Build An Information Empire Starting With Less Than $1,000
by Tyler G. Hicks
YOU CAN GET MORE THAN 10,000 PUBLIC DOMAIN INFORMATION PRODUCTS at little or
no cost and use them any way you want. Public domain (or "PD") information is not copyrighted, so you
can use it to create new products easily and then sell those products for a profit in your own business. PD
information products are yours for the asking or for a small fee. They include many:
- Books (business, novels, reference, etc.)
- Business studies and reports
- Consumer guides and reports
- Videos (education, entertainment, etc.)
- Software, CD-ROMs, diskettes
- Audio tapes (books, music, etc.)
- Full length films of many kinds
- And more
PD INFORMATION OFFERS EXCITING POSSIBILITIES to people who want to get into the
information business without a lot of startup cash, inventory, or experience. How do you use PD material
to build your own information business? Here are your steps:
- Get to know the sources of the PD material. The federal government is the biggest
source, because information that it creates is automatically in the public domain,
unless otherwise indicated. Other typical sources are state and local governments;
companies and nonprofit groups that maintain collections of PD materials; and
businesses that specialize in selling PD items.
- Pick the topic(s) you want your product(s) to cover. A good place to start looking
is the Catalog of U.S, Government Publications. It lists PD products covering more
than 225 broad topics--from aerospace to zip codes--and thousands of subtopics. For
details on the Catalog or the items listed, contact any Government Printing Office
(GPO) bookstore or one of the 1,350 Federal Depository Libraries in the U.S.
- Choose the types of products you want to sell. PD information is available in
many different forms, as we've seen. But it's important to know you can get your
information one way--say, a 150-page book--and sell it in a different way--say, as a
report on audio cassettes or as a series of five smaller printed reports. Or you could
combine the report with other products to make an even more valuble (or
"value-added") product. The most reliable way to make money with PD material is
to create value-added products--products that are more appealing, convenient, and
useful than the PD sources they came from.
- Contact the source of the PD information you want. Ask for a catalog, browse
their store or library, or visit their Web site. Be sure the source confirms that the
material you wnat is in the public domain, If there's any doublt, don't use it.
- Start selling your information products by mail order, on the Internet and however
else you can reach your potential customers. Place inexpensive or free classified ads
in local newspapers. Your value-added products will cost next to nothing to create,
you'll be building the base for your growing business and you should soon have
enough new money to add other products to your line as well.
- Catalog of U.S. Government Publications
U.S. Government Printing Office
710 N. Capitol Street, NW
Washington DC 20401
T: 202-512-0132; F: 202-512-1355
www.gpo.gov/index.html
- Project Gutenberg (more than 5,000 PD books)
PMB 113 1739 University Ave
Oxford, MS 38655-4109
www.promo.net/pg/
- Guide to Public Domain Footage (video, film)
256 WP Guinea Hill Road
Slate Hill, NY 10973
T: 845-355-1400; F: 845-355-4807
http://www.videouniversity.com/pubdoman.htm
- Federal Depository Libraries
GPO Access
E-mail: gpoaccess@gpo.gov;
T: 202-512-1530
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