Exploiting the Public Domain
“How Joe Vitale Made $2000 Overnight with a book he didn’t write…”
Last night Russell Brunson interviewed Joe Vitale about his success with publishing a book he found in the Public Domain. Russell send me a copy of the recording because he knew I’d be really interested. I’m a fan of Joe’s work, I write and publish books and any creative idea I come across sets my mind of fire…
So here’s a quick transcript of the recording and some personal ideas added at the end which link back to making your own software.
Why P.T. Barnum was a marketing genius…
The Public Domain consists of book which are no longer copywrited. These are usually older books who are dated before 1906. And sometimes books which are put there on purpose by the author.
Joe is a big fan of P.T. Barnum. Barnum became famous with a book he wrote, called There’s a Customer Born Every Minute. His autobiography which he put in the Public Domain while he was still alive.
This is a very uncommon thing to do for most writers. They are usually very keen on protecting their copyrights to make money from their work and they are certainly not inclined to give it away for everyone to use.
P.T. Barnum however was a marketing genius. You see, to publish your own book costs heaps of money and certainly in the days before internet, gives very little return on investment. But by giving away the copyrights to his work, Barnum created his own little army of ‘affiliates’ who were printing his work, advertising the book and basically cost him nothing while getting his name known.
The book which made Joe $2000 overnight…
Years and years ago, while browsing a second-hand book shop, Joe purchased a book which had a huge influence on his life. This collecter’s find was a first edition of Genevieve Behrend’s long lost 1929 book called Attaining Your Desires: By Letting Your Subconscious Mind Work For You. And he treasured it - reading it again and again many times…
Now this book was from after 1906, but a few years ago Joe used the Copyright Office to check if there was an active copyright on the book. It cost him about $60,- to find out it was in the Public Domain. And he then decided to re-publish the book as a PDF ebook. He then send a sales letter over his list and to his astonishment made $2000 in sales overnight!
The day this book was released, Joe experienced as a heroic moment. What he had done was to dust of an old treasure and make it available again, enabling other people to benefit from it as much as he had done. He brought it back to live and now was even paid for doing so!
Further exploitation with Publishing On Demand (POD)
A couple more years later a friend of Joe’s started his own POD company and approached him for a book to submit. Joe decided Attaining Your Desires would be perfect for this. He added a full-fledged sales letter at the end of the manuscript to up-sell his Hypnotic Selling Secrets package.
When invited as a keynote speaker at some hypnotic event, he had several hundred copies of this book printed, which he gave away at the end of his lecture. It could be collected at his booth. This drove hundreds of people by, and of course he wasn’t only giving away this book; he was also selling other products and many of these people purchased something else.
And of course there was the sales letter in the back of the book. It turned the book into a sort of brochure and Joe’s confident that also a lot of people who didn’t buy something that day, later came to his website to purchase either his Hypnotic Selling Secrets or something else.
Use Karmic Marketing to create Win-Win situations
The act of giving away something and trusting something good will come back, is what Joe calls karmic marketing. And it doesn’t matter if people actually buy anything else. Practicing karmic marketing will always result in a win-win situation!
Here’s a living example of how things indeed come back to Joe. Only yesterday I received the following email:
“Hey, I’m not getting paid for doing any of this, but I want to help Joe out with this release BIG TIME. I’m thinking of
a publicity “stunt” that will sell 2,000,000 copies of his new Attractor Factor book in one day – tomorrow.I asked him one day “how many copies to you want to sell?”
– He said: 2,000,000. So that’s what I’m after.Using Joe’s own “Think Like God” approach on this one.
Joe’s performed miracles in my life. I want to give back.”
And it’s fun! Finding something in the Public Domain which you really like. Pooring all your passion and enthusiasm into creating a new product from it and then even make some money with it as well!
How You can use the Public Domain yourself…
- Research the Public Domain
Joe’s favorite website for finding Public Domain books is: http://www.healthresearchbooks.com which sells nothing but Public Domain books. They have thousands! - Find a book you really like and start selling it as well. You cannot sell it the same form as they do, but you can sell it as an ebook.
- Do a Google search to see if it already exists in PDF. It’s a long shot but you never know and it sure saves you a lot of work…
- Otherwise order the book from Health Research Books and type up the content or scan it and convert your document to PDF.
- Set up a website for your book.
- Write the sales letter and be sure to infuse it with excitement and passion. But be sincere. If you’re selling a book you truly like yourself, your passion will be obvious and lead to sales.
- Send out your sales letter over your mailing list. It doesn’t matter it’s a big or a small list. Even if your list only consist of your broter and sister: it’s a start.
- Find partners with large mailing lists who may be willing to send out a mailing for your. Just be sure you only approach people who have a list which will be interested in your book. If you have something Joe’s audience will like, you may also approach Joe. You’ll stand a good chance of getting a free ride.
Hey, Cool! But do you really think I have time for this?!
Russell himself recently got really interested in the Public Domain and did a lot of research on it. He wanted to share his findings with a larger audience so at first he thought about setting up a training center to teach people how to perform all of the steps above in the best possible manner.
However, he soon found out many people are totally put off by all of the effort it takes to get this strategy rolling. And thus Russell thought of something even better:
http://www.thesecondtier.com/patriciarits/thelostfiles
The Lost Files is a membership site where every month you as a member get two completely formatted books from the Public Domain including a professionally written sales letter.
Here are just a couple of book topics waiting to be exploited:
- Gain self-confidence in public speaking
- Write a hit-song and sell it
- How to develop perseverance
- Interpreting dreams
- And I’ve seen a couple more interesting titles…
Wow! - Don’t you just love Russell’s creativity? He just saved you tons of time and money!
(Joe just signed up as Russell’s first member…)
So, what the heck has all of this got to do with making your own software?!
Good point!
Do you know where I get most of my own product ideas from?
Books. I love books and read lots of them. And especially the how to type of books are excellent for getting creative software ideas.
- Joe Vitale’s Advanced Hypnotic Writing –> Hypnotic Sales Letter Analyzer
- Mark Joyner’s Confidential Internet Intelligence Manuscript –> Making a Statement
- Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats –> Concept Evaluation Wizard
- My own My Happy Heart –> Heart Poetry Writer and DeskTop Relaxation
And here I’ve listed only a couple. I have over a dozen ideas still waiting to be developed.
Now the problem with most of these software applications is that you need to get permission from the author of the book. Since you’re creating a derived product from their work, there’s the copyrights which need to be taken care off.
I was lucky in getting in touch real quick with Joe and Mark and they gave me their complete co-operation. To day I’m still waiting to hear back from Edward de Bono and thus I cannot release a piece of software which has been ready since last December.
However, if I dig into the Public Domain and get my ideas from books here, there are no longer any copyrights to take into account and there’s a true wealth of information to be gotten here.
I didn’t have to think very long to sign up for Russell’s new membership site…
http://www.thesecondtier.com/patriciarits/thelostfiles
If you sign up today as a member, Russell will also give you a cool new tool he has just developed: Public Domain Mastermind. And it comes with resale rights. But only for those who sign up during the first 7 days of this launch. But why don’t you just click that link and check out the benefits for yourself. There are many more than I covered here anyway. See for yourself!
Here’s to your mind on fire!
Patricia Ritsema van Eck