Do you want to know how to publish public domain books on Amazon? This post is just right for you.
Related: What is Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing?
How to publish public domain books on Amazon: Is it necessary?
The question is: Is it necessary to publish public domain books on Amazon?
Well, there is no simple answer to that question. The truth is that Amazon allows anyone to publish public domain books on its platform.
This should be good news. Right? Well, you must be careful. You must ensure the books you are publishing are actually in the public domain.
Using public domain books
Publishing public domain books is another way you can produce ebooks in any niche of your choice especially on. It was a great feeling in our organization when we discovered that Amazon actually allows authors to publish public domain books on their platforms legally.
In our publishing company, we recently started exploiting this opportunity in order to expand our digital portfolio and also to increase profits. Just before I show you the strategy we are employing to get this done in our organization, let me first tell you what public domain books are.
What are public domain books?
The term “public domain” refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. The public owns these works, not an individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it.
When do books enter the public domain?
As of the year 2021, any book published before 1926 is yours to read for free and also use without permission. However, any book published after the year 1963 is still definitely in copyright.
Examples of public domain websites
The following are examples of public domain websites where you can find public domain books:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ (This is perhaps the most popular public domain website online)
Strategies we follow in our organization to publish public domain books on Amazon
The following is the process we follow in our organization to publish and profit from public domain materials on Amazon:
Carry out your researches
You should carry out researches to discover hot niche areas or evergreen niches.
Visit project gutenberg
Visit https://www.gutenberg.org/ .
When you get to this website, you have these different options that you can use to obtain a relevant book according to the researches you carried out.
You can use the ‘Quick search box. Search for a main keyword representing the book you want.
You can also use the ‘Search and Browse drop down arrow head. When you use this option, you will be taken to the next page.
This page will give you the opportunity to obtain a relevant book without wasting so much time. You can check out the following categories on this page to obtain relevant books that you can publish:
Popular
Latest
Random
I will leave you to explore all the possibilities on this page. You will become more effective with frequent use of the tools on this page. In case you get stuck, you can use the help button to the far right of the page.
Requirements to publish public domain books on Amazon
Amazon is magnanimous enough to allow authors publish public domain books on their platforms. You can’t really get that with a lot of the other publish platforms online. However, just because Amazon gives you the golden opportunity to publish these materials on her platforms does not mean you have to just pick up the ebooks and upload them on Amazon.
Amazon has strict requirements you must follow to publish and sell public domain books on her platform. Apart from the general requirements about copyrights that I shared with you above, these are the requirements (according to Amazon) for you to publish and sell public domain books on Amazon:
“Our program allows the selling of content that is in the public domain. However, we may ask you to provide proof that the content you submitted is in the public domain. We may refuse public domain content that’s already available through our program or other retail sites. To provide a better customer experience, we don’t publish undifferentiated versions of public domain titles if a free version is available in our store. Differentiated works are unique. They meet one or more of these requirements:
