Publishing Special Reports

Publishing Special Reports

Self-publishing information products can earn you a very good income, and the most basic product you should consider publishing is the Special Report, also called a folio.

Between the internet, television, radio, books, magazines, and newsletters, people are drowning in information. Anything and everything you could ever want to know is just a few mouse clicks away, if you know where to click! But who has the time to do the research to know where to find the information you need in this maze of facts and figures? YOU do! And people will gladly pay for concise Special Reports that cut to the chase and give them the information they need without all of the fluff that just wastes their time.

I have published seven Special Reports on the RV lifestyle. These reports were originally articles I had published in our Gypsy Journal RV Travel Newspaper www.gypsyjournal.net. Titles include The Armed RVer, RV Dealer Scams, Two-Way Satellite Internet, Camping At The Slabs, Co-Pilot Tips, Camping With The Elks, and Advice For New Fulltimers. We received many requests for reprints of these articles, so I converted them into Special Reports ranging from two to seven pages and advertised them on our website for $2.50 each or all seven for $10. The Special Reports are delivered by e-mail only, so we have no printing or postage costs. Every month we receive orders for some or all of the Special Reports, resulting in a small but consistent revenue stream. I will be developing more Special Reports to add to our inventory in the future. Many Special Reports sell for much more than I charge for mine, and their publishers have earned impressive incomes with them.

Special Reports can be marketed on any topic known to man. Self-publishing, travel, cooking, decorating, investing, small business, child care, genealogy, auto repair, weddings, and pet care are just a few of the subjects that self-publishers are making money producing Special Reports on.

You don’t have to be an expert on a topic to write and publish a successful Special Report. The internet offers unlimited research opportunities. Do a Google search on any subject that comes to mind and you will find a wealth of material to support dozens of Special Reports. I believe that you should concentrate on one or two topics at first and produce several Special Reports related to those subjects. As time goes by you will develop an inventory of Special Reports that then could be turned into a booklet or book. Make yourself an expert on your topic and people will come back again and again to purchase your products.

Producing Special Reports is easy. I simply type mine in Microsoft Word, format them for easy reading, and convert them into PDF documents. I find that selling my Special Reports in PDF format and delivering them by e-mail gives me the best profit margin, based on their low cover price. Customers with Mac based computers can open my PDF documents without any problems. You may want to consider selling your Special Reports in printed form to widen your customer base.

Marketing is the most important part of any business, and that applies to marketing information products. It is easy and inexpensive to create a simple website to market your Special Reports. You should also develop an e-mail mailing list to notify previous customers when you publish a new Special Report or other product. Previous customers are your best prospects, and I have many repeat customers who order just about anything I produce. You might also consider small ads in publications related to your topic, but you have to be careful – it is very easy to waste a lot of money with advertising that gets little or no response.

I will have more information on marketing in a separate article.