Perhaps you’ve heard of public domain publishing as a means of earning money online.  I am here to tell you about a twist on it that can have you bringing in extra revenue almost right away.

First, though, let’s review the fundamentals. As you perhaps know, many books and other materials have gone into the public domain (fallen out of copyright) and may be republished, in any format, by anyone who desires to do so. In the U.S. most works published through the year 1923 are now considered to be public domain (“PD”).

If you locate a PD book you think others would pay for if it were republished, you could reprint it as a physical book and sell copies through eBay, Amazon or your own web site. Some enterprising individuals have done exactly this with old correspondence courses and other non-fiction, how-to type materials from years past.

Or, you could repackage your PD find as an e-book and make it available for downloading, for a price. This is probably the more common way that people are bringing in money at this time from the public domain.  Once again, non-fiction, how-to and self-improvement are the most in-demand subjects.

Now here’s the twist I mentioned.  The method I prefer is to make PD books freely available on the web, and place advertising on their pages. Strictly speaking, then, you are selling ad space, not the book itself.

A few years a guy named Steve Smith heard about an odd book from 1892 that combined a time-travel tale with a story about golf. Its title was Golf In the Year 2000.

Afer a bit of looking, he was able to find a copy of the book for just $10. He scanned the pages, converted them with OCR software, and posted the whole book to a website he had registered specifically for that purpose.

Then he took it the next step. On his web pages, he surrounded the text of the book with Google AdSense and affiliate merchant ads. He then made money when visitors clicked on the AdSense ads or purchased stuff through the affiliate links. By the way, if you’re curious you can view his site at www.golf-in-the-year-2000.com.

Steve’s online edition of Golf In the Year 2000 attracts a steady flow of golf devotees, science fiction fans, Victorian literature lovers and the simply curious, he says. And the ads on his pages bring him money!

Certainly, it’s an idea that could be copied by others. Public-domain sources are abundant nowadays.  You might be able to find a suitable book in one of the many web-based PD repositories, preferably one that not many other people have discovered yet.

One good thing with this idea is that the book you showcase (and use to earn ad revenue) need not be restricted to non-fiction or how-to.As with Mr. Smith’s strange little science fictional golf gem, it can simply be something that will bring users to your site, for the novelty if nothing else.

You could also look in used-book stores to try to find something rare enough not to have made it to the Internet at all.  In that case you will probably need to buy a scanner and some OCR software to get the text into your computer.

Public domain publishing is truly a potentially lucrative field.  And, how you “repurpose” your PD finds is entirely up to you.  That’s what makes it so fun, as well as profitable.

This method of publishing public domain material is described at some length in this article, along with recommendations for further reading.

If you are interested in selling actual used books online, as on Amazon or eBay, there’s a downloadable report available that shows a new and mega-profitable way to do it.  Check it out here or read an excellent review of it at Can You Still Make Money Selling Used Books on Amazon?

I bet many Affiliate Marketers either have a lot of Private Label Resell ebooks sitting on your computer or you own subscriptions to PLR websites where they are available as part of your membership package. But how do you make money with them? Now that they’re out there in the public domain, the buzz dies down and it can be hard to find ways to make money online with them.

Here are five ways you can make money with PLR ebooks.

Make your own CD or DVD and sell them on eBay. If you visit ebay right now, you’ll see a few CD’s full of hundreds of ebooks on a variety of subjects. You can do the same. Heck, you can even buy the ones on ebay, copy them (if they’re Private Label), then add the ones from your list and resell them. You can also sell these on Craigslist and classified sites like Kijiji or U.S. Free Ads.

Find someone to rewrite them for you. If you’re good enough, you could do this yourself and get a website to sell the ebooks. Then you can start promoting your New ebook! Another strategy is to get traffic to the website and once it starts making a little bit of money, sell the rights to the ebook along with the website. Don’t overlook the niche of buyers who are looking to buy web sites that are already making money.

Let people download them as a bonus to your other offers. Newbies like lots of free bonuses. It’s no secret that many times people buy a information product off the Internet because they want the bonus more than the product or service that is being sold. Use your PLR ebooks as bonuses to promote your products and watch the sales skyrocket.

Another excellent strategy is to build yourself an email list with them. Everyone knows the power of an email list. Offer your Private Label ebooks free to your website visitors for just for signing up to your newsletter. Free stuff sells. This is one way that many of the how to money Guru’s build massive contact list. They just give really cool ebooks away in exchange for a name and email address! Once you have an email list built up, you can then push products and services to them.

Get rid of them quick! How do you make money that way you ask? Place your affiliate links into the Private Label ebooks. Just read through the ebook and anywhere you find a keyword or keyword phrase where you can put an affiliate link, do it! Excellent places to give these away are Social Media sites and even on your website if you have one. Get a bunch of these out there and watch your income from affiliate commissions go ballistic!

I bet you can do at least one, if not more of these tactics. Excellent and easy ways to make money online with ebooks. Don’t forget to stay focused and get as many of your Private Label ebooks into the homes of people who will buy stiff from you!