What Information Sells Best

Things People Want

Great physical and mental health

Become financially independent

Successful marriage or career

Entertainment and happiness

Appear young and desirable

Feeling of personal security

Become popular or famous

Become more educated

Appealing body or style

Save money and time

Strong religious faith

Desirable reputation

Earn more money

Things People Avoid

Becoming overweight and aging

Physical and mental pain

Getting laid off or fired

Losing a possession

Getting a divorce

Being rejected

Going to jail

The most profitable publications are by far how-to types of books, booklets, reports, and manuals. These types of publications provide information based on people's natural wants, desires and needs. Some examples of successful how-to type of publications include:

How to get $50,000 in credit with your credit cards.

How to earn a fortune in no-money-down real estate.

How to make money on a product you can get free.

How to earn a fortune from government auctions.

How to get free advertising for your business.

How to earn a fortune with your own computer.

How to write a resume no one will throw away.

How to lose 10 pounds in less than 30 days.

How to easily start your own business.

How to quit smoking within 30 days.

How to become a movie star.

How to win the lottery.

Compiling and publishing business and consumer directories has recently become a popular choice of info-by-mail marketers. The most popular directories include names, addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers of companies who sell sought after products and services. Some popular directories are listed below:

Import and export trade directories

Travel related directories

Manufacturers directories

Government product and service directories

Whether you offer how-to type of publications or directories, all should provide a solution to one of the things people either want to gain or avoid. When choosing a topic to market, be extra careful when promoting information on subjects that promise medical "cures" or "breakthroughs". This type of information requires significant medical and scientific evidence to substantiate your claims. If legitimate evidence is not provided you can be put out of business immediately by various federal agencies. In general, most information can be divided into two different categories. These include specialized knowledge and self-improvement information on topics such as finance and health.

Specialized Knowledge

Experience Or Research

The key here is to write about something that you have personal experience with. It may be a hobby, job, sport, vacation, recipe, or whatever you are knowledgeable about. The easiest personal experience to write about is the knowledge you have learned from your job. This information can then be offered to others with jobs like yours. This may be information on how to make more money, get a promotion, or other secret hints or tips.

"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or know where we can find information upon it."
- Samuel Johnson

If you want to provide information about a particular field you have little or no personal experience in, you will need to do some research. This can be done best at your local library. Look for information in magazine and newspaper articles and books on your chosen subject. Read as much information as you can until it begins to sound repetitive. This is a good indication that you have read all that there is to know about that subject. Take excellent notes and organize them accordingly.

Self-Improvement Information

Popular late night infomercial promoter, Tony Robbins, has provided self-improvement related information to the tune of over 120 million dollars. His popular "Personal Power" program contains valuable information designed to improve customers wealth and health. You too can help people improve their lives by providing timely and valuable information on these same subjects in the form of books, reports, and manuals. Most publishers have found the subjects of financial wealth and physical and emotional health to be the most sought after topics in the mail order industry. Everyone has an interest in excellent health and wants to learn how to increase his/her financial wealth. The market for good information in this area grows by the day. Practically any national publication with classified advertisements in the back will have offers selling information on these subjects. This type of information is best provided by those who have professional experience in the medical or financial fields. However, if you do enough research, you will be able to write your own informative publication. This will require extensive research, best done at a library that has current reference material on business and medical related topics.

"People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after."
- Oliver Goldsmith

One of the best groups of people to aim your marketing efforts towards are people looking to make more money through a business opportunity. It has been estimated that 50,000 new people each week respond to some kind of business opportunity advertisement. If you have a unique money making idea that you can put into writing, the market is waiting to mail you their checks. Although the "business opportunity" market is somewhat saturated with generic money making programs, you can grab a large chunk of the market if you come up with a unique and unusual way for people to earn more money.

The universal desire to learn how to make more money exists because of peoples dependence on money to pay for those things they need and want. Although people may only need a limited amount of things, peoples wants are often endless. Thus, even if one is lucky enough to earn enough money to pay for all those things they need, they will almost always continue to spend more money for those things they want. Unfortunately, most people have trouble paying for the most basic things they need to exist in today’s society. Things like housing, food, gas, electricity, health and auto insurance, educational expenses, taxes, not to mention the cost of raising a couple children. One look at government statistics reveals just how desperate many people are to solve their financial problems.

Over 500,000 people file for bankruptcy each year in America.

Only 15% of Americans have a net worth of more than $250.

The average savings of a retired couple is less than $10,000

Over 2,000,000 people have lost their homes to foreclosure.

The average American is more than $10,000 in debt.

Less than 1% of Americans are millionaires.

Those people who attempt to fix their financial problems usually attack the problem by trying to earn more money. These are people who cannot stop spending money on unnecessary wants. In order to continue this way of spending they will try to figure out a way to earn more money than they are already earning. This presents an obvious opportunity to those publishers who have a money making idea that the average person can implement in their spare time.

There is a relatively smaller number of people who try to attack their financial problems from a different angle. These people are willing to cut back on unnecessary expenses in order to save money. This saved money is either used to pay for the things that people really need to exist or it is invested. In order to save more money, people must have the discipline and knowledge to cut back on unnecessary expenses. This presents an obvious opportunity to those publishers who have a money saving idea that the average person can implement in their spare time. Whether you help people earn or save more money, there is no doubt that the market for financial related information is one that has a large and growing market.

Example fact: During the 1980’s many people had the attitude of "buy now, pay later". This has left many individuals and families in a desperate financial situation.

Furthermore, global competition has caused many major companies to downsize their workforce. This has resulted in many unemployed individuals in search of new ways to earn a living. By providing information on how to earn more money through a business of their own or how to save more of the money that they are already making, you can help these people get their lives back in gear and make a profit in the process.

One particularly popular health related topic is how to lose weight and stay physically and mentally fit. With health costs going through the roof with no end in sight, many health minded individuals are in search of easy ways to become healthier. By becoming healthier, expensive office visits and operations may be able to be avoided. Many medical experts have proven that simple exercises and proper diets can significantly increase your chances of a healthy lifestyle. By providing accurate and timely information on how the health minded individual can improve their lives, you can earn a healthy profit.

If you want to find out what the U.S. Government thinks are the most popular topics, you can order a free catalog of informative booklets from the Consumer Information Center or CIC. Their catalog contains over 200 short booklets that are either free or inexpensive. The booklets are written by government experts from various agencies. Since most of the information is in the public domain, you may be able to resell parts or all of the contents of government booklets. Call or write the agency that created the booklet you are interested in reselling and ask them what's their current policy on copying and reselling their booklets.

To receive a current copy of the CIC catalog, send your name and complete mailing address to:

Consumer Information Center
Department Source
Pueblo, CO 81009

For an even greater selection of books written by the U.S. Government, visit your nearest U.S. Government Bookstore. Located throughout the country, these bookstores have many inexpensive books in stock. The bookstores are also able to order over 21,000 tiles.

These books are excellent for generating ideas for your own books. For a free catalog and to find out the location of the closest bookstore call or write:

Superintendent of Documents
P.O. Box 371954
Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954
202-783-3238

When trying to come up with an idea for a publication, try to first identify a need in the marketplace. Rather than writing a publication and then going out to try and find a market for it, go out and analyze the market and find out what people want.

Talk to friends, family, business associates, students, and teenagers and ask them what bothers, concerns, irritates, or otherwise disturbs them. After finding out what peoples problems are, consider if you can solve their problems with a publication that provides helpful answers. Before long, you will have a list full of topics that you know customers are looking for.

"It is impossible for ideas to compete in the marketplace if no forum for their presentation is provided or available."
- Thomas Mann

This concept of finding out what your market wants and then going to create your product was refined by Japanese automobile manufacturers in the seventies and early eighties. After extensive market research, most Japanese automobile manufactures realized that American drivers wanted small fuel efficient automobiles. So they went and created the desired product and soon gained a foothold in the American automobile marketplace. The inability of American automobile manufacturers to find out what people wanted cost them a great loss of market share to their Japanese counterparts. Publishing is no different. Find out what many people demand and then provide the supply at a reasonable cost.

Keep in mind that the information you want to sell does not have to be in demand by millions of people. What is important is that you market your publication properly to the few people that will be interested in it. These few people, however, must represent a economically viable group of people. You are obviously not going to make a fortune selling a publication, no matter what the selling price, that will only interest a few hundred people. Any publication that helps people satisfy one of the needs and wants mentioned earlier has potential customers in the 1,000,000+ category. These are the type of numbers that can produce a publishing fortune for yourself.

Whether you write about a specialized topic or improving one's health or wealth, you can obtain the needed information from personal experiences or researched information. Just about any piece of valuable information, properly marketed, can be sold successfully. If you have trouble getting ideas, it can help to read other how-to publications. Once you have thought of some publication ideas, write them on a piece of paper. After writing 10 or more ideas, begin to consider whether the ideas will be marketable. Once you have decided what kind of information to sell, you will need to collect and organize the information. Your next step will be to get the information into some type of readable and marketable form.