I bet this little secret is going to get YOU excited… just like it did me. I
just discovered public domain treasures and it’s a perfect business opportunity
for many new internet entrepreneurs.

Did you know there’s a little known loophole in US law that allows anyone to
distribute, resell or give away expired copyrighted content? Officially, its
called public domain, and savvy marketers “borrow” it to publish instant
products.

Public domain refers to anything that is NOT protected under US copyright law.
This includes all works published before 1923 and under certain conditions,
works published up to 1978. A “work” can be anything, a book, movies, plays,
songs, photographs, instruction manuals, posters, courses, reports, etc. You
could take these works, repackage them and sell them for a profit. By tapping
into public domain content, all the nitty gritty work has been done for you.

There are almost an endless number of ways that you can make money with public
domain content. Let me suggest 10 different models you can use to activate and
tap the public domain treasures.

Model 1: Resell It.
You can re-publish public domain content exactly as it is. Whether it’s a book,
a movie or even music, you can take this content and quickly turn it into a
product. Just copy it as it is and start selling it.

Model 2: Website Content
You can take the text of the public domain work which relates to a product you
are selling or an affiliate program that you are promoting. You then create web
pages and include links back to your product page.

Model 3: Repackage
You can repackage a public domain work into a new product. You can use the
ideas and some of the content of public domain works to create new and better
products.

Eg. Walt Disney characters Snow White, the Little Mermaid were all stories from
the public domain.

Model 4: Multimedia
You can change the books in print into a CD or even a video set. Add to the
perceived value of the product by offering ways to consume the information. What
was once simply a “book” can now be a complete home study course or training
program.

Eg. The famous “Think & Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill has been made into an
audio CD which is a more convenient format.

Model 5: Reprint Rights
You could sell your version of the information product along with marketing
materials. People love reprint rights and it’s a quick and easy way to make tons
of money immediately. You can sell reprint rights only to a derivative product
you have created from the original public domain material.

Model 6: Upsell
You can use public domain works and use then as an “upsell” to a regular
version of your best selling product. You simply present your buyer with an
additional opportunity to “upgrade” their order or add something to their order.

Model 7: Bonuses
Simply use the work as a bonus to your main offering. People love bonuses and
will buy a product just for the bonus, if its unique and not something they’ve
seen all over the net already.

Model 8: Viral E-books
You simply take parts of the book and turn it into a viral e-book by allowing
others to pass along or even sell this e-book as their own. Once you trigger the
“virus” its nearly impossible to make it stop because people keep passing it on
and than these people keep passing it on etc, etc.

Eg. Rebecca fine from Seattle, WA used this exact technique to accidentally
launch her six figure business with an interesting book, written in 1910 “The
Science of Getting Rich” by Wallace D.Wattles. You can “super-size” this
strategy by creating a viral e-book with the material and then including
affiliate links that pay you commissions anytime someone buys from your
recommended resources.

Model 9: Google AdSense
You can use the material to create an information-rich website and then place a
tiny piece of code from Google to run their AdSense program on your site. You’ll
essentially partner-up with Google and get paid a percentage for everyone that
simply clicks on the ads Google places on your site.

Model 10: Articles/ Mini Courses
You could use little contents from public domain works and create a mini-course
that people would subscribe from your site. You just load a series of 4 to 10
articles into your auto-responders and it delivers it on a total auto-pilot.

You can also use the material into 500-800 word articles to distribute for free
publicity and traffic to your sites. Editors of e-zines and owners of web sites
are always looking for hot fresh content and in exchange they’ll send you over
targeted traffic.

Eg. Matt Furey discovered a little unknown book on “Catch Wrestling” and turned
it into a complete manual and video e-course of 12 lessons for his market of
fitness and wrestling buffs. He had earned over $1million dollars in sales from
this one book.

Among the topics available in the public domain treasures are:

Health & Fitness

Fun & Games

Sports & Recreation

Hobbies & Crafts

Education & Self Improvement

Food & Cooking

Animal & Pets

Home Garden & much much more.

Public domain works provides a huge opportunity to newbies in the internet world
to tap these vast treasures. Simply put, you can use these works to instantly
create e-books, manuals, articles, reports or any other type of information
products in a snap. GOOD LUCK!

Discover the treasure that lies hidden in the public domain
works and repackage the content as your own money making
information product.

The Public Domain can be used to create works for countless media categories and
category combinations, and sold singly as printed books, magazines, photographs,
audio recordings, software, eBooks, films, audio tapes, video recordings, sheet
music. Products can also be sold in combinations, such as printed book with CD,
eBook with membership site, and more.

Let us look at just a few ways to turn Public Domain creative works into
physical and digital products.

While reading this article please take time to seek ways to be individual,
better still unique, and turn an item literally anyone can claim from the public
domain into your own exclusive products, available only from you!

Let’s go with a few ideas:

* Reprint text and illustrations ‘as is’, in print format, without making any
changes. The simplest way to do this is to obtain a physical version of an
original document, say a report or book, and to scan or photocopy the
information from which to create subsequent copies.

Note that, although this is the fastest and easiest way to recreate and sell
public domain works, it really doesn’t take much effort to make a few simple
changes to text or layout, or illustrations and pagination, for example. These
few changes take very little time but they are highly significant in determining
your rights in the book. This is because with a few changes, enough to make the
item recognisably different from the public domain original, the new work
becomes what’s known as a ‘derivative’ work and its creator is fully protected
under copyright law. This means, if anyone copies your version of the product,
they can be sued for damages.

Note that, if you take a book from the public domain and recreate it as
individual shorter reports, without making changes to the text, your product is
again a derivative and becomes your sole copyright.

* Reprint the text and illustrations ‘as is’ and convert to downloadable
format. This involves laying out the pages as they were in the original format,
by scanning, for example, or by rekeying an exact copy of the document.
Subsequently you turn the document into pdf or other eBook format. Arguably,
this change from print to digital copy is sufficient to make your product a
copyright protected derivative work. But in reality it would be impossible to
know if someone selling an identical digital item to yours has copied your work
or created their own product from scratch just as you did. So at least make a
few changes, design your own front cover, for example, or use a different font,
add a few illustrations, create a contents sheet or index section where none
existed before.

Note that some of the biggest public domain resource sites provide public domain
works as ready to download text. So all you have to do is go to your preferred
location — Gutenberg is most people’s favourite — you’re your title, download
and add the text to a newly opened ‘Word’ document, choose your own font and
size, repaginate the text so that all chapters begin on a new page, and so on.
‘Word’ can be changed into pdf format literally at a keystroke using several
free and low cost software programs on the market today. Find them by searching
google.com for ‘pdf + creator + free’ or similar.

* Recreate the text ‘as is’, in ‘Word’, PDF or similar fashion, and burn your
eBooks on CD. This makes it easier for potential buyers who want your books but
are unfamiliar with downloading or have a slow connection or who simply prefer
physical media. It’s always a good idea to provide as many product formats as
possible and optimise your market potential. You’ll also find that, certainly
on eBay, buyers think they know how to download digital products, but later find
they can’t, so they take out their temper on you and you receive negative
feedback. Sellers of downloadable products can avoid this common scenario by
informing buyers that a CD will follow shortly after they access their download
links.

The Public Domain can be used to create works for countless
media categories and category combinations, and sold singly
as printed books, magazines, photographs, audio recordings,
software, eBooks, films, audio tapes, video recordings,
sheet music. Products can also be sold in combinations,
such as printed book with CD, eBook with membership site,
and more. Let us look at just a few ways to turn Public
Domain creative works into physical and digital products.

Internet marketing is a vital ingredient to any website based business for
getting your name around in the public domain. New and ongoing sales are the
“oxygen” that any site needs to survive and prosper. List building and mail
promotions are a part of your essential tool box as far as online marketing
goes. List building enables you to collect the contact details of all visitors
to your site. If they have bought a product or service then you want to secure
repeat business, or if they are yet to make a purchase, you want to try and
tempt them back again.

There are various ways that you can get potential clients to leave you their
contact details; you can invite them to take part in a short survey; you can
invite them to sign up for a newsletter, or you can offer some sort of free
incentive. Any one of these things may generate more interest, and can help to
build up a loyal following to your website. But the most important thing of all
is that once you have their email addresses, you have the basis for future email
marketing campaigns.

Since the visitors to your site are the most likely to purchase your products or
services, it is just a matter of appealing to them by building trust and
loyalty. Sometimes, this can be accomplished through repetitive, yet informative
email promotions that are not invasive.

Research has found that 60% of Internet shoppers abandon their “shopping carts”
before they complete the purchase. The large part of the reason may be that they
did not trust the website or the online business enough to feel comfortable
giving their credit card number. This may mean that website content needs to be
looked at in order to find better ways to instill this trust. It is possible,
with a few changes, you can increase your purchase completion rate.

Bear in mind that the email addresses on the list that you build are your most
likely potential for new sales. They have already visited your site and
registered their interest and the next promotion you push their way may be
sufficient to trigger that order. The one thing that you must be careful of
however, is to ensure that any promotional data you send to them is both
interesting and informative, else they may tire very quickly and delete
themselves from your mailing list. Once lost a potential client in unlikely to
return.

It is always useful, if not essential, to seek feedback from visitors. These are
both your clients and your potential clients, and their shopping experiences are
invaluable to you. You can for example include a short survey form on your
website for visitors or shoppers to complete, and give them plenty of options to
be able to contact you such as links, low toll or free calls, and an address.
All of this will help to instill that vital confidence ingredient and will give
your site a more professional and user friendly feel.

The easiest client to woo, is one that has already purchased from your website.
There are no trust issues here. They were sufficiently interested in the
product/service, to complete a purchase, therefore, new product/service
promotions and newsletters can be expected to reap rewards, so this should be
your first propriety target group. To get the best benefit out of email
campaigns, the data in your potential client list needs to be carefully analyzed
and your campaigns planned accordingly.

Good ways of stimulating your visitor’s interest include: special offers, video
demonstrations or presentations, and free product samples.

The thing to keep in mind is that your website is the storefront for your online
business and you have to get the customer to come into the store before you have
a chance to sell them anything. Just like window shoppers, they will often come
back at a later time to make an actual purchase. The key is to use list building
and email promotions to win them over as a repeat customer and keep your name in
front of them from time to time.

List building and Email promotions are two crucial factors
for successful online business marketing. Building a
customer database from visitors to your website is
important, since these visitors were obviously interested
enough to see what your website was about in the first
place.

Scrapbooks

Vintage images can add a nostalgic dimension to your scrapbooking. Whether they
are illustrations from an artist’s hand, early photographs, or antique paper
items like advertisements, newspapers or other ephemera, they lend instant
artwork to your scrapbooking project. These pictures from the past also capture
the essence of an occasion or an emotion, verifying that the important things in
life don’t change over time.

Many kinds of vintage images are available digitally through simple online
downloads — just try a Google search for “vintage images.” Though most will be
in the public domain, be aware of any usage restrictions you find.

Here are eight ideas to spark your imagination!

1. Use the full image as a centerpiece. Choose an image that reflects the theme of
   your page; a photo of an antique car for your page about your son’s new car; a
   jolly Victorian St. Nicholas for a Christmas page; a vintage Eiffel Tower photo
   for your Paris vacation page. Place the image centrally and lay out your photos
   around it.
2. Enlarge the image as your background. Many images are perfect for backgrounds,
   such as handwriting on aged paper or a pastoral scene. If the digital image is
   high resolution (150-300 dpi), you can probably enlarge it to the size of your
   scrapbook page. Use the background colors to determine your photo matting
   palette. Layout your photos, text and embellishments so the background image
   peeks through.
3. Cut out “scraps” as embellishments. A major pastime for Victorian women was
   cutting out small illustrations (called “scraps”) and pasting them in books –
   hence, scrapbooks. Many vintage images include comical figures, holiday symbols,
   good-luck charms, and more. Simply resize and print them from your computer and
   cut them out with manicure scissors. Glue them onto your page where you need a
   nostalgic embellishment!
4. Create frames or borders from the images. Many vintage postcards and greeting
   cards were designed with fanciful decorative borders. Resize and print them on
   your computer, cut out the center, and you have an ornate vintage frame for your
   photos or text.

5. Use vintage written sentiments as inspiration for your journaling. Long before
   Hallmark, Victorian-era postcards were created for all occasions (even Leap
   Year) with snippets of poetry and flowery sentiments. Incorporate these texts
   and artwork into your scrapbook page for a touching message from the past.
6. Borrow the colors from an image to set the palette for your scrapbook page.
   Choose an image that attracts you with colors, bright or subdued, or even a
   striking black and white or sepia-tone photo. Use those colors and shades in
   your background, matting and texts to create a harmonized, coordinated look.
7. Alter vintage images with paint, ink, rubber stamping or other treatments.
   “Altered art” is both fun and trendy. Take a basic image and add your own
   touches with paint, foil, cutting, folding, stamping, embossing, burning —
   pretty much anything. What you add and how you do it can make an image comical,
   provocative or nostalgic. When in doubt — it seems — put butterfly wings on a
   baby photo.
8. Let your personal photos “interact” with vintage images. Find a vintage photo or
   illustration that fits your theme — perhaps a picture of a seated Santa. Now,
   size and cut out a silhouette of your child, and place her on Santa’s lap. Or,
   start with a vintage beach scene, with everyone posing in long-legged bathing
   dresses. Add your daughter to the lineup in her bikini. You are limited only by
   your dexterity with scissors or your prowess with your computer’s graphics
   software.

These eight ideas are just a start. Virtually any scrapbooking technique can be
applied to vintage images. Happy scrapping!

Vintage images can add a nostalgic dimension to your
scrapbooking. Whether they are illustrations from an
artist’s hand, early photographs, or antique paper items
like advertisements, newspapers or other ephemera, they lend
instant artwork to your scrapbooking project. Here are
eight ideas to spark your imagination!

When it comes to the types of public domain projects you can create, the limit
is really your imagination. Lets look at seven different ways you can use public
domain materials to build an income stream.

1. You can republish a public domain books as is. You can either physically print
   it or offer it in electronic format. If you offer the book in electronic format,
   packaging it as a PDF file – like this course – is the best way to go.

   If you choose to offer a printed book, you have a few options. You can print it
   yourself on demand and use inexpensive binding equipment (spiral binding) that
   you can buy from any office supply store to make a professional looking book.

   You can go to a local printer and do very short runs of the book. They will even
   do the binding for you. It will typically be spiral bound at such low volume
   runs as it is quite cost effective when producing a few dozen at a time.

   You can approach a specialty printing company and get a larger quantity printed
   in any type of binding you want. This is the most cost effective way but you
   have to be ready to purchase and inventory a large number of books to make it
   worthwhile. The last time we did this, the efficiency point was 1000 books but
   this was back in 1995 and there are more options available nowadays.

2. Audiobooks
   - Did you know that there is a website that has public domain audiobooks that
   you can download and use as you wish? In fact, as of June 2008, they reached
   1,500 books in their catalog of audiobook downloads. There is no cost to use
   this amazing service. You can learn more about this project at
   http://librivox.org Also, don’t think you are limited to what is on the Librivox
   site. Any book in the public domain can be turned into an audio version,
   packaged and sold to interested customers.
3. Stock photograph collections –
   Creative people of all types are always looking for additional royalty free
   stock photo collections that they can use for projects. With literally millions
   of photographs in the public domain, you could gather themed groups of
   photographs and offer them as stock photograph collections to interested
   customers.

   You could package these in a variety of ways. The simplest way is to put them on
   CDs or DVDs and sell them in that format. But you could also offer a digital
   download site where people pay for each photograph that they download or a
   membership site where they pay a one time or monthly fee to access all the
   photographs in the collection.

4. Clip art collections – Clip art is basically line
   art or simple drawings. As with the stock photograph collections above, clip
   art collections are very popular and can be delivered in a variety of ways.

   A great example of using public domain clip art (or really any public domain
   material) in printed books is Dover Publications. They have a huge catalog of
   books – republished public domain works and compilations of public domain
   materials.

5. Prints/Posters/Maps – Prints is a very large area of the public domain and with
   modern printing equipment, you can actually run a highly profitable print shop
   in your house.

   Prints can come in all sizes – anything from postcard size to huge posters – and
   can be offered on a variety of papers and materials – even canvas.

   So what can be printed? The list is almost endless. You could print civil war
   photographs, old maps NASA space mission images, Military images, fine art
   posters. You can even combine elements of images and build your own unique
   images for printing – like a series of motivational posters with moving scenes
   and motivational quotes blazoned across the top of the poster.

6. Calendars – Every year people buy millions of calendars about a huge variety of
   topics. Why not take some of the public domain photos or artwork you have access
   to and design and sell a calendar to a specific niche? For instance, you could
   make a WWII D-Day calendar with photos of events related to D-Day with
   descriptive captions below it. Or a generic WWII calendar with the photos and
   captions of the most famous events of WWII and short historical blurbs in the
   various date boxes highlighting important days in the war?
7. Cards – There are a variety of cards that can be made of public domain images.
   These include postcards, playing cards, flash cards, sports cards, etc.

   The key to success in the card business is again to theme the cards to an
   interest that you identified. For instance, the Library of Congress has a great
   collection of baseball cards from around 1900 online. An enterprising person
   could use them to make decks of playing cards and market them during baseball
   season. Lots of folks who like baseball play cards and would be thrilled to have
   such a unique pack of cards to enjoy while playing their game.

   Or maybe you could republish the cards as a limited collectors set. Or use them
   as the basis of an early baseball trivia game. Or a set of postcards. As you can
   see, there are a number of ways you can use cards with public domain images to
   make interesting products.