The Library of Congress

Here's how public domain material becomes fascinating and opens up avenues for you to make money. First thing you need to do is visit The Library of Congress website. It'll open in a separate window so follow along.

You can scroll down and see many books and papers and what nots. See the Magic Window book? Click on it. If it's changed location since I put this up, you can find it here . . . The Magic Window.

Alright. First take a look at the book. It has arrows so you can read through it. Just glance through for now.

Look below the book to the information. It tells you the number of pages and describes the book and tells you who the publisher was. It also tells you the rights - in this case - it says
Possible copyright status The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright restrictions on this item.

That doesn't necessarily tell you it's public domain but there's a good chance it is. Many times it will state the material is in the public domain. But there's hope and you can do further research if you decide to use this book.

Should you verify this is in the public domain, there are downloads available on this page. Download it as you like. If you want to use the book but rewrite it, download the text file. You can also download it for the Kindle or other tablets but be aware you can't simply take that to Kindle and upload it as your own. You can't sell public domain books on Kindle and other book sites unless you modify the content.

You could, however, put it on a DVD and sell it on Ebay but, again,  be sure it is public domain.