More content than you can ever use

by gareth
22 replies
I have been paying writers, hunting down better writers & preparing illustrations and book outlines for my niche for many weeks now.

Just before xmas something wonderful happened.

I found over 200 books and courses in my niche - all public domain.

Over half wont even come up on copyscape I am confident. This has saved me so many hours of work its fantastic.

Yippee !!!!

Never forget public domain as a source of content.
#content
  • Profile picture of the author swood01
    Care to share any more info about where to find these public domain sources?
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  • Profile picture of the author Teresa Coppes
    That's awesome news Gareth! Main report, bonus and upsells galore all right in one spot

    Swood1: Here's some great threads discussing places for public domain content

    http://www.warriorforum.com/make-mon...es-galore.html
    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...n-content.html
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  • Profile picture of the author nyrsimon
    gareth,

    Couldn't agree more - it's amazing what is available!

    Simon
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    • Profile picture of the author sylviad
      I must have done it wrong...

      When I looked for PD materials, all I could find was stuff written back in the 1700s. From what I could tell, the writing style alone would turn off a lot of potential readers. It's like reading Shakespeare!

      Would love to know how you manoeuvered past those to get to the good stuff.

      Sylvia
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  • Profile picture of the author Bev Clement
    Sylvia, it depends on the niche you're in. There are a lot of good products in many niche like health, diet, fitness, home econmics (as we used to call it) and such like.

    Bev
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  • Profile picture of the author Fernando Veloso
    You're not alone Suzy. Every time I check PD material, it's all from 2 centuries ago.
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  • Profile picture of the author powerblogger
    I'd like to know how you are finding this public domain materials. Do you mind sharing? Thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author USGTMauthor
      Years ago I read the Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles which is in the public domain and thought wow what a great book and low and behold Rhonda Byrne got a hold of it and created the "Secret". OF course she left out the most important part which is taking action, but it made lots of people feel good thinking that thinking about stuff made it happen. But, to answer your question, here is one source of public domain material.

      Main Page - Gutenberg
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  • Profile picture of the author Lawrh
    This will help you find US gov stuff, mostly public domain.

    <Unclesam> - Google Search

    This will answer all questions about finding stuff, it's inexpensive. Not an aff link.

    Hidden Web...Deep Web...Quality Research, New Product Ideas, Public Domain Content And More in...The Hidden Web EXPOSED!
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  • Profile picture of the author Loco.m
    I've never thought about looking in the public domain for content, I do have a few people I've had help me write articles, I'll check it out.
    Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author SageSound
    Here's a very popular WSO thread:

    http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...ml#post1535315

    There are literally TENS OF MILLIONS of books that are out-of-copyright, not to mention photos, drawings, paintings, ads, radio broadcasts, movies, TV shows, etc.

    Searching for "PD content" on google is like searching for "rocks". What you'll find is stuff in a geological expo or museum.

    Walk outside and you'll find piles and piles of them! But they'll never turn up in Google searches.

    "rocks"
    "rocks near my house"
    "white rocks"
    "crystalline rocks"

    NOT!

    Google just isn't going to be much good at finding stuff that hasn't already been found, catalogued, analyzed, etc.

    You can go to books.google.com and see what's there. thousands upon thousands of out-of-copyright books. All scanned in, many converted to text.

    BTW, Wallace Wattles wrote his book as a kind of "summary" of another publication, "The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons" by Napoleon Hill. In fact, Hill wrote "Think And Grow Rich" as a "summary" of those 16 lessons all in one volume. And ... there are editions of ALL of them that are out-of-copyright!

    -David
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    • Profile picture of the author GeorgR.
      Originally Posted by SageSound View Post

      Here's a very popular WSO thread:

      http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...ml#post1535315

      There are literally TENS OF MILLIONS of books that are out-of-copyright, not to mention photos, drawings, paintings, ads, radio broadcasts, movies, TV shows, etc.
      yes and yes and yes, but Google is indexing EVERYTHING nowadays, even PDFs. A PLR source where there is truly no dupes on the net would be a goldmine (to say it mildly).
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      • Profile picture of the author SageSound
        Originally Posted by GeorgR. View Post

        yes and yes and yes, but Google is indexing EVERYTHING nowadays, even PDFs. A PLR source where there is truly no dupes on the net would be a goldmine (to say it mildly).
        Dupes isn't exactly the issue, George.

        I found some old books from about 100 years ago in a bookstore. I did a bit of digging and found that one of them has been scanned in by Google, but the others had not. One of them may have been republished under different titles, but when you repurpose those old books, you really need to do a bunch of editing to make them readable. Analogies, euphemisms, idioms, and even common grammatical structures were quite different 100+ years ago.

        I also found a couple of magazines at the bookstore that led me to a veritable gold mine of material in a single niche that I suspect hasn't been addressed very thoroughly. There's 50 years of monthly publications right there ready to be used! And that's just the stuff published before 1923. That periodical continued to be published into the 1940s, and with some work I could probably determine that most of those issues are out of copyright as well.

        But cripes ... 50 years of material in one niche ...

        I've picked up 3-1/2 years of actual physical copies of these magazines. It's about a foot tall, a few thousand pages.

        The Good News is ... I've found sources online that have actually scanned in a huge number of these and converted them to text! WOO-HOO! And none of that will show up in Google's searches.

        Also, in this particular niche, the material needs very little editing, if any at all, even though it's all well over 100 years old.

        This is ONE magazine. How many different magazines were published prior to 1923? Tens of thousands?

        c'mon George. Do you seriously think this is a problem?

        (Maybe in 50 years when all of this old material has been gone through, and much of the other stuff since 1976 is still stuck in copyright, THEN you can raise that flag and wave it about.)

        -David
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      • Profile picture of the author Lawrh
        Originally Posted by GeorgR. View Post

        yes and yes and yes, but Google is indexing EVERYTHING nowadays, even PDFs. A PLR source where there is truly no dupes on the net would be a goldmine (to say it mildly).
        Google's total index represents barely 5% of the info on the 'Net. No spider can index databases. Check out university sites for a start. In my previous post I noted a book about the deep web, there are other similar works. The 'Net is 500 times larger than Google, Yahoo and Bing's indexes combined. The secret is learning how to find what you want.
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  • Profile picture of the author GeorgR.
    uhm...i want to see those PLR articles which have no dupes. I have my slight doubts. Is this some obscure niche?
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    • Profile picture of the author Chris Grable
      Originally Posted by GeorgR. View Post

      uhm...i want to see those PLR articles which have no dupes. I have my slight doubts. Is this some obscure niche?
      George, The OP was talking about public domain info not PLR.... It's still remarkable that it isn't already out there somewhere... But a lot easier to understand!
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      • Profile picture of the author summer07
        Originally Posted by Lawrh View Post

        Google's total index represents barely 5% of the info on the 'Net. No spider can index databases. Check out university sites for a start. In my previous post I noted a book about the deep web, there are other similar works. The 'Net is 500 times larger than Google, Yahoo and Bing's indexes combined. The secret is learning how to find what you want.
        Just saw a news report a couple of days ago about Google scanning truckloads of books from the libraries at Stanford and University of California Berkeley.

        There's a lot of controversy about what they plan to do with it -- give it away or sell it -- and whether they have the right to do either.

        ...the settlement will give Google a right to commercialize all out-of-print books (unless the rights holder opts out of the commercialization scheme) and to make non-display uses of in-print books....
        source: PCD10/30/09 Samuelson
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        • Profile picture of the author SageSound
          Originally Posted by summer07 View Post

          Just saw a news report a couple of days ago about Google scanning truckloads of books from the libraries at Stanford and University of California Berkeley.

          There's a lot of controversy about what they plan to do with it -- give it away or sell it -- and whether they have the right to do either.
          the ultimate irony here is that the people trying to stop Google are NOT the authors. It's the publishers and taxing authorities who are being pre-empted by G's actions!

          Let's see here .... books go out of print because ... uh ... nobody's buying them. Not enough sales for the publishers to bother with any more.

          And now those SAME publishers are having a hissy fit because Google wants to actually DO SOMETHING with the same stuff they THEY CAN'T SELL.

          What do the authors think?

          Ahh, therein lies the rub. The publishers have lost track of them, but the taxing authorities feel they'll lose out on taxes if someone like Google starts to profit indirectly on these works. These WORTHLESS works. HAHAHAHA!!!!

          I think that if Google found a way to actually make money from garbage dumps, cities across the country would sue the crap out of them to prevent them from doing so.

          -David
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          • Profile picture of the author sylviad
            What many PD searchers do not realize is that just because it's PD, doesn't mean it hasn't been snatched up by someone by the time you find it. There's no way those sites linking to all the PD materials can keep track of who grabbed what and made it their own, including copyrighting it. It can and does happen.

            If you get caught using something that someone else already registered under their own name, you can suffer big time.

            I wish I could recall where I heard or or who was the super-successful internet marketer, but apparently, he based the majority of his business on PD materials and is making a killing.

            BUT... he has someone do the legal searches to make sure the materials he finds is really free to use.

            This is where PD can become something you do not expect... pricey.

            It says clearly on some of the PD sites that you must check for yourself to be certain the material is still in the public domain. Just because it's free, doesn't mean you won't run into costs to make sure it is.

            Sylvia
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            • Profile picture of the author JasonC.biz
              You certainly need a bit of education when dealing with the public domain. It does take some time and knowledge to determine whether or not a book is in the PD.

              I have a couple of courses on PD (one of which is Kneb's linked above), and it's generally recommended to "make it your own" anyway.

              Regarding the work already being used by someone else - if it's in the public domain, it doesn't matter, you can still use the original PD work. If you're concerned about competition in this case, go to Amazon and enter "Pride and Prejudice" and see what comes up. Some are the classic novel, and some are new renditions, updated, modernized, or whatever (like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - yes, I'm serious, look it up). There's room for more than one publisher.

              And as for antiquated language, that can be true for the pre-1923 works. However, works up to 1963 can still be in the PD and aren't terribly difficult to confirm PD status. Books written in the 1950s - 1960's have language very similar to today's. However, it seems it's still generally recommended that you put your own creativity into your finished product. This will make yours unique as well as allow you to copyright your version.

              Jason
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  • Profile picture of the author tresero
    Sylvia,
    If you use the PD work without change, i.e. the original, you can not get in any trouble. It is in the PUBLIC domain. No one can "claim" it as there own.

    I deal with copyright all the time as both a songwriter and author of published works. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't publish Think and Grow Rich because it is already out there. They can only copyright the format, i.e. typeface, layout, cover etc. You can take the exact same words and sell it tonight if you want. In fact, if the work has a cover, you can use that as well.

    You can't however, take a derivative work and sell it. That would be for instance, the annotated Think and Grow Rich not written by you.

    On a side note, titles can't be copyrighted so you can write a book called Think and Grow Rich and then it would be subject to copyright. I hope that make sense.
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