The Perfect Homebased / Online Business

Creating and selling info products is a homebased / online business that virtually anyone can start with very little money and develop into a very profitable business. For the purposes of this article, "info products" will refer to reports, booklets, books, newsletters, audio tapes, video tapes, and diskettes.

Info products can be used for profit in two ways:

1. As the main product. Your info products are what you sell for profit.

2. As promotional material for other products / services. For example, you sell hand-made wooden furniture. You could publish a free newsletter on wooden furniture for potential and current customers. This would serve to keep your name in front of them, to build credibility, and to help them see you as an expert in your field. Then, when they're ready to buy wooden furniture, guess who they'll buy from?

Creating and selling info products is the "perfect" homebased / online business for several reasons. * It's inexpensive to start * It can be started quickly * You own the product * Your profit margin is high * Info products are easy to ship * It can be a full-time or part-time business * You can produce the product in small quantities if necessary * You can expand the business by continuously adding new info products on the same subject, this is when it can really be profitable.

Now, you're probably thinking, "but I don't know enough about anything to create an info product". Virtually everyone knows enough about some topic to create info products, or you have enough interest in something to research it and become an expert on it!

Two bits of advice on choosing a topic for your info products...

 1. Choose something that you're REALLY interested in! I believe this is critical. If your life's work can involve something you really have passion for, you will never "work"!

 2. This is less important now that we have the "web", but choose something that would appeal to more than just a few people. For example, don't write a booklet about how to fish for some rare fish in some remote lake in Utah that ten people visit every year. You won't sell very many of those booklets. However, The web is a niche marketers dream come true. It's an easy and inexpensive means of reaching people that are interested in virtually anything you can think of! (If you'd like to subscribe to a free "niche" newsletter, email niche@preparetowin.com with "Niche Newsletter" in the subject field.)

Once you have chosen your topic, jot down the main aspects of your topic that you'd like to cover. Ideally, most of your information should come from your own knowledge or experience. However, it certainly doesn't have to. Either way, your topic should be researched on the web (using search engines), at the library, etc.

Now it's time to write. PLEASE don't get hung-up here! Just jot down a rough outline and then START WRITING! This is where so many people give up. Don't sweat it. It doesn't have to be perfect and you'll be revising it a few times,so just start writing. Get something down on paper. You can "fix it" later.

The best advice I can give you about writing is to just write like you're talking to a friend. There are books written about how to write, but our purpose is just to effectively convey the information we have. It doesn't have to be a literary masterpiece. My writing certainly isn't! Your primary concern should be to be effective at conveying your information to your reader. That's it! Of course you'll need to do several revisions. Once you're done, have someone else read it. You want to be sure that everything is easily understood.

Let's talk more specifically about producing specific info products.

Reports, booklets, and books. Information that consists of a few pages of information is usually referred to as a report. Larger info products are referred to as booklets or books.

The original document can be produced on your computer. Reports can be as simple as a few pages stapled on the upper left corner. Booklets and books can be bound in several ways: saddle stitching (11 x 17 sheets folded and stapled along the crease), spiral binding, and perfect binding (a typical soft cover book).

1. Saddle Stitching - Leesburg Printing Company in Leesburg, Florida specializes in printing saddle-stitched booklets. Their quality is top-notch and their rates are very competitive. Their turn-around time on an order is five working days - pretty quick! They will print 500 or more booklets, maximum number of pages per booklet is 32. Call 1- 800-828-3348 and ask for their "booklet printing price list" and samples. Or you can go to their web site http://www.newsletters-print-mail.com or email them NewsletRus@aol.com - For rough comparison purposes, 500 copies of a 32 page, 8.5 x 11 booklet from Leesburg Printing would cost $1.09 each.

If you don't want to print 500 copies of your booklet, you can go to your local "quick copy" type place and produce one- at-a-time if you want to. You would simply make 11 x 17 copies, fold them, and have the copy shop staple them (saddle stitch) with their long stapler. The disadvantages to this are that your price per booklet will be considerably higher and the quality of copies will not be nearly as good as having them printed. You will also be limited to only black ink. For comparison, one of these booklets (32 pages, 8.5 x 11), copied and saddle stitched a few at a time at my local Kinkos copy center would cost $2.33 each.

2. Spiral Binding - You can have this done at your local copy center or if you plan on doing this for the "long haul", you can purchase the equipment and do it yourself. This type of binding (and perfect binding) would typically be used for booklets/books over 32 pages. For purposes of comparing spiral and perfect binding, we'll use an 80 page booklet/book example.

To produce them locally, you would simply copy your originals and have your copy center spiral bind them. At my local Kinkos, an 80 page, spiral bound booklet would cost $8.10 each. You could also have your local printer do 500 or more of these for you. However, if you are going to produce that many, it would be cheaper to have them perfect bound, and they would look better.

If you're interested in purchasing your own spiral binding equipment, it starts at about $200 and goes up from there. Copy machines are also fairly affordable now, some for as little as $250 at places like Home Depot. Taking this route, you could do everything "in-house" and just produce your booklets as you need them. After the purchase of your equipment, your cost would drop to about $4.00 per 80 page booklet. Here are sources for spiral binding equipment:

* A-1 Binding Equipment 1-800-889-81111 http://www.a1binding.com/index.htm * MC2 Office Binding Equipment 1-800-435-6623 http://www.total.net/~infobook/ * Spiral Binding Company 1-800-631-3572 http://www.spiraldbind.com * Paper Direct-ask for their "Great Meetings and Presentations" catalog 1-800-272-7377 http://www.paperdirect.com

3. Perfect Binding - This is how a typical "soft cover" book is bound. It looks VERY professional but you'll have to spend a few hundred dollars at a pop to get these produced. Still, for most people that are producing booklets/books over 32 pages, I would recommend this route, especially if you are ready to produce a few hundred of your product.

For less than 500 booklets/books, I would use Roberts Graphics and Printing in Brunswick, Ohio. They will print as few as 50. For comparison purposes, you could get 150, 80 page, 8.5 x 11 booklets/books, printed and perfect bound for $5.25 each, or you could produce 350 for $3.52 each. Both of these are considerably less expensive than the spiral bound example above- $8.10 each- and they'll look much more professional. You'll have a "real" book! Their turnaround time is about 5 working days! That's really quick!

For more information, contact Dan at booklets@apk.net or 330- 273-3021. You can find their web site (including pricing information) at_ http://www.robertsgraphics.com

For 500 booklets/books or more, I would use Whitehall Printing Company of Naples, Florida. They produce top quality perfect bound booklets/books and their rates are VERY competitive nationwide. Their turnaround time is about 15 working days. For comparison purposes, you could get 1,000, 80 page, 8.5 x 11 booklets/books, printed and perfect bound for about $1.60 each. 5,000 would be about 85 cents each.

Call them at 800-321-9290 and ask for their "price schedule" for perfect bound books.

I've just set up a web site with links to a few great sites for "info publishers"... http://www.freeyellow.com/members/homebased- online/infolinks.html