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.