Public Domain

Ever heard that line before?

Well, it is true. Anything that is attractive will certainly garner attention. And anything that looks drab has the tendency to get ignored.

The same applies with your public domain article series and e-courses, too.

If given the choice, would you rather read an article titled “Lawn Care” or one that reads “How to Make Your Lawn the Source of Envy in Your Neighborhood”? How about “Making a Flower Garden” to “10 Easy Steps to Make Your Own Backyard Oasis”?

Of course, you would choose the latter titles. That is just how things go. Interesting – better yet, intriguing – headings and titles are a sure-fire solution to capturing your readers.

Sure, one may not judge a book by its cover, but there is no saying that says you cannot judge an article by its title. The fact of the matter is that we most often do rely on the title to determine whether an article is worth reading.

Many public domain e-books and e-courses name their installments simply as Chapter 1, Chapter 2 or Lesson 1, Lesson 2. It is practically, you have to admit, but would you be interested? Speaking from a completely objective observer’s point of view, of course. It is safe to assume that you would not.

Do not make that mistake with your e-book articles and e-courses. Try to go over the whole segment and determine what it is all about. Then, come up with a catchy line that defines the subject matter while at the same time captivates your readers’ attention.

This can only have a positive effect on your business. If you post a list of the article titles of your series or a lesson plan of your e-course, readers will get drawn in and buy your stuff. This means more purchases and more income for you.

Face it. Not everyone will find a book-length public domain work very appealing. Not even if you make the most attractive e-book cover in the world and sell your product at half the usual cost. The best that you can do with that method is probably raise a few eyebrows but no more.

It has been frequently observed that most online users are browsers and scanners. That means they do not spend too much time on a particular page and usually just skip through the content until they get to the part they are looking for.

Translated even further, this means that you can probably get them to pay much closer attention to what you have to say if you state it in the clearest, briefest, and most concise manner possible.

Now, “concise” is probably the last word you are going to use to describe an e-book. That is the nature of books: they are long. So do not wonder then if some people are not willing to invest their money on something they will probably only going to skim through.

How do you solve this dilemma?

By cutting your e-book into articles to create a whole series about several portions of the same topic.

This method particularly works if your e-book is non-fiction or self-help. You can separate your e-book into segments and offer them to your readers as a series or an e-course which they can subscribe to.

Making your e-book content subscription-based might very well be the exact thing you have been looking for in order to sell your public domain works.

Below are some easy tricks to do the job:

Slice and Dice

First, review the entire book and see if you can separate them into smaller portions. Remember that the segments must be separated in such a way that their logic is not destroyed.

Self-contained segments look similar to articles you often stumble on while surfing the web. Anywhere from 400-700 words will do, but a good length for an article series or an e-course installment is generally three to five full-size pages long. This way, the article will be just long enough to contain the “meat” but short enough so as not to intimidate your readers, or worse, bore them to tears.

Cutting up an e-book will probably be easier to do if the book is already divided into chapters. That way, you only have to take it section by section and do minor revisions to keep the context of a particular segment intact.

If, however, your e-book is not already separated, then separate them according to where a particular idea or subject ends and where the next begins.

Sometimes, the chapters or sub-chapters are going to be too long or too short. If that is the case, then pull up your sleeves and get to work as some creative shuffling is required to make the whole thing work.

If there is anything at all that is consistently popular as downloadable products, it is multimedia, like music, movies, and film clips. Software also comes in as a close second.

People will always look for products like these. So the opportunity for making more profit has already been laid out for you. Now, all you have to do is to grab it.

As mentioned, a lot of all time favorites are already in the public domain. Make an online catalogue of all these public domain works, separating them into categories for search convenience. To give your inventory a fresh look, update often. That way, people will keep coming back for more.

To make this work, you will need a special software that creates online storefronts or shopping carts. The software will make it easy for you to keep track of the multiple downloads, sales, and other files. Additionally, the storefront will make your electronic inventory secure, and keep your buyers safe.

As an added bonus, you can also sell CD copies of public domain music and movies right alongside the downloadable product. It may require a higher initial investment. However, you will find that it will be worth it, considering how some people are still wary of downloading anything from the Internet. This way, you give your buyers another option to get a hold of your products.

So now that you know all the tips and tricks involved in selling, re-selling, distributing and re-distributing public domain-based e-books, what other options do you have?

After all, this public domain business is supposed to be virtually limitless, right? So, is this all that you can do?

What if the e-book thing did not work? Even after countless revisions and editing work and even after offering it as a reseller or affiliate product. Try hard as you might, you just cannot seem to have enough people to notice your work and get them interested enough to buy it.

Do not fool yourself into thinking that once you have created an e-book and followed all the steps, the dollars are just going to start flowing in. A business is never that easy. Usually, it will take time – a heck of a lot of time and much waiting and hard work. In the mean time, what are you going to do?

Just sit around and wait forever?

Again, take the active part and do something. So the e-book is not selling. Fine. What else is out there?

Perfect question. Read on to find out.

Repackaging public domain works could also take the form of CDs. Even if you are not particularly fond of this option, you will probably have to do this anyway as people will tend to look for physical products.

It has something to do with tangible stuff; people want to be able to touch the products that they buy.

Producing physical copies of your public domain products is not that difficult. Sure, it can be a hassle having to buy blank CDs and getting a CD-burning software to create CDs. But if you manage it well, you may even hire a separate company to do all this for you.

CD versions of public domain works are especially profitable if you are making revisions or updates on an existing product.

The picture above is one of my products. I hired someone off of Guru.com to read “The Power Of Your Subconscious Mind” by Dr. Joseph Murphy into a microphone turning it into an audio with a higher precived value.