Let’s say you found an old book dating back to 1872, for example.  The book is big, old, and contains data pertaining to immigrants arriving onboard ships at ports along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.  You know enough that this book. . .

• definitely is in the Public Domain in the U.S. (published before 1923!)
• consists of material popular in several categories on eBay, such as genealogy, history, immigrants, old ships, photos and maps
• is a great example of  taking one item that can be used to make many “derivative” products you can create and sell

Since your research shows that there is a market ready, willing, and eager for products you could produce from your old book, you think to yourself what can you do with it?

You want to make a go of this because you have read and studied about Public Domain being a great resource on creating a variety of products that can be used in building your own successful online business.

This 1872 dusty old publication is available for downloading at one of the very best sources for Public Domain material – Project Gutenberg – and it is a continually growing source.  Items enter the Public Domain every day – those are all the works that have fallen out of copyright protection.  This means that their copyrights expired and their copyrights have not been renewed.

Go visit Project Gutenberg at www.gutenberg.org and spend some time exploring.  You’ll have fun at what you’ll discover there!

Because your Public Domain book is available for downloading, you can keep your original physical copy intact and not take it apart for scanning and re-working the contents.   Who knows, you may want to sell your physical copy someday knowing someone would pay you a good sum for it on eBay or Amazon.com.  But, that’s a whole other direction so let’s stay on topic.

So, for now, here’s what you can do:

• make print copies from some of the great illustrations and photographs in the book, after you have altered them (just enough to make them your own creation) so that you now are able to copyright them as your own work

• group information together featuring specific surnames, which ships these people arrived on, and maps and photos displaying the people and where they located in their new land
• translate the book into another language – perhaps just a sub-section from the book for immigrants from Ireland, or Russia, or wherever!

History and genealogy buffs are always on the lookout for information to fill their interests.

A huge demand exists for  all types of information in all kinds of product format offerings.   Doing some research on what categories  are in demand right now will give you ideas of your own to use, or you can follow the big selling trends that are the most popular today.

From this you can easily get started on  your own business creating products from works you found in the Public Domain.

Till next time,

Jackie