Enjoy Free Audio Books

Let me get something straight right now. This blog is not only about how to use public domain materials to make money. It's not.

It's also about showing you where you can go to enjoy free entertainment.

Let's take audio books. I know there are subscription sites out there that allow you to enjoy listening to audio books for a monthly fee. That's great. You can also buy books for your Kindle or other reading devices at reasonable prices.

But you can also find free entertainment from the public domain. There are great classic books out there. The Picture of Dorian Gray or The Raven  or Alice in Wonderland.

What if you could listen to these books online at no cost?

Loyal Books and LibriVox allows you to do just that.

And guess what? This is also a terrific way to listen to a story you might want to use as inspiration for writing your own book using that general theme.

Maybe you can write a best selling remake of Alice in Wonderland. You can borrow from the story you listen to on these sites without any worries. If you watch it on TV or at the movies, it's rewritten and likely is not in the public domain.

See the difference?

Superman Should be in the Public Domain - And Was

This video shows some of the complications you can face when dealing with works that are in the public domain - well - should be.

It used to be straight forward. Not anymore.

I told you Congress passed a law changing when works actually enter the public domain. If the works are before 1923 you have no issues.

Before 1964? Possibly and possibly not.

Again, you have an obligation to be certain any work you decide to use or change is legally in the public domain and, if it is, dive in.

But please do not ask me if a product is in the public domain because I have plenty of research to do finding out the same thing.

But come on. Once you find what you want and you know it is public domain material, you have everything laid out in front of you and instead of starting a book, for instance, from scratch, you have the story that you can now change and make your own.

It's not quite that simple unless you don't mind putting out junk, but if you treat it the way you should, you can come up with a pretty good book.

Reading a number of Poe's works took time. But I found stories I enjoyed and retold a few so the modern reader could read and enjoy them. Simply put, I used modern language and tried to eliminate all the boring parts.

Next I found three stories that I felt had a very similar theme and would work as a single book. I'm happy with the way that turned out and I plan to continue doing more of the same.

Later I'll tell you a really cool idea that will help you get more ideas for writing.

Now, here's the video about Superman and why it was and then wasn't in the public domain.

The Jungle Book

Would it surprise you to know that the Disney story, The Jungle Book, was actually taken from the public domain and rewritten? The story it borrowed from was The Jungle Book, which was written by Rudyard Kipling. The book was a collection of stories by Kipling. The stories were first published in magazines in 1893–94.

You can read the original tale here. If you're familiar with the Disney version, you'll be amazed when you read through this story. This gives you a prime example how you can take a work from the public domain and create your own story which, by the way, would then be copyright by you.

That's important to understand. If you simply copy one of these books and put your name down as the author, there is nothing to prevent others from doing the same. It's legal but come on . . . that doesn't benefit anyone. Read the story you enjoy and then sit down and use it as a template to develop your own story.

I'll feature a number of my books on this site and they will all be books I've written with inspiration to stories in the public domain. You can go to Amazon and read the free previews of the books and you might want to buy whichever ones interest you, not only for entertainment but also as an education on how to create your own book using the public domain.

No, not all my books are written in this manner, as I generally sit down with an idea and start writing and see where the idea goes.  I don't write out an outline or anything.

But obviously when I fracture a fairy tale I reference the original fairy tale. And in A Victim of Circumstance I read a number of stories by Edgar Allan Poe and then sat down and started writing an original story using the concepts from three of his tales. The story just kind of flowed.

Disney and Public Domain

In previous posts I pointed out that the Walt Disney Company used public domain material to build their empire. Kudos to them for doing so as it opened up lots of entertainment for kids and adults.

Take away kudos because they were instrumental in Congress passing a law that changed the public domain rules and made it more difficult for others to follow the same path they followed.

Check out the article I wrote on my cartoon page that explains what I'm talking about and be sure you watch the video. . .  Thanks A Lot, Disney

Public Domain Sites

There are so many sites where you can get free public domain books or pictures or music and even videos from the past. I'll talk about these sites as we go along and add links to them.

The first site I want to mention is Project Gutenberg. What a terrific site. Even if you don't have plans to make money using public domain, you can pick up free books and read them online or on your Kindle, etc. All the works of Edgar Allan Poe are there as well as Grimm Fairy Tales and Wizard of Oz and about a gazillion (yeah - exaggerating a bit) other books.

Some even have images. There are books available for the young and old.

Now, even though you could, I do not recommend you take public domain books and simply republish them and sell them. Obviously if you're doing a cookbook or something similar, you might be copying the recipes but make your book unique. I like to read one of the classics and then retell them so they are easier for today's readers to red and enjoy.

How many ways has Snow White been rewritten? Or Peter Pan.

I took three of Poe's tales and retold them in one book and wrote my own story using all three tales in another. It can be done. When you take the time and use public domain material correctly, the public benefit from reading new and unique tales.

I'll take you through the process in a future post. You can read a free preview on Amazon by clicking on the book.

What is Public Domain

Chances are that if you are reading this you know what public domain products are. In a nutshell these are books or films or other similar products where their property rights have expired, have been forfeited, or are inapplicable.

I know, right? I'll use works by Edgar Allan Poe as an example. These books were written long ago and can legally be used by writers and others in any way they want.

I am not a lawyer and do not want to give a lot of advice as to what you can or can't use, so check out these rules for using public domain materials.

The purpose of this site is to show you how you might use public domain materials to create your own books, for the most part. And before you start screaming "foul" and criticize anyone who would do so, understand that Walt Disney made use of public domain stories to create an empire.