in their publishing program. Buyers deal with
you directly.
Your profit margin is high - a booklet selling for $5.00
might cost you $.10 to produce, while a special report
selling for $95 might cost nothing other than the labor that
went into it.
To be fair, let me list some disadvantages of booklets and
special reports, compared with other information products:
They don't last anywhere as long as books, audios or
videos and don't look impressive on a buyer's bookshelf.
They can't contain as much of your personality as an
audiotape or video.
As one-shots, they have less impact over time with each
buyer than a newsletter.
Since they're self-produced, they don't serve as much of a
credential, although they can do an excellent job of proving
that you know your stuff.
They don't make it into public libraries very often,
compared to information in other formats.
Since they need to be practical and snappy, they can't
provide an outlet for the full range of your creative
talents.
All in all, however, booklets and special reports are easy
to write and can easily generate a stream of extra revenue
not requiring your time and attention once everything's set
up. This passive income can become plentiful indeed!
About the Author
The above is excerpted from "Profiting from Booklets and
Special Reports" by Marcia Yudkin, available from
http://www.yudkin.com/bookletsreports.htm. Marcia Yudkin
is the author of 11 books, including
Persuading on Paper and Poor Richard's Web Site Marketing
Makeover.