Jeff Bezos founded Amazon, the internet retail giant, in 1994 and in 1995 the first Amazon website went live. Right now, Amazon is a phenomenally successful business and probably one of the most recognisable and trusted brands in the world. It’s easy to forget just what an innovative notion purchasing books on the web and having them delivered by mail was at the time. A lot of business analysts and investors predicted that Amazon would have a hard time of it – and indeed it took until the end of 2001 before they reported their first profit.

Having changed the way that many people bought books, Amazon diversified into other areas very quickly. Music CDs, computer software, videos (later DVDs), consumer electronics and toys were all added to the Amazon product range. Today you can buy almost any consumer item that you can think of from Amazon – including your groceries.

In addition to diversifying their product range, Amazon launched websites in the UK, France, Germany, China and Canada. However, they never lost their original passion for books and they continued to retain a very strong association with books in the perception of the buying public.

This was something that would stand them in good stead in November of 2007 when the Amazon Kindle e-book reader launched. Having previously changed the way that books were purchased, Amazon was now modifying the way that books were actually read. The Kindle attracted a great deal of publicity and it’s reasonable to suggest that the e-book reader market really took off with the release of Amazon’s modified and enhanced Kindle 2.0 in February of 2009.

In June of the same year, Amazon followed up with the large format Kindle DX. This incorporated a large, 9.7″, e-ink technology display and was targeted at readers of newspapers, magazines and academic textbooks. Much of the buzz surrounding the DX was generated by the normally conservative world of academic publishing.

So, the manner in which books are bought, delivered and read have all been radically modified in a relatively short time frame. The fnal piece of reading’s jigsaw – publishing – is also likely to see major changes in the near to immediate future. Any major publisher will almost certainly require to publish an e-book version of any new editions in future. The traditional cycle of hardback publication, followed a few months later by the paperback version will be modified by the addition of an e-book version right at the front end of the process.

Since publishing e-books is less costly than either hardback or paperback release publishing houses may be encouraged to be more daring in future. It could conceivably result in more new authors being published as the process will carry much less financial risk. It could also result in more authors taking greater control by self publishing. In fact, publishing Kindle books is, even now, an achievable goal for anyone who has an Amazon account and who can operate simple word processing software such as Microsoft Word. E-book readers are a true revolution in both reading and publishing.

It’s possibly that you have heard of public domain publishing as a pathway to making money online and it works great but today,  I want to tell you about a twist on that idea that can have you bringing in extra income almost right away.

First, though, the basics. As you might know, many books and other works have gone into the public domain (fallen out of copyright protection) and can be republished, in any form, by anyone who undertakes to do so. In the U.S. most works published through 1923 are now considered to be public domain (”PD”).

If you uncover a PD book you believe others would buy if it were republished, you could reprint it as a physical book and sell copies on eBay, Amazon or your own web site. Some enterprising individuals have done this with old correspondence courses and other non-fiction, how-to type materials from years ago.

Alternatively, you could format your PD discovery as an e-book and make it available for people to download, for a price. This is probably the more usual way that people are bringing in money now from the public domain.Again, how-to, self-improvement and other non-fiction works will prove to be the most profitable.

Now about that little 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 interesting 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 opitcal character reading software, and posted the whole book to a site he had registered specifically for that purpose.

Then he took it the next step. On his site’s pages, he surrounded the book’s text with Google AdSense and affiliate merchant ads. This enabled him to make money from visitors clicking the AdSense or buying things. 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 enthusiasts, science fiction fans, Victorian literature lovers and the simply curious, he says. And the ads on his pages bring him money!

I’m certain this is something that many other people could copy. Public-domain sources are abundant nowadays.  You might be able to find a suitable book in one of the many web-based PD collections, preferably something that not many other people have discovered yet.

The good thing about 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 Steve’s weird little golf/science fiction find, it can just be something that will attract visitors to your web site, for the sheer 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 indeed a potentially lucrative area.Further, how you “repurpose” your public domain finds is completely 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?