This is probably the hardest part of the whole process, not because public domain works are of no interest to people any longer, but because most of the really good ones have been done to death, like Frankenstein, Dracula, Alice In Wonderland, Sherlock Holmes and others. Coming up with a new twist for these classic public domain works may be a little hard, unless you have an absolutely twisted imagination.
You are probably best off looking for pieces that are known, but haven't been done to death. There have been many old classic movies from back in the 20s and 30s that were done once and never done again. You might want to look into some of these.
Your best source for public domain material is probably the biography, especially if it was somebody from the late 1800s or early 1900s. Many of these people were barely touched on in both literature and film. Think about it. How many movies on the Wright Brothers have you seen?
Now, I know what you are thinking. So what? Who wants to read about the Wright Brothers now when we have 767s and jets that can break the sound barrier? Well, tell that to all the people who flocked to see "The Aviator" with Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes. There are many fascinating figures in history who you can either write about, make a movie on, create a comic book for, or simply release an already public domain work on this person.
And therein lies the problem that almost everyone runs into when trying to decide not only what public domain piece to use but how to use it. Remember, just because a public domain piece is art, literature, or whatever form it may happen to be in, doesn't mean that it has to stay in that form. Sometimes having too many choices makes it difficult to decide just what to do with the piece of work.
Unfortunately, this is a problem that plagues not only people who deal with public domain works but also people who create brand new pieces of literature or film. There is never any guarantee that the work is going to be commercially successful. If you are looking for guarantees and the sure fire "public work masterpiece" that is going to make you a ton of money, you are in the wrong business. As with anything else, deciding on a public domain piece of work and then deciding how to present it, is a risk. But the rewards for a successful choice and reproduction method can be quite substantial.
If you think not, just take a look at the works of Walt Disney. His characters were ALL based on public domain works. His source was the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. This was a man with a vision and knew he could do something with these characters. With a little modernization, he turned them into the classics that we love today.
*Re-publish public domain content – A lot of the information is relevant today. Books on recipes, public speaking, hobbies and learning languages all contain knowledge that is applicable to our time (50 or 60 years don’t change the way you bake a cake, for example). All you need to do is to find the relevant public domain work, re- package it according to your needs and then create a business model around it.
*Use Public Domain as a source of content for your website. Whether you want to start a membership website or just an informational website that earns money through advertising and affiliate revenue, the important thing is that you won’t have to wait for months to create the content – it’s ready for you to use immediately.
*Create a derivative work – Use the public domain work to spawn targeted, niche-relevant products by creating your own product around it.
*Change the format of the public domain work – create an audio course for a how-to-manual to increase the ‘perceived value’ of the product so you can make more money off the same information.
*Release the product in multiple, complimentary mediums. This is a combination of the above two ideas – You can teach a course using audio CDs, instructional watch-and-learn DVDs and package a learning manual together to make a killer course that is a physical product instead of allowing people to simply download your book. This immediately raises the value of what you’re selling.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. There dozens and dozens of concrete examples of using public domain works within your business, either to supplement your business model or to create a new income stream.
Some people say that because the information in the public domain is limited, there’s no point in going after the ‘public domain riches’. In fact, there has never been a better time to start. What you should concentrate on is to find new ways to market old ideas.
How can you do that?
*Differentiate your product – Instead of selling old and rare books, work on building a niche for yourself on old philosophical works only. This is a very viable business idea and I’ll tell you how in a little while. *Find new ways to sell an existing product – The usual example given here s to convert an eBook or how-to course into a series of audio tapes or videos. However, you can also take an existing public domain work and split it up into several parts, and sell them separately – a public domain work on poker strategies could be divided into 3 parts – poker games, poker history and poker strategies. *Create a new product out of an old idea
Both Almin Cehajic & Li Ming Wong are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Almin Cehajic has sinced written about articles on various topics from Legal Matters, Pets and Writing. Almin Cehajic is experienced webmaster and resell rights products marketer. He writes informative articles on various topics, especially on resell rights business. If you are interested in resell rights business visit his new website. Almin Cehajic's top article generates over 14800 views. to your Favourites.
Li Ming Wong has sinced written about articles on various topics from Search Engine Marketing, Abdominal and Blogging. Li Ming Wong is an internet marketing entrepreneur. Visit Blog for tips and guides to starting your own online business.. Li Ming Wong's top article generates over 74000 views. to your Favourites.