Monthly Business Newsletter a Readers’ Digest : Editor tries to make information manageable by summarizing articles from other publications.

Just over a year ago, Thomas Thompson was laid off from his job of eight years as a strategic planner for Apple Computer in Irvine, and he wasn’t sure what to do next.

Today, he is celebrating his one-year anniversary as publisher and editor of Newport Beach-based Business Trends Report, a monthly newsletter that summarizes the latest happenings in investment, travel and business.

Thompson was inspired to begin a newsletter when he thought of the pile of magazines and newsletters that crowded his mailbox. Sometimes, he would throw them out, unread. He often wished for an assistant, he said, who could read the material and condense it for him, to help him keep up with the latest trends.

His newsletter is designed to do just that. It summarizes 35 of the top business, travel and investment newsletters, several magazines and one book on a business theme each month. For example, a recent Fortune magazine story about a shirt-pocket telephone appeared as two paragraphs in Business Trends Report.

Thompson, who said he broke even during his first year, has 450 subscribers in 33 states. So far, about 80% are renewing their subscriptions for another year, he said. Thompson suggests that his only qualifications for the job of editor and publisher are that he likes to read and that he knows what information business professionals are seeking.

David Savage, vice president of TMH Financial Corp. in Santa Ana, a mortgage brokerage, sent subscriptions of Business Trends Report as a gift to his top clients last year. “I’m a very busy professional,” said Savage, who is also a subscriber. “There are times when I want to know more about a specific article, but the summary is enough to let me know whether I need more information.”

The newsletter refers to the individual magazines, so a reader knows where to go for the full articles.

As a first-time publisher, Thompson had a 50-50 chance of staying in business during his first year, said Frederick Goss, executive director of the Newsletter Publishers Assn. The association supplies advice to new publishers, some free, some for a price. The address is 1401 Wilson Blvd., Suite 207, Arlington, Va. 22209.

Today, there are nearly 5,000 for-profit, independent newsletters published in the country, Goss said, compared to about 2,200 a decade ago. There are newsletters for stressed-out managers, stamp collectors, foreign film enthusiasts and penny pinchers, just to name a few.

Orange County is home to two of the top five investment newsletters in the country, according to a Money Magazine rating in July: The Chartist in Seal Beach and Fabians’ Telephone Switch Newsletter in Huntington Beach.

Thompson condenses information from those newsletters about once every three months. For $30 a year, people can get an idea of what Fabians’ is saying through Business Trends Report. Or they can subscribe to Fabians’ for $137 a year. Other investment newsletters range in price from $90 to $500.

“I figured there was a level of manager who didn’t want to pay the higher prices,” Thompson said.

Thompson grossed $13,500 in his first year in business, but he believes that the newsletter has a potential to attract 10,000 readers within a short time.

Circulation growth has been slow, Thompson said, because he has taken a purposefully limited approach. He mailed subscription solicitations to alumni of USC and UC Irvine management programs (Thompson graduated from the latter) and to members of professional groups.

Thompson started receiving referrals by word of mouth, he said, and is planning to make a bigger investment in his mailing list during his second year. Thompson is running ads in American Airlines’ in-flight magazine and the Wall Street Journal.

“If I had not started receiving subscriptions from 33 states, I would have given up and started a job search,” Thompson said.

The average start-up investment in a newsletter is about $24,000, according to the Newsletter Publishers Assn. Thompson said he would have spent about $15,000 if he hadn’t had much of his computer system in place before he started. As it was, he spent about $2,000 of his savings.

Doug Fabian, president of the Huntington Beach investment newsletter that bears his name, advised a conservative approach to newsletter marketing, such as Thompson’s. Fabian said too many people begin a direct marketing campaign before they know who their audience is.

Fabian’s father, Dick, started their newsletter in 1977 as a way to popularize an investment strategy recommended in the elder Fabian’s self-published book, “How to Be Your Own Investment Counselor.”

With 45,000 subscribers, the newsletter has fulfilled its promise, Doug Fabian said. “It ended up becoming much more popular than the book. Now, we give the book away with a subscription.”

If your Orange County company has annual sales of less than $10 million, we would like to consider it for a future column. Call O.C. Enterprise at (714) 966-7871.