Selling public domain books and derivative works

[squeegee]

Has anyone heard of this?
The concept is: you take a book whose copyright has expired, and sell it. Even better, you jazz it up and turn it into a high-value multimedia package.

For example, Matt Furey has done this with a book from 1914 on "catch wrestling," whatever that is. He found an old copy of the book, created a fancy video-based training product and sells it for $597. He also sells reprints of the book itself for $35.

I heard of the idea from an infoproduct for sale called "public domain riches." (google it to find the details).

Anyway I purchased a copy of a book from the 1920s which I believe is public domain. It's about how to choose whether you will have a baby boy or a girl. (there are various methods with fertility cycles and acid/alkaline diets n stuff). I see a few of these products for sale right now so I know there is a market.

I have these ideas:
1 - scan the book and sell PDF copies of it on ebay, as-is.

2 - same as 1 but add explanations in plain English (in the olden days they wrote with a strange style which is hard to read today). And I could explain how the methods can be used in the 21st century. This increases the product value and as a bonus I believe I could claim my own copyright on the resulting book.

3 - same as 2, but also I would buy the same type products that are for sale now, and if they have any new and valuable knowledge I could incorporate that into special extra chapters/addendum to the old-ass book from the 20s, in my own words. (semi-ethical?)

What do you guys think?

[final_id]

I think Barnes and Noble, Penguin, Norton's, Banner, Borzoi, Harper Collins, and a thousand other publishers have thought of this. They've also thought of how to manage the supply chain, the book design (interior and exterior), the redistribution, the marketing, the subsidiary rights, the translation rights, the added value of editorial changes to content, the added value of editorial material written to be bound before and after the main text, the authors' estates, the upkeep of rights, the printing paper and binding, the shipping, the academic interactions necessary to make the book considered worthwhile, the tie-ins with book clubs and other pre-packaged sales deals, the ... oh, you get the point.

That's what publishing IS.

[kamakiri]

Very nice post ID.

Squeege - That idea has been flying around the internet for years now, and in fact a lot of people made good money doing it. I still get emails from a company that sells a group of 20-30 books in pdf format that were all written at the beginning of the 1900s. That market is getting pretty stale now though.

It is the guys selling the 'books' or 'programs' offering ways to tell you how to do this who are making the money now, and you know by the time it gets to that level, no one is making much money except the people selling the information. It is difficult or impossible to achieve the level of success that the first guys to the market made.

Re-packaging books as they are is pretty much taken care of by the big guys, Amazon is actually printing books on demand for en ever expanding list of books that have gone out of print.

[nightowl]

as a consumer, I buy information. I don't care if it has been published before and is in the public domain.

The internet is a prime example that we are hungry for information, no matter how many times its been told or is available, but it has to be presented in the right way.

Gender choice of your baby could be a huge hot topic.

Acid/alkaline diets are becoming the latest rage so this topic ties into it.

Back to other books. There are good books that the big publishers haven't republished. Not just some, alot. They can't republish everything out there.

I have purchased a dozen out of print books over the last 6 months for my own consumption. If the same information had been republished into a new book, I would have bought the updated book over the out of print book.
I love love love walking around Borders Book Store or Barnes and Noble when I am in the states. There are so many pretty new books in the bargain aisles (not just bargain bins, but bargain aisles!) that it's good for my credit card, but as a writer and reader, it makes me realize that old books don't get republished, because there are so many new ones. There is no way publishers can republish every single book out there and there are some that slip through the cracks. Hence my 12 purchases over the last six months.

As I said above, if the information had been republished in a new book then I would have bought the new book.

One example. I have been searching for the last year for a good book on abandoned properties. Not for-closures or pre-forclosures, but literally properties where there is practially no owner anymore, you drive by them and haven't seen anyone there for the last five years. The same out-of-print book on Amazon keeps coming up that does not have great reviews, but I finally realized that was my only choice, then finally two weeks ago - ! - I see that someone is publishing a new book on the subject this year! They could just be rehashing the old information, adding a few ammendments and slapping a color cover page on ti, but I will buy it.



To squeegee, I wouldn't buy a pdf scan, but I am only one type of customer.

I would suggest that you spend several weeks or more becoming an expert in this feild and essentially becoming an author:

a) double check that it is truly in the public domain
b) research what other e-books or books are currently available in the subject
c) hire a VA on Elance, Guru, etc to scan the old book to OCR, so you will get a Word document
d) edit and update the language and contents (or hire someone on Guru to do so)
e) turn it into an e-book
f) create a web-site, hype it up and sell it as much as you can, completely automated, so you don't have to do anything, the work has been done
g) if the demand is high, then consider making it into a real book. search for print-on-demand. There are so many. For example lulu.com Actually I remember someone on this site also starting a similar publishing service. Please search for them. Basically with print on command, you get a printed book only when you need it, i.e. after an order has been placed.
h) test your market. This should be done sometime above, but when is individual to each person.

oh and there's another thing i), but that's another topic!


I don't think it is cheating to look at literature in the public domain as a source of inspiration for e-books or books or even websites. Information is information and we can't get enough of it!.

I am not concerned if my future child is male or female, but ironically, I was speaking to someone earlier before I read this post that really wanted a girl. My dad wanted a boy at some point. Even if the tests are urban legend, clearly there is a market for the curious.

[kamakiri]

This came across in a blog post, and is a classic example of what I am talking about. It is a classic example of the usual auto responder attached to a web site with the free offer to hook you in.

Teaching Sells (http://teachingsells.com/report.html?ref=e082eee5&pid=32b98af0)

I have nothing to do with the site nor endorse it at all. Just using it as an example of what I am talking about, and the timeliness of it coming across my RSS feeds made it easy to use as an example.

[jetpacklife]

Turn it into a website and give your information away for free.

High ad revenue in the parents to be market.