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I would like to see the Fool expand its publishing capabilities. Look into
publishing your own books & magazine that services the new world of investing
that you folks helped to invent. Bypass the established publishers and take
full control of your own material while you educate, amuse, & make a
little money.
You folks do a great job with the on-line stuff but I feel your print could
use some some enhancement in both distribution & executuion. Also, by
expanding into different media, I believe that you could enhance your on-line
presence and ensure that the Fool will continue to be recognized as a leader
in that area.
I suggest the following:
Consider organizing your writings into a series of easily digestible soft-cover
books that would cover different investing topics... market basics, valuation
of companies, reading balance sheets, portfolio & risk management, investment
taxation, investing for retirement, etc. etc. There are many topics here.
Enhance your writings with multi-colored graphics that support the text.
Bind these books with well-designed covers that enhance their point-of-sale
appeal. Sell the books individually or as boxed sets. Sell software with
the books or as extra items. Offer incentives with the books to improve
sell-through of additional products.
Market the books to the retail trade to enhance Fool visibility & to
specialty markets such as investment clubs & education. Support these
specialty markets with additional study & instructional materials if
necessary.
Some of your investment reports were excellent, particularly that one by
Randy concerning the digital world. I would like to see more of this. Material
such as this is somewhat more time sensitive than basic investment information
and would have to be treated differently than a mass marketed book would.
So...
Consider publishing a magazine (an ink & paper one) that highlights these
industry changes and the changing world of on-line investing. You already
seem to have a sales structure in place that will help with the advertising
aspects... and you certainly will never lack for material. I would like to
see a publication that will filter & organize the good, the bad, &
the ugly that is part of the on-line investing world. In addition to investment
reports, topics may include product reviews of fundamental & technical
analysis software and techniques (pre-packaged or home-grown), sources for
electronic financial data (P&Ls, balance sheets, etc.) and market data
(real time quotes, delayed quotes, after-market quotes), on-line trading
systems & software, legal issues, cyberdirectories to the latest &
best web sites... the list of relevent topics is long.
There is no really good organized source for this type of information and
I believe that the market response for such a publication would be very strong.
The on-line world is still a very confusing place and a cyber-investing type
of magazine would lend order to the subject. The magazine would also buttress
your on-line efforts and attract additional traffic to your AOL & web
sites.
The costs for doing this need not be exorbitant. In fact, you may be surprised
how feasible this would be. Technology changes in desktop publishing have
lower the per-page costs substantially over the past several years and the
Fool appears to have access to the many ingredients that would make such
ventures very successful.
Please consider it.
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