Passive Income News is a monthly newsletter published by Streetwise Publications and edited by Iain Maitland.

This newsletter is offered to Streetwise's customers via direct mail. The sales letter suggests that it can teach you how to make at least £2,000 a week without a job. It also says that Iain can get you started within seven days.

The opening letter is written by John Harrison, who says that Iain Maitland makes him "sick".

Being the part-owner of Streetwise Publications, John quite rightly points out that he knows quite a bit about one thing and that is making money.

He describes how Iain Maitland has never had a real job and rarely runs anything that people would class as a business. However, he apparently lives an idyllic lifestyle, and made it his life's work to identify as many ways to make money as possible.

In fact "...everything he [Maitland] does now is geared towards receiving cash, cheques, postal orders, bank credits, royalties, commissions, dividends, prizes... in fact any kind of money which he doesn't have to work for.

Every year hundreds of payments drop onto Iain Maitland's doormat, into his bank account and physically into his hands in hard cash. John Harrison describes it as "laughably easy".

If you have ever dealt with Streetwise Publications you will know that they do write very good sales letters, and this one is no exception.

The letter is 12 pages long and portrays that an excellent way of earning a living is through passive income.

Iain describes how he has full use of a massive contacts book that he has built up over the years, and promises to share this with subscribers. Also, he has a full-time team who helped him to uncover passive income opportunities.

Each monthly issue promises to focus in on the 12 hottest "no work" income opportunities for that month. These include online and offline opportunities, hot bets, share and investment recommendations, web sites, property, eBooks, betting, freebies and competitions.

Iain also ensures potential subscribers that they can contact him about anything they read in Passive Income news.

He says you can either phone, fax or e-mail him and these contact details will be provided with the free trial package. He even goes so far as to give his e-mail address in the sales letter so potential customers can ask any questions before signing up.

The offer is very, very tempting (I signed up immediately). You can elect to take one free trial issue, and, if you like what you read, you can then sign up to one year with a 50% discount.

Payment is taken via a standing order to your bank or building society account.

Standing orders are much easier to cancel than direct debits, Streetwise Publications are aware of this and wisely use it to make sure that customers are happy that they control any apparent "risk".

The usual price of Passive Income News is £119 a year, which works out at just less than £10 a month. However, the initial offer is for just £57 for the first year. This is taken 30 days after receipt of the order form. You can cancel at any time before the 30 days is up and never pay a penny.

On the back of the order form is a list of some of the "exciting information and features" lined up for Passive Income News. These include:

Public Domain materials, eBay, Google AdWords, Spot-the-Ball competitions, property, insider racing secrets, search engine optimisation, generating residual income, greyhound racing, lottery, investments, viral marketing, fine wine, pay-per-click, resale rights, currencies, web sites, mortgages, dropshipping, stamps... and much more.

So, what is it really like?

Passive Income News is currently on the fifth issue (at the time of writing) which is that of May 2006.

Each newsletter is very professionally produced and 12 pages long. Each page contains one main article and three short articles at the side.

As an example, the February 2006 issue contained three share tips, eight articles on property investing, five articles on gambling, one article on endowment policies, three articles on tax tips and other small articles on matters such as credit checks, the lottery, Google AdSense and competitions.

Subsequent issues have been similar in form with a great deal about current "trendy" investment opportunities such as property, eBay and the ever popular gambling, but to be honest, there has been little about true "passive income".

Along with the first trial issue, subscribers are provided with a 33 page "bonus fact file" which is called "Money For Nothing!"

In the sales letter this is described as a "digest of 15 of the hottest passive income opportunities for 2006".

In truth, only two of these could be described as true passive income opportunities, five of the 15 opportunities simply contain recommendations on where to buy property in the UK and Spain.

Conclusion

The Passive Income Newsletter is a very interesting read and good value for money at less than five pounds an issue.

In the last four issues there have only been a handful of passive income opportunities, with a lot of articles about property, eBay, betting and investing - all of the typically "trendy" opportunities at this moment in time

All share tips are described as long-term i.e. to be held for at least one to two years. Therefore, you will have to do hold onto your shares for quite a while in order to see whether Iain Maitland's share tipster knows his stuff

To be fair to Iain this is a new publication and each issue features new contributions from an ever-growing list of income opportunity experts.

It can be seen that a lot of work goes into each issue and, although I haven't actually tested it, Iain is very forthcoming with contact details and invites feedback and suggestions in every issue.

Although the price rises to £119 in the second year, it is worth giving Passive Income News a trial to see for yourself what it offers. A first-year subscription of just £57 does seem quite a bargain.

If, after the first year, you are not happy you can simply cancel your standing order and your subscription is cancelled.