White Dove Books: The Best Personal Development Resource on the Web

This eBook was Written & Compiled by Will Edwards

© Copyright Will Edwards 2006

This book may be freely distributed. Feel free to pass it to anyone you think might benefit from this information.

Contents

What is the Public Domain?

Can I Really Profit?

How do I Make an eBook?

How to Sell Your Products

The Tools

In Conclusion

What is the Public Domain?

The Public Domain is a rich open source of valuable information waiting for you to package and sell for Profit!

The 'Public Domain' consists of information - books, software, films, music, images, photographs, reports, courses - on which copyright has expired. That means you can use it without paying anyone any royalties whatsoever. This information is completely free, totally legal and extremely profitable!

The Public Domain is not limited to the following sites; they are just a small selection of what is readily available on the internet for you to legally exploit. A quick search in Google on the term ‘public domain’ today (Jan 2006) reveals 129 million sites at present. Here are a few to whet your appetite.

Public Domain Texts

Project Gutenberg hosts the largest collection of free electronic texts on the internet. Michael Hart, who founded Project Gutenberg in 1971, says that at the time of writing (Jan 2006) there are some 17,000 free eBooks in the collection. You can legally copy, compile and distribute them subject to you checking the copyright status for the countries you intend to supply.

Project Guttenberg Website: gutenberg.org

Public Domain Music

Here is a useful reference site to help you identify songs and music that is now in the public domain. Although you cannot download the music directly (you have to buy it on CD), you can then use it in any way you choose -performance, sing-along, film, video, advertising, business, or personal.

Public Domain Music Website: pdinfo.com

Public Domain Sheet Music

With over 1000 composers and thousands of sheet music scores catalogued, CPDL is one of the world's largest free sheet music sites. You can use CPDL to find scores, texts, translations, and information about composers.

Public Domain Sheet Music Website: cpdl.org

Public Domain Images

Here is useful site for sourcing clip art images which are in the public domain. It also has some useful links to articles on the subject of copyright.

Public Domain Images Website: princetonol.com

Public Domain Photographs

This site contains a whole host of useful photographs which are in the public domain. Over twenty thousand free photos and images can be located in the archive which is fully searchable.

Public Domain Photographs Website: gimp-savvy.com

Public Domain Films

Here is the largest on-line source of public domain films, movies, and TV programming. Its library contains thousands of titles, all high-broadcast quality.

Again, you need to buy them, but then you can do what you want with them apart from lifting the music for use in another production.

Public Domain Films Website: desertislandfilms.com/

Can I Really Profit?

There have been many examples of people who have profited by making use of the public domain. You may know that Billy Joel used a work by Beethoven for his wonderful song, This Night. If you were a lyricist, you just couldn’t get a better music partner! You may also know that Procol Harem’s A Whiter Shade of Pale was also derived from a Bach classic.

Using Grimm’s Fairy Tales which were, at the time, recent additions to the 'public domain', Walt Disney was able to create a whole string of movies that became classics in their own right; and of course, by doing this, he was able to make an immense fortune.

Ok, but can YOU really profit by using this valuable resource? This is a good question; and one you need to be sure you can answer in the affirmative before you start investing your own valuable time in creating a digital product from a public domain work. To attempt to answer it, let’s take a look at three examples of successful internet business models which have been based on works which are out of copyright.

David Vallieres – Books and Posters

David Vallieres is acknowledged as an expert when it comes to publishing and repackaging of public domain information. He has been marketing information products since 1996; and he has written several books and reports on the subject.

David has published three separate public domain works as ebooks and he also makes use of images in the public domain which he prints and sells as posters. He says that the books alone are responsible for generating thousands of dollars, every year, in pure profit - and the best part is he doesn't pay a single penny in fees or royalties to anyone!

Rebecca Fine - The Science of Getting Rich

Rebecca Fine's site is entirely based on The Science of Getting Rich - a book written by Wallace D. Wattles which is now out of copyright and therefore in the Public Domain.

Rebecca says that her income has dramatically increased since she started applying the principles contained in this book. She became so impressed with the message of the book, she decided to make marketing that message her lifework.

Visit Rebecca’s Website Here: The Science of Getting Rich

Vic Johnson - As a Man Thinketh

Is Rebecca’s amazing internet success just an isolated case? No. Vic Johnson says he pretty-much did the same thing with another classic work of self-development, As a Man Thinketh by James Allen.

On his website, he credits giving away this book as being largely responsible for generating his 6 figure income.

Visit Vic’s Website Here: As a Man Thinketh

What About Me?

These are by no means isolated examples of people making excellent use of public domain information; they just happen to be people with whom I have had some personal contact because they all work in my own field, which is Personal Development.

Even though both Rebecca and Vic actually gave away, for free, their public domain eBooks, they still found ways of leveraging interest through these works. Rebecca, for example, has an excellent course based on the Science of Getting Rich book and she also has a number of other first-class resources including her own recorded narration of the book. Even though the book itself is free, I actually bought both the narrated version and the course. The reason was that I wanted to listen to the book and the course whilst driving in my car.

So, with a bit of imagination, it would indeed be possible for you to create your own ‘derivative’ products from public domain works in much the same way.

Vic Johnson gave away his public domain derivative product - James Allen’s book As a Man Thinketh; and again, he made a healthy profit by selling support material. Having said that, Vic is also directly selling a second public domain work: Napoleon Hill’s classic Think and Grow Rich, compiled as an eBook, from his website.

Only you can answer the question: Can I Profit? The answer depends in part upon your marketing ability. But as for the material itself, what can be said is that there is indeed a wealth of good quality information that people will be prepared to buy from you if you do manage to get the marketing right.

How do I Make an eBook?

Although you could create all kinds of derivative products, in this section we will focus on how to create an eBook from a public domain work. Actually it is not very difficult but you do need a piece of software, known as a compiler, to do it. The reason you need to use a compiler is to prevent other people from ‘stealing’ your work when you have the book itself finished.

Before you start, do make absolutely sure that the work you are intending to distribute is indeed in the public domain. In the US, works published before the year 1923 are now in the public domain. Some works published between 1923 and 1978 are also in the public domain. A 'work' can be almost anything: a book, a play, music, photographs, movies, instruction manuals, courses, reports, posters and so on. To be sure a work in on the public domain, check David Valliere’s Special Reports to see how he verifies copyright.

Now then, there are two types of eBook compiler available - EXE compilers and PDF compilers and they each have pros and cons. Basically you generally have more flexibility with EXE compilers but the eBooks they produce are only readable by PC users, which is of course, the vast majority of internet users. However, PDF files are readable by both PC users and Apple users!

You will need to decide which type of compiler to use. Personally, I use both. A lot of our free eBooks at White Dove Books are in EXE format but all the books we sell are either in PDF format or in both formats. In other words, we ensure make our purchasable products are available for both PC and Apple users.

Creating an eBook

Creating your eBook is really easy! Let’s have a go. The first thing you need to do is get your public domain text, so over to project Gutenberg. Note: not everything at Project Gutenberg is in the public domain, so again do make sure you check thoroughly (see above)!

Having checked the work is indeed public domain for the countries you intend to supply, click on the catalogue and do a search for the text. In this example, we will use The Book of Psalms. Type ‘psalms’ into the search box and click the button. You will see that we have a choice of html or text formats; and also a choice of download sites. Personally I prefer to work with the text, so click on a text link; and there you have the complete text of The Book of Psalms.

It is a simple matter to copy and paste this text into your favourite Wordprocessor or Text Editor. Just highlight the text with the mouse, then right-click and copy. Open the wordprocessor then either use [Ctrl] V or Edit, Paste. You then have the text captured in your wordprocessor. The next step is to format it nicely and remove all the references to Project Gutenberg.

Now, it is perfectly ok to do this.

This is what Project Gutenberg actually says:-

DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG™" You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by disk, book or any other medium if you delete this "Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg.

You will see that Project Gutenberg have added text to the start and the end of the document. This is the text you need to delete. Once you have done that, you simply use your creativity to format the document so that it looks good adding whatever fonts, colors, graphics, photographs etc you might wish to use; again the public domain provides a rich source for these additions!

When you are done formatting, you need to save the document as an html file. That’s because Easy eBook Creator translates (compiles) html files into EXE files. So (in Word) click File, Save-As; then type in your filename and in the box below, select html from the drop-down menu. Click OK and you’re done for this part. Note: I’m using Word 2002 and I note that you need to select ‘Web Page’ as the file type – this simply saves the document in html format.

Easy eBook Creator (EXE eBooks)

Next thing to do is fire-up Easy eBook Creator - you will see it looks pretty intuitive. You need to select the folder in which you have saved your html book. You can do this with the mouse by clicking the little icon at the right. Then click the 'Launch Explorer' button and drag your html file into the light blue area.

In the box below where is says ‘Compiled HTML EXE File Name’ (again use the little icon on the right) type in the name of the EXE file you want to create e.g. psalms.exe. In the box that says, ‘Start HTML File Name’ type in the name of your html file which has the text of the psalms.

Finally click the ‘Compiler HTML Files’ button and that’s it! You now have an EXE eBook. If you double-click it with the mouse, it runs as a little program on your PC – so now you’re a programmer and it wasn’t that painful was it?

Of course, there are extra buttons for adding features like passwords, expiry dates etc – these extra facilities are revealed if you click the arrows button at the top-right of the screen.

Although you don’t need to know html, the better you know it, the more attractive you can make your book.

PrimoPDF Compiler (PDF eBooks)

OK now suppose you want to create a PDF version of The Book of Psalms, what do you do? I promise you that you will be amazed at how easy this is with the Primo PDF Compiler!

When you install it (which is very straight-forward) it adds what is known as a Virtual Printer to your Windows system. So to create your PDF eBook, you don’t even need to leave your Wordprocessor or Text Editor. You just click on File, Print; then select the PrimoPDF option.

All you need to do is type-in your filename and click OK – and that’s it – the software immediately produces your PDF eBook. It really couldn’t be easier!

How to Sell Your Products

Probably the easiest way to get started is on eBay - eBooks sell very well on eBay – they just don’t sell for very much. But that is not much of a problem when it comes to making money with eBooks because once you have you books compiled all you need to do is copy them and send them to your customers via email.

Start by running a few trial auctions. Be bold with your product descriptions – i.e. your advertising copy.

Probably this is the most difficult thing to get right when you are just starting out. But if there is one thing I have learned in the past few years marketing on-line it is this: you need to get the marketing message absolutely right. The acknowledged master of this is Joe Vitale and you can learn all about his hypnotic marketing techniques here: Joe Vitale

Suppose you were making $2 a throw every time you sold an eBook. It only costs a few cents to get them listed in an auction; and if you can write a decent description and provide a little graphic or photo, your product will sell. And the beauty of this is that you can do the same thing over and over again – it is like having a licence to print money; and I do really mean that. After an initial period of getting it wrong, I have been very successful selling eBooks and I can recommend it to you as a simple way of creating your own internet business.

Once your products are selling, you can then look at getting other people to sell them for you. You will simply pay them a commission to do so – it’s a win-win idea. You give other people a way to profit from your efforts and in return, they give you their promote your products – all the really big-hitters on the internet use this method. We’ll talk more about it later.

The Tools

David Vallieres 10 Special Reports

David Vallieres is an acknowledged expert on profiting from the public domain. His one goal, he says, is to help as many people as possible to make money in their own on-line businesses. If you apply the information in David’s series of Special Reports on the public domain, you could become David’s next success story!

You need to know how to check copyright status so you stay on the right side of the law, how to create derivative works and how to attach your own copyright. This information and more can be found in a series of Special Reports written by David Vallieres. Everything you should know about how to legally and profitably exploit this amazing opportunity is contained in these Reports.

Quality EXE eBook Compiler

If you intend to produce EXE eBooks, you need an EXE Compiler like Easy eBook Creator. You'll quickly see that Easy eBook Creator provides all the professional grade options you need to produce the sort of clean formatted high quality eBooks that your customers will absolutely love!

Quality PDF eBook Compiler

If you intend to produce PDF eBooks, then you couldn’t get an easier-to-use eBook compiler. PDF files are readable by both PC and Apple users!

Complete eBay Guide to Selling Information Products

Selling your eBooks on eBay is probably the easiest way to start. You don’t need a website. All you need to do is conduct your own auctions and collect a few dollars for each eBook you sell.

Some people are making astonishing amounts of money simply selling information this way. Because it’s digital and therefore costs you nothing to supply, you can run as many auctions as you like and make money every time. This book explains exactly what you need to know to get your money into the bank.

The Public Domain Profit Package

You can get absolutely everything you need to start your own highly profitable business selling the wealth of information in the public domain in a single package here: Public Domain Profits

In Conclusion

Well, that’s it for this little eBook. If you follow this simple advice, your business could be up and running within as little as 24 hours. We have covered the following topics:

- Where to Find Public Domain Information

- How to Create Your Own Product

- Where to Get the Tools You Need

I do hope you will enjoy creating your own products and selling them for profit. Once you get this part of your business going and you have your own products that sell, you will be ready to move on and find out how you can get other people to sell your products for you!

I think that is about it for now except to wish you well in your on-line marketing efforts.

The Deepest Desire of Your Heart

by Will Edwards

Find and Fulfil Your Unique Purpose in Life

Using the exact methods taught in our program, very many people are already producing amazing results in their lives; and so can you.

Our outstanding program represents the culmination of many years of research into the application of the principles of success; and everything you need to accomplish the most amazing transformation of your life is included.

Discover Your Unique Calling

Stay On-Track to Achieve Your Mission

Overcoming Obstacles

Getting from Theory to Making it Happen

Professional Tips and Exercises

Identify Your Most Important Activities

Complete System to Optimize Time

How to Ensure You Achieve Your Goals

Click Here for More Details

About White Dove Books

Will Edwards is the founder of White Dove Books - the internet’s leading website for Self-Improvement and Personal Development. A graduate of the University of Birmingham, he develops and teaches Personal Development workshops and is a published author.

Within its first three years, White Dove Books was recognised as one of the internet’s leading sites for self-help and personal development; breaking into the top 100,000 sites on the internet at the end of 2005.

The INSPIRATION newsletter was started in 2005 as a way of providing helpful information including tips, articles and free inspirational eBooks to our visitors.

Today White Dove Books works in partnership with many authors and on-line publishers of inspirational material to provide a quality on-line service that serves thousands of people in many countries across the world.

Our mission is to help people to develop their own unique talents, abilities and passion in order that they may lead more meaningful, joyful and fulfilled lives.

Table of Contents

What is the Public Domain?

Can I Really Profit?

How do I Make an eBook?

How to Sell Your Products

The Tools

In Conclusion