Money Making With Penfriends And Friends

I started with one penfriend publication and can recollect the thrill when I first started receiving a reasonable amount of overseas mail. I bought a worldwide map, which I pinned to my office wall, and started placing red dots on all the countries from where I received a letter. As the magazine got more and more publicised more and more post came through my door each day. I have to say that, as good as e-mail is, there is nothing like receiving handwritten letters. It's much more interesting.

After a while I became able to guess from where many letters originated, without seeing the envelopes or postage stamps. The type of paper and the style of handwriting was the give-away.

From Ghana, for example, the handwriting is large and heavy handed and the paper is mostly lined and looks as if it has been torn from exercise books.

Algerians tend to use squared paper,

USA prisoners letters are on yellow paper, with blue lines. I had many from 'Death Row'. USA overall aren't all that neat often on torn up scraps. I'm generalising, of course, but many countries are very distinctive.

The prize for the neatest, and with the smartest writing paper, would have to go to Japan. They appear very meticulous, no crossings out, and with small precise handwriting.

As for us British! It is sad but many don't appear to have any idea of how to write a basic letter and sometimes have terrible illegible writing. To say this can be a handicap, if you want penfriends, is a bit of an understatement.

I remember one particular gentleman who complained that he didn't get any replies when he wrote to people listed in my magazines. He sent his letter to me all in heavy, smudged block capital letters. The spelling was atrocious and the paper was smeared with I've no idea what. It was obvious why no one answered his letters, but how do you tell someone this? I didn't, I just gave him his money back and wished him luck.

I would say the minimum requirement, on writing an initial letter to a penfriend, is the obvious i.e. decent paper and envelope, tidy handwriting and to make sure the senders address is easily readable. Lots of people seem to scribble addresses which can be difficult to decipher if you are unfamiliar with town names in far off countries.

People have various ideas as to what they think penfriends are all about. In my experience I would say there are three main categories and these now follow ...

Firstly there are what I called the 'Genuine'.

These are people who are simply looking for friends in different countries. They want to learn about other peoples' lives and enjoy exchanging letters and experiences. They may never meet but quite a bond of friendship can develop.

This is the group that I really wanted to cater for when I first started my magazines. It felt a 'nice' business linking up people of this sort.

But, and there's often a but in business, I always believe you have to give people what they want. Fill a need and there's a bigger chance of making money.

Equivalent on the Internet: Big Church (Christian) / FriendFinder / Jewish Friends / French Friends / German Friends / Italian Friends / Senior Friends

So with that in mind we move on to category 2 ...

Secondly is the 'Romance' category.

I didn't envisage this initially, but there are so many people seeking relationships, romance and marriage. For some this is understandable because it can also be a way to escape from poor circumstances and almost a flight to freedom.

For instance, when the old USSR broke up I was inundated with letters from women living in the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and so on seeking husbands in other countries, but preferably in the UK, USA or Australia.

The striking thing was that these were mostly well educated women with qualifications, 'good' jobs and they wrote excellent English. There were teachers, doctors, psychologists, nurses, business women, university lecturers etc. They sent photographs and, I must say, the majority looked very attractive.

From countries such as Algeria and Morocco it was nearly all young men that were looking for 'romance' in other countries (and perhaps a passport). The rest of Africa was a mix of men and women seeking to move away for love.

There were genuine romantics of both sexes as well, from all over the world, who seemed to just want to meet a partner regardless of where they lived.

Through one of my magazines we had two marriages and I received very nice letters from the couples concerned. There could well have been more.

It was never my intention, when I first went into the penfriend business, but I later published a magazine just for those who were seeking partners. In other words I saw a need and tried to fill this.

Equivalent on the Internet: Millionaire Mate / Senior Friends

And then, oh dear, came the third category ...

The third main category is one I summed up with the word 'Dirty'. As you are on the Internet this won't take much explaining.

It appears there are an awful lot of people who like to exchange 'private' photos, videos, stories, experiences and possibly meet up, even though they may be in different countries.

I would never have dreamed that these sort of people would want to be listed in penfriend type magazines. And I couldn't believe some of the photos sent to me requesting publication. I thought they must have mistaken me for a gynaecologist or something!

Obviously there was no way I could print these in a penfriend, or even romance, magazine so for a while, and after legal advice, I published a worldwide adult contact publication even though it wasn't my sort of thing.

It did, however, prove to be amazingly profitable!

At first it was just what seemed harmless fun, but I began to get some very 'odd' letters to say the least, which I just wasn't happy about. And then there were phone calls to my office number which my wife and I found very unsettling.

Despite the healthy profits from this sort of thing I sold the publication to a Swedish dealer. They are a lot more relaxed about such things in Scandinavia.

What this did teach me about business and making money is that old maxim: Sex Sells - and it does.

Equivalent on the Internet: AdultFriendFinder and Alt.com - strictly over 18's only

The main currency in the penfriend world is the USA dollar and also International Reply Coupons (IRC's).

For my worldwide advertising I quoted prices of my magazines in dollars, but would accept the equivalent in any currency.

I also welcomed IRC's at the rate of two or three, depending on currency exchange rates, for every USA dollar. If you are not familiar with IRC's they can be purchased from Post Offices all over the world. These can then be exchanged at the recipients Post Office for postage stamps. Below is an image of an International reply Coupon.

I sold the majority of my publications within the UK but needed to advertise worldwide so that I had a constant supply of people from many countries being listed in each edition. This could have cost me thousands of pounds but I found a way of doing it nearly for free by exchanging adverts with other worldwide publishers.

What I did was put a code of 'x-ad' or 'ex-ad' in the corner of my adverts. This meant that any publisher who saw this could print my advert knowing that I would print his once I had received a checking copy of his mag.

As you can imagine this had a snowball effect and I soon had hundreds of adverts being circulated worldwide and all for very little cost. It certainly put me well ahead of the competition, but the secret is out now!

I think there is still a place for penfriends today but popularity is declining because of the Internet. We have become more of an instant, no delay generation.

Personally I enjoy writing and receiving letters. I've made some lovely friends worldwide and somehow the letters seem genuine. You can sense a persons true personality more when reading their handwritten correspondence than in some anonymous chat room on the web.

There is something special about a letter landing on your door mat or in your mail box. It's like a little piece of the person is enclosed. Okay, perhaps, a bit fanciful and I guess webcams also do this, and perhaps more so,

One thing being involved in the penfriends business emphasised to me was how similar we all are, despite our differences.

As to making money with penfriends I think this is more difficult now. Penpal magazines have dwindling circulations.

One of the things about making money is knowing when to start something with a particular niche. It's also, however, just as important to know when to finalise a business and when it's time to get out.

I feel I sold up my Penfriends business at the right time.

I still make money with friends and contacts via my blogs. Details next ...

Starting a friends business on the Internet isn't easy. Stumbling blocks are getting a database and designing a website. One way round this is to join something like DIY Dating.

DIY Dating offer you a free website together with a free database of millions of profiles in whatever sector of the friends niche you are interested in. You can choose your website template and call it whatever you wish - as long as someone else hasn't already chosen it.

It won't cost you a penny/cent. All you have to do is promote your website.

I use DIY Dating myself - to make money, that is! - and also several affiliate programs.

The thing about the friends and contacts business is that it is worldwide so the potential is enormous. On my various blogs I get visitors from hundreds of countries and many affiliate programs aren't suitable for everyone - whereas friends are.

These are some of the friends and contacts affiliate programs I promote and I've made thousands of dollars from them. They have all paid me on time. The following links will take you to the affiliate details, rates of commission etc. Needless to say they are all free to join. Where there is a * these are for over 18's only.

Adult Friend Finder* / Amigos.com / Asia friend Finder / Big Church (Christian) / Filipino Friend Finder / French Friend Finder / FriendFinder / Gay Friend Finder* / German Friend Finder / Indian Friends / Italian Friends / Jewish Friend Finder / Korean Friends / Millionaire Mate / Senior Friend Finder / Sexy Ads*

Now I won't kid you that promoting any affiliate program is easy - you probably already know this for yourself - but the friends and contacts sector has enormous potential.

I promote this niche on my various blogs but it could also be promoted on Squidoo, forums, free ads, articles and so on.

If you have a go - good luck!

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