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A Different Idea for Books from the Public Domain
Quite possibly, you have heard of public domain publishing as a method of earning money online. I want to tell you about a twist on that idea that can have you bringing in extra revenue almost right away.
First, though, the basics. As you perhaps know, many books and other materials have entered the public domain (fallen out of copyright restrictions) and can be republished, in any format, by any person who desires to do so. In the U.S. most works published through the year 1923 are considered now to be public domain (“PD”).
If you locate a PD book that you believe people would buy if it were republished, you could reprint it as a physical book and sell copies via eBay, Amazon or your own web site. Some enterprising individuals have done exactly this with old correspondence courses and other non-fiction, how-to type materials from decades past.
Or, you could repackage your PD find as an e-book and make it available for people to download, for a price. This is probably the more common way that people are earning money at this time from the public domain.Again, how-to, self-improvement and other non-fiction works will usually prove to be the most profitable.
Now about that little twist I mentioned. The method I prefer is to make PD books freely available on the web, and place advertising on their pages. So, speaking strictly, you’re not actually selling a book, but rather ad space.
A few years a guy named Steve Smith learned about a strange book from 1892 that combined a time-travel tale with a novel about golf. Its title was Golf In the Year 2000.
Afer a bit of searching, he was able to find a copy of this book for just $10. He scanned the pages, converted them with opitcal character reading software, and posted the whole book on a website he had registered just for this purpose.
He went further than that, though. On his web pages, he surrounded the text of the book with Google AdSense and affiliate merchant ads. This enabled him to make money from visitors clicking the AdSense or buying things. By the way, if you’re curious you can view his site at www.golf-in-the-year-2000.com.
Steve’s online edition of Golf In the Year 2000 attracts a steady stream of golf enthusiasts, science fiction fans, Victorian literature lovers and the simply curious, he reports. And the ads on his pages bring him money!
This is an idea that could easily be duplicated. Public-domain sources are abundant nowadays. You might be able to find a suitable book in one of the many web-based collections, preferably something that not many other people have discovered yet.
The good thing about this idea is that the book you showcase (and use to earn ad revenue) need not be confined to non-fiction or how-to.As with Mr. Smith’s strange little science fictional golf gem, it can simply be something that will bring web surfers to your site, for the novelty if nothing else.
You could also look in used-book stores to try to find something rare enough not to have made it to the Internet at all. In that case you will probably need to buy a scanner and some OCR software to get the text into your computer.
Public domain publishing is indeed a potentially lucrative area.Further, how you “repurpose” your public domain finds is completely up to you. That’s what makes it so fun, as well as profitable.
This method of publishing public domain material is also described in this article, along with recommendations for further reading.
If you are interested in selling actual used books online, as on Amazon or eBay, there’s a downloadable report available that shows a new and mega-profitable way to do it. Check it out here or read an excellent review of it at Can You Still Make Money Selling Used Books on Amazon?
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