I get a lot of ideas just reading companies annual reports. You can get a whole lot of them for free from http://yahoo.ar.wilink.com/
It's going to help you to be able to understand what's in the income statement. I'd recommend the book "Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial statements" by Mary Buffett.
Basically, if you find a company with a year over year history of good earnings, a decent profit margin and reasonable debt levels you got a winner there. Even better if it's selling at a low P/E.