Home Publishing is a great business to be in. But, like every worthwhile business, it takes time and effort to build a solid business model.

Three Myths About Public Domain Every Home Publisher Must Know

Steve Flashman is a Media & Home Business Consultant with a unique edge! He is a public speaker, published author, recording artist, media broadcaster and communications expert.
http://www.mypublishingworld.com

Searching out public domain works can be fun and rewarding, especially if you are running a Home Publishing business on the internet. There are principles you need to apply to every publishing project and it is true to say that this business can be very lucrative. However, there are some myths we need to deal with in terms of public domain works.

Of course, it is exciting to think about the prospect of creating a marketable products with no investment except a little time and minimal effort. However, it’s not as easy as that! Articles abound online that make it sound like all you have to do is reach down and pick up a nugget of gold and wham, you’ll have a top notch product for nothing. The truth is, it usually takes far more time and far more effort to create a marketable product from material gleaned from the public domain. If you are prepared to put the work in, it’s definitely a rewarding business. I think one of the problems is that everywhere you look on the internet, the marketing “gurus” are trying to convince you that money can be made overnight by using this system or that marketing technique. As we all know, all this achieves is to make a lot of money for the “gurus” whilst the gullible people who fall for all this nonsense go broke!

Home Publishing is a great business to be in and can earn a decent living, but you need to work at it.

1. Creating New Products Takes Time and Effort

If you want to make a living by using public domain works to create profitable products to sell, you need to invest time and effort. For one thing, not all of them are digitized and if you have to go through the process of digitizing an entire book, that could take quite a bit of time, or money, if you outsource the project. If you don’t scan the work into your computer or pay someone else to do so then you’ll be left with the task of entering all the information manually and that can take a lot of time and effort. Plus, you’ll have to read the book and choose the parts you want to leave in and the areas that you want to update or change to make it your own. So although using public domain works to create products for your Internet marketing empire can be lucrative, it can also be a lot of work.

2. Out of Print is not Synonymous with Public Domain

Second hand bookstores can contain a goldmine of useful public domain works that can be used and adapted to create valuable products to sell in your online business. However, be careful. Just because a book is out of print doesn’t mean that it is out of copyright because they can be renewed and you end up getting sued for breach of copyright! Don’t panic! Just make sure you check the copyright of any material you find.

So you can’t simply look at the copyright notice in a book, count the years that have passed, and automatically deduce that it is now in the public domain.

3. Works without Copyright Notices are in the Public Domain

This is a common misconception and one that could lead to a lot of trouble and aggravation if you believe it and act upon it. In the United States, since 1989 anyway, the moment a work was created, it was copyrighted, with no need for registration at all. Though copyright registration does afford certain benefits, they are still protected by copyright even if not registered. In fact, modern works are afforded a much longer copyright than older works. For example, any work created today is protected by copyright for the length of the author’s life plus 70 years. Even then, heirs may be able to extend the copyright so it will be some time before modern works fall into the public domain unless, of course, the author donates them to the public domain.

Bottom line: Make absolutely sure that the work you are intending to use as your own is indeed, in the public domain. Don’t trust just any website that lists it as such because you will be the one responsible for copyright infringement if the website is wrong.

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