Finding Free Book DownloadsFinding and Using Public Domain Books and Literature
Let's start by saying that millions of people around the world love
books, there are so many people that can't resist the urge to purchase a
new book, it almost talks to them as it sits there gleaming on a shelf.
At the root of this group there are those that collect, love and cherish
classic titles written by renowned authors and journalists. These are
the people you would really like to target. Being that many of the
materials found within the public domain are older works, this is really
a gold mine waiting to be found by you. If you can put something
together that will really build an interest throughout the book
community and especially these collectors, you will be well on your way
towards success.
1. Authorama is a great place to start your hunt for public domain
books. What they have done is copied the books and saved them in a
format to display on the web. 2. Project Gutenberg is a massive database filled with public domain
books and fine literature. They have used volunteers to turn all of
these books into ebooks, or electronic books that you can now download
and use as you wish. This service will cost you nothing, although they
do ask for donations to keep them going. 3. Aesop's Fables is a site that has provided us with of course over
600 original pieces out of the collection of Aesop's fables. They
promise to continue adding the rest of this collection, but for now this
is more than enough to keep you busy. Aside from being written for the
web they also have audio narration for these works in their database. 4. The Internet Public Library is not only host to a ton of public
domain books, they also have a lengthy list of other resources for you
to visit, to find more. 5. Ibiblio is a great place to search for public domain titles.
Although they do not categorize a specific section into public domain,
they do have tons of older books to search through. I would suggest that
you use some of the other resources listed here and then visit their
site to see what texts you can find. 6. The Classic Literature Library offers a nice, although short list
of free public domain books that have been compiled in ebook format for
you to read and use. 7. Librivox offers free audio books that are created from public
domain books. Volunteers take the public domain books, record them and
them add them to the database. Not only is this a great place to find
public domain works, it is also an excellent example of what can be done
with public domain books. 8. There are many other small resources for finding these public
domain books, but they often concentrate on small niches. I would
recommend searching the major search engines for specialty type material
like poetry, westerns and the like. 2. Convert public domain books into electronic format and sell them
as ebooks on your web site or eBay. As I have said throughout this
chapter, there are tons of people that just love these older classic
titles, so give them what they want. After all, not everyone can afford
a vintage collectors item, but they can afford the next best thing which
would be your ebook. 3. Just as Librivox has done, you can convert these public domain
books into audio books. Burn these books to cd and distribute them
online. Audio books are great for road trips, disabled people and those
of you that just don't enjoy reading, or would rather have someone else
read to them. 4. Recreate Shakespeare and other plays. Perform then in your school,
church or even performing arts center. 5. The public domain has a lot of great old time recipe books. You
could combine some of these and create a very large and complete ebook
cook book. Cook books are great sellers all year round and surprisingly
sell for quite a bit. 6. Put together a nice collection of poetry, maybe you can separate
it by style or poet. Poetry is another great seller and people would
love a nice collection of classics. 7. Children's books are always a favorite. In the resources I have
pointed out a web site that has a large collection of Aesop's fables,
these would be excellent to start a nice book for parents, you can use
public domain images to illustrate pages. 8. Simply put together an extensive list of public domain titles and
some resources for finding them. Entrepreneurs looking to expand into
this field, would definitely be willing to pay for it. 9. Setup a weekly podcast where you sit and read part of classic,
popular public domain book or even poetry. You could then put them up on
YouTube for extra exposure to your web site. This must be done
tastefully to build interest among book enthusiasts, if you portray it
as a joke, no one will listen to you. 10. Work with a publicist to create a remake of a classic book. This
would require more money to get started, but if your book was to take
off it would be seen on the shelves of every major book retailer. 2. Alice in Wonderland is an amazing tale written by Lewis Carroll. 3. One of the all time best stories Frankenstein was first written by
Mary Shelley, both are now in the public domain. 4. William Shakespeare is of course another wonderful addition to the
public domain. 5. Daniel Defoe and his works such as Robinson Crusoe. 6. Charles Dickens was another wonderful writer with his most popular work A Christmas Carol.
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