We're Alfred and Emily Glossbrenner, professional explainers. We specialize in filling unmet needs, something we've been doing with our books (60+), magazine columns, and media appearances for over 30 years.

The topics we've covered couldn't be more diverse. Everything from The Art of Hitting .300 to a clutch of books about search engines and doing business online to About the Author, a "juicy bits" guide for fiction lovers.

Yet there is a common thread that runs through everything: We do the research. We distill the essence. And then we present it in clear, conversational prose.

And there is something else. Our readers and reviewers have always known that they can trust us to tell them the truth. That's because we scrupulously avoid referral fees, link exchanges, advertising, and anything else that might be perceived as compromising our unbiased objectivity.

We began focusing on the vacation-rental field eight years ago. The catalyst was a stay at Emily's parents' vacation home on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We had a delightful chat with a shopkeeper friend of Emily's mother. She had a small cottage on her property that she had fixed up and was ready to offer as a vacation rental. But she hadn't a clue how to go about it.

At that point, we had been successfully advertising and renting our own vacation cottage for several years. We had been informally helping friends and family members do the same with their properties. So we offered the Outer Banks owner a few suggestions and shared some of our secrets and favorite resources. We were enormously pleased when she wrote a week later to say she had followed our advice—and that she had already booked her first $1,600 worth of business!

In a flash of inspiration, Emily said, "Let's write our next book about vacation rentals—a handbook for property owners." No competing books existed. So we hammered out the details and produced our book/CD package, How to Make Your Vacation Property Work for You! Now in its second edition, our "seminar in a box" is often called "The Bible" on do-it-yourself vacation rentals.

Our FullyBookedRentals membership Web site is a natural and timely addition. We continue to "do the work so you don't have to." We continue to intelligently "filter the firehose" of information in this burgeoning field. And we continue to remain fiercely independent. In other words, you can trust what we say—always!