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Is it really possible to make money with public domain content? I’d never realized that you can create products based off of material that has fallen in to the public domain, but when I did some digging I discovered that you can and it’s not too difficult. There is actually more information that has fallen into the public domain than patent protected material. As a matter of fact the US Government is the largest creator of content on planet. This article will show you where to go and what to do in order to make money with public domain content.

What Is Public Domain Content?

Very simply information that has fallen in to the public domain mean that it has lost is patent protection and the original content owners have not made attempts to re patent the material. Generally for information products scubas book the patent protection is typically 20 years. As an example, all of William Shakespeare’s works are in the public domain, but newer reprints can still be copywriter protected because of the addition of other information including drawings, photographs, cover art and so forth.

Where To Find Public Domain Content

What I discovered in my investigation is that the US Government Printing Office (GPO) creates tons of content on an incredibly wide variety of topics and all of the US Government material is in the public domain. There are lots of other places to find public domain content, but the easiest to access is the GPO.


There is a 2 step process to find and harvest content from the GPO. Heres’ what to do:

• Go To http://bookstore.gpo.gov
• Search http://www.usa.gov

The first thing to do is to search the GPO for public domain content that is relevant to you. The GPO charges for this material though. So once you’ve uncovered a specific title then go to usa.gov and include the title in quotes in your search there. So the search quire should be “title” + “pdf”. What your looking for is a free pdf version of the material that you found at the GPO.

How To Check Copyright Status Of The Public Domain Content

Double check to make sure that the content you want is not protected by looking for a copywriter in the document itself or on the site where the pdf is available. There are certain situations where GPO material is protected, such as when the content was created by a private party and the GPO. You can often locate copywriter notices in privacy/about/policy/FAQ sections of the site.

How To Make Money With Public Domain Content

Once you have determined that the document is in the public domain then just copy and paste the pdf. Now go to Amazon.com and search for the title on Amazon. If the title appears you can still make money by publishing on Kindle and Nook, but Amazon and Barnes and Noble may not be interested in what you have to offer. But if you are the first to market with the title then you stand a good chance of profiting.

The best thing to do is to create a derivative work which means that you shoal ad photos or graphics to help make your content unique. There are multiple places to locate royalty free photos.

There are many ways to reformat the public domain content. Here is what you can do:

• Create an ebook on Kindle and Nook
• Publish it as a printed book
• Create a video by converting content into a Power Point
• Turn content into an audio book
• Convert it to MP

Public Domain Content Final Thoughts

Searching for and reformatting public domain content from the Government Printing Office is one of the easiest and safest ways to get make money through publishing content. Through the power of the internet all of this material is now available online and easy to search for. The growth in popularity of the iPad and E-readers is driving the need for web published material and the GPO is a great place to start.

P.S. If You Don’t Have a Step-By-Step Blueprint For Success then CHECK THIS OUT

Image courtesy of Mike Licht, on Flickr.com

Image courtesy of ajleon on Flickr.com