Selling Public Domain Books

After a certain time once copyrighted media content loses its intellectual property protection status and enters the public domain. Once it is in the public everyone can freely use even for commercial purposes subject to some restrictions. There are people who make a good money reinterpreting public domain contents. You could be one of them.

Lets Talk About The Law

Before you can be a republisher of public domain media content you must first be sure that the media content you intend to use is actually in the public domain. There are many articles online that describe guidelines on when copyrighted works become public domain works but one of the “safest” guideline I found was from an excerpt from an article by Stanford University Libraries.

In their article they explained that as of 2019 all copyrighted media content published in the United States before 1924 entered public domain. This means that if a media content was published before January 1,1924 anyone can freely use the work in the United States without requiring permission from anyone.

For more details you can refer to their article titled: Welcome to the Public Domain In their article they also answer some questions regarding issues related directly to copyright ownership. However one thing to note is that this specifically applies only to the Americans and not to citizens of other countries.

This means that even if a book for example has entered the public domain in the United States it may still be copyright protected in other countries. This is one of the nuances of the world we live in where laws can be different for each of the countries. You should be familiar with the copyright law of your country if you plan to republish public domain works from other countries.

Google is a Big Help

Trying to find out if a certain work is already in public domain can be difficult especially if you are not from the United States. But if you are determined enough Google can be a big help. For example when I Googled the search keywords “is Anne of Green Gables public domain globally” one of the search results pointed out that it is already public domain in the United States and Canada.

The answer was from SAGE Journals titled “Not a ‘usual’ property”: a hundred years of protecting Anne of Green Gables. The article also illustrates that certain books like this has extended copyright protection which you should be very wary of especially if you are aiming for a global market even though you are American or Canadian in this case.

Though writers from other countries may be missing out on republishing Anne of Green Gables one must take note of the market for such books also. These are books that primarily cater to a specific white/caucasian way of life and drama from the past and might not sell to a global reading audience. Simply put there are millions of works in the public domain and you have plenty of choices.

The Classics as a Safe Bet

If for example you Google the search keywords “is the Odyssey public domain globally” or “is Macbeth public domain globally” Google would return positive results informing you that both books are in the public domain globally. So one helpful search keywords are “is” + name of book + “public domain globally”. This helps in my online searches.

What I can discern from the limited time I was doing online search for books in the public domain globally is that the books must be over 100 years old. This particularly are such classics as ancient mythologies, ancient stories and so on. These types of books also have the advantage of being much more known globally because of their age.

How Can You Republish Content?

Now that you have a clearer idea of the laws regarding what books are in the public domain and how to know if one is let us tackle another thing related to laws. This time this is the law on how you can republish a book. The law at least in the United States is that you can freely copy or change the contents of the book. However some online book platforms have rules of their own.

The rule is that they do not allow public domain works in their original form. Publishers must change the public domain work to avoid duplication of content. This is understandable as if these laws/restrictions are not in place anyone can simply download digital files of public domain works and simply upload these to online book platforms.

Imagine if every publisher does this. The online book platforms would easily be flooded by identical books which could easily number by the thousands even millions all taking up digital space in the online book platforms. This is the way online book platforms protect themselves from book publishers with questionable business practices.

For example Amazon strictly requires that books derived from public domain works must at least do one of the following:

1. Translating: You can vary the words or the plot lines in the story. For example you can change the period setting in the story to give a more contemporary story. For example most of the public domain stories would be set in the past were horses and carriages are the means of transport. You can change the story to instead feature cars instead of horses and carriages.

You can also incorporate an altogether fantasy setting to public domain works. For example the book Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen had a very out of this world interpretation when Pride and Prejudice and Zombies came out. A movie was even made about it in 2016.

2. Annotating: As the name suggests a book in the public domain can be republished with annotations in it. For example if you were using a public domain work whose theme is war among countries you can annotate different information regarding pieces in the book. These pieces could be a paragraph, a word, an image and so on.

3. Illustrating: People are getting more and more visual when it comes to media content. Videos and audiobooks are increasingly getting more and more customers who are fast leaving written media. In fact the fastest growing segments of digital books have been audiobooks instead of e-books.

This means there could come a time when people would know the contents of a book by hearing them instead of reading them. Even many websites have video and audio supplements to aid readers who would rather see moving pictures or hear the information rather than reading it.

So besides being a requirement from Amazon it is also an essential part of your business to add visual content in your republished public domain content. The images could be anything. They could be pictures, charts, graphs and so on as long as they aid in the understanding of your book. Visual content can also break up the texts of a book which can make reading it less boring at times.

The Pros and Cons of Republishing Public Domain Content

Perhaps the greatest advantage is that public domain content has built in branding therefore they are recognizable. For example Shakespeare has a certain brand according to how people interpret him. Some people interpret Shakespeare’s work as serious literature or some interpret his work as period drama.

No matter how you look at Shakespeare he has a built in brand that you relate to. Compare this to a book from an unknown author chances are you would be second guessing whether or not you should be reading this unknown author’s work. But you know Shakespeare since your early school days.

Chances are your teacher or your library introduced him to you. Perhaps Shakespeare’s work as written in the old days is boring to you but you know the story and might just like a better and modern interpretation of his work. Shakespeare is familiar while an unknown author is just it which is unknown. People like the familiar and public domain books are mostly familiar.

Perhaps the greatest disadvantage of republishing public domain content is that it is not your own work. You might find it not at all exciting to republish someone else’s work and you might even consider it a chore. This is very true when you have to change the texts of the entire story and feel yourself constricted by the theme of the book.

However this is not a disadvantage to people who have less inclination to create original works. This may be due to the fact that they find it difficult to create their own unique ideas. They may also be just in the business side of producing books where what is important to them is to sell what they perceive is the best book to sell based on their research.

Why Republish Public Domain Content?

There can only be two choices for this question. The first is that you like to do it personally and the second is for money. The first reason is less obvious but it is still true. There are lovers of books and their stories but have their own ideas about them. The “what if” factor rings true here.

The second and more obvious reason is money. Reinterpreting public domain books is hard especially when you consider that novels for example can run into the hundred pages! You invest time and money but especially time to republish a book. Not many people do this as a hobby. Consider this if you want to go into the public domain book republishing business.

A little bit easier to do is interpreting a public domain book into your own native language. For example if you are a Japanese you could interpret Japanese public domain books into English. Much more many Japanese know English than the other way around which is a definite advantage if you are Japanese.

Speaking of the Japanese their Anime culture is well known globally. If you are a good illustrator of Anime you could rework public domain books not only from Japan but also from other countries. For example you could make an Anime interpretation of “Romeo and Juliet” and the other works of Shakespeare. You could even tap the education market if you are good enough.

Another interpretation you could also be interested in is converting public domain books to Braille the written language for the blind. Take note that Braille can also be dependent on a country’s language. This means many opportunities for you if you are conversant in Braille in many languages.

Can it Be Profitable?

The direct answer is “Yes”. There have been people who have made a good money doing precisely this. For example you can follow the example of Aaron Kerr who according to this article titled: 364: Public Domain Publishing: $100,000 Selling Classic Books on Amazon has pocketed nearly $130,000 since 2013.

The article was published in 2019 this means that six years have passed since he made $130,000. This means he approximately earned more than $20,000 per year. This means he approximately earned $1,800 per month. This is good money considering this is part-time work he did at home.

It is also important to note that it is passive income. He created the books once and as long as they stay in the online book stores and sell they would continue to make money for him without him having to do more. He can also increase his income by creating more and more books which would hopefully also sell.

Of course nothing is set in stone. This is just like any other business where fortunes can change in an instant. But this better than having no passive income at all where you have to contend with working for a company where if you do not work you do not get paid. At least he has an alternative income source.

Conclusion

The law on being able to use public domain works especially the issue as to when a copyrighted work becomes public domain can be confusing. This is especially true for people living outside the United States where online information can be very limited. The reverse is true as Americans could also be confused of the public domain status of works from other countries.

Google is your greatest ally in getting information about the public domain status of a book. It is also almost safe to say that once a book is more than 100 years old it is mostly categorized as a work in the public domain. Once you have determined a book is in public domain you can do with it as you please but you have to follow the regulations of online book companies if you intend to sell from these platforms.

The question: “Is Republishing Public Domain Content Profitable?” has been answered with a resounding “Yes” together with a concrete example of a person who has actually done it. Just like any business however you can fail, survive or win. That is why it is good advise that should you ever go into this business you should love doing this. Republishing public domain content can be a chore if you do not enjoy it.