I receive a lot of questions in general and especially about Public Domain (PD) books since I’ve written a boatload of articles about them. I realize the process can be overwhelming and/or confusing!

Therefore, I wanted to write this article to provide a clear set of repeatable actions which you can use as a checklist in creating your public domain audiobook.

This graphic outlines the 9 steps in publishing a PD audiobook. I’ll elaborate on each one below.

 

 

Before I continue, let me point out a couple of things. First, this is a long article with detailed information. To stave off feelings of overwhelm, you may want to read and follow the steps in each section when you’re ready to take that action.

Also, be aware that narrators who record for audio publishers and production companies usually join a project at Step 6 – Prep Your Script. Since you’re the producer and publisher of your public domain audiobook, you also have to do all the work on the front end!

 

1 – Find a book that you might like to record and publish. Research the book’s copyright status. If it’s in the public domain, keep going! 

Find a Book

Endless possibilities exist for book discovery, so it would be impossible to list all the sources here. NarratorsRoadmap.com members have access to over 2 dozen of my hand-curated, HathiTrust.org collections of probable public domain books, as well as Resource links to other sites. I like to search for books on HathiTrust.org because it’s a consortium of college libraries, and Google has scanned millions of their books.

Narrators commonly choose books on Gutenberg.org. You may want to read through my Q&A about text sources.

Check the Copyright Status: Copyright Background

As a refresher from my last article:

• Everything published in the US in 1929 and earlier is Public Domain.
• Everything published in the US in 1930 will become Public Domain on 1/1/26.
• Everything published in the US between 1930 and 1963 might be Public Domain and requires you to do research discussed below to determine the copyright status.
• Everything published from 1964 forward is still copyrighted. You would need to license the audio rights for these publications.

In the period between 1930 and 1963, the copyright originally only lasted 28 years. The rights holder needed to renew the copyright before the end of the 28th year to extend the copyright life another 28 years. Changes in the laws over time have kept the renewed copyrights active for 95 years.

For instance, Gone With the Wind was published in 1936. In order to maintain the copyright on her book, Margaret Mitchell’s estate had to submit the renewal before 31 December 1964.

The copyright lasts through the end of the year, so 1936 original copyright date + 95 because it was renewed + 1 for the full year = 2032, or the year this book enters the public domain.

Each 1 January, a new year’s books will enter the Public Domain as the 95 years of copyright protection will have elapsed. As mentioned above, all US books published in 1930 will become Public Domain on 1/1/26.

Check the Copyright Status: Research in Renewal Databases

I use the 4 sites below to check for copyright renewals for US books published in 1930-1963:

• NY Public Library US Copyright Search
• Stanford Copyright Renewals
• Google’s Scans of the Catalog of Copyright Entries  The Search box is mid-way down the page.
• US Copyright Office Public Record System — Pilot only contains renewals in 1978 and later, so it wouldn’t have renewals for books published prior to 1950.

If you don’t find a renewal on one site, look on the next one.

Be aware of these 4 caveats:

1. You must do your due diligence and research the copyright status for books you find on HathiTrust or anywhere else. Just because they believe the book is PD doesn’t mean it is.
2. The text may be in the public domain, but the translation may still be copyrighted.
3. A renewal could be listed with other works, so that’s why we need to look at multiple sources. Search by author name and title to cover the bases.
4. When the core text is PD, anyone may add new material, organization, or art and copyright the new work. You have to be sure you’re reading from the PD version.
   • The 1st edition of a book could be public domain while a later edition is copyrighted. You may discover that the copyright on a book wasn’t renewed but see a copyright on a later edition. The new copyright only applies to NEW material! It does NOT apply to the original text.
   • The copyright listing will say “NM” and indicate what the new material is, like text, resequenced chapters, intro, etc.
   • You would need ensure that you narrate the original 1st edition that wasn’t renewed as you wouldn’t know the specific changes made to later editions.

Renewal registration numbers start with an R. For example, you can see in the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database that Gone With the Wind has 2 renewal numbers. You may see other numbers associated with the copyright, but if they don’t start with an R, they aren’t a renewal.

If you don’t find a renewal for US books published in the time frame, your book is public domain. Keep going!

 

2 – Plan the distribution of your audiobook. Two distributors require that you first claim an Amazon edition. If you are using them, decide how to claim the Amazon edition before you go further.

If you can’t distribute the finished audiobook, there’s no point in spending the time and money to create it.

Choose Distributor(s)

I’ve created an Audiobook Distributor’s Comparison Chart for members of NarratorsRoadmap.com to aid in that important decision. Members can also watch my webinar under Video Courses titled Public Domain Audiobooks and Self-Publishing in which I show all the steps for distributing your audiobook through ACX.

Amazon Edition

I wrote about the Amazon edition requirement here. If you decide to use ACX or Findaway Voices as your distributor, you will need to start the process with an Amazon edition.

You have 3 options for claiming an Amazon edition:

1. Create your own.
   • If you’re writing the book, you would definitely take this option. If you’re reading a book that someone else wrote, you have to differentiate your edition from others of the same public domain book. I detailed my experience in this article.
   • I don’t create my own editions any more and don’t recommend it to other people.
   • One person who had a background in copyediting wanted to learn how to format their Kindle book. If you also want to learn how to format your ebook, Adobe InDesign is the software used by Big 5 publishers to design and layout their text. You can learn InDesign through LinkedIn Learning, which you may be able to access for free through your library. Otherwise, Udemy.com seems to be a good source for paid courses.
2. Ask an existing Amazon rights holder to pair your audiobook with their edition.
   • This answer on my Public Domain Headquarters Page explains how to find an Amazon RH. You can follow my email template to submit your request to the rights holder.
3. If you’re a NarratorsRoadmap.com member, I have a partnership with a person who creates Kindle books and may be willing to create one that you could claim. To submit your request, let me know the following info by email before you start production. I’ll coordinate with my colleague and let you know the answer.
   • Title Name
   • Link to text
   • Sites searched for copyright renewals to determine public domain status
   • Availability of any existing Amazon Kindle edition

3 – Obtain or create a PDF to use as your recording script.

Modern authors and publishers can create a PDF of their text with a few clicks. Books in the public domain preceded the advent of personal computers and software. We need to either locate a PDF someone else created or construct our own.

Google “Book Name in Quotes” PDF to search for a PDF of your book. You may be able to download a PDF on sites like Archive.org, Gutenberg.org, and HathiTrust.org.

If you’re a member of NarratorsRoadmap.com who can’t login with a member account to HathiTrust, send me a request as explained here. I will download your book for you!

If you can’t find a PDF of the book that you want to do, you’ll need to create your own using one of these 2 methods to scan the book:

1. Use a machine.
   • I’ve bought print books on Amazon and eBay, disassembled them from the binding, and scanned them in an Epson ES-500W scanner. I love the speed of this machine!
   • You can also use a flatbed scanner or a specialized book scanner like a CZUR Book Scanner. I have one but haven’t used it enough to offer comment about it.
2. Use a scanning app.
   • An app is an excellent choice if you don’t want to or can’t disassemble the book. Many people have reported ease of use and good results with the CamScanner app.

PDF Optimization

Once you have a PDF, you will want the text to be editable with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) so that you’ll be able to mark it up during your prep process (step 6 below). I also suggest you compress the file size of the PDF to make it easier to work with.

I use the full version of Adobe Acrobat to perform these actions. I pay yearly for Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite because I use a number of Adobe applications, including InDesign mentioned above in the discussion about an Amazon edition. However, you can choose to get Acrobat as a stand-alone application.

I open the PDF in Acrobat and do the following things:

1. Show All Tools if it’s not already visible. You’ll need to go back to this panel at the completion of each task below.
2. Click Organize Pages — Hover over any page, and you’ll see a sub-menu that lets you change the page orientation or delete it. I delete any pages that I don’t need for my narration: blank, index, pictures, cover scan, etc.
3. Click Scan & OCR / Choose sub-menu Recognize Text and the option In This File. Accept the defaults and click Recognize Text.
4. Click Organize Pages — Sometimes the OCR process will turn some pages from portrait to landscape orientation. I set them back to portrait orientation.
5. From the Adobe top-line menu in the top left corner of your monitor above the Acrobat program window, choose the option File / Compress a PDF. Click OK to the Reduce File Size dialogue box. In the next dialogue box, enter the new file name and select the directory where you to save your file.

Use the optimized file as you complete your project.

 

4 – Plan post-production for your audiobook with professionals who will edit, proof, and master your files.

Before I prep and record the book, I want to know who will be doing post-production on it. If at all possible, I recommend that you outsource the post-production tasks. If you make a mistake while narrating the book, you’re less likely to find it if you edit your recordings. The more eyes and ears you can put on your project, the better the finished audiobook will be!

You can search my directories of Editors and Proofers. Some editors perform all the services. Contact the people who meet your requirements, including budget, about scheduling your project.

 

5 – Start planning your cover art. You may be able to use the original cover. You also might hire a pro cover artist.

Check out my section about Cover Art on my Public Domain Narration Headquarters page for some info and options.

If you want to hire a cover artist, you can ask other narrators and authors for referrals. My referral is here.

 

6 – Prep your script for recording as you would any other audiobook. You also have the option to revise the text!

My article How to prep a book for recording is loaded with info and resource links to help you analyze the book, do necessary research, and make acting choices before you start recording the audiobook to fulfill the author’s intention.

Text Changes

When working on a copyrighted book from a publisher, production company, or author, narrators have no liberty to change the text. We must read the text word-for-word, with obvious typos being the exception.

However, when self-publishing a public domain book, we can change the text in any way that we want!

Since it’s public domain, the copyright has expired, meaning the text doesn’t belong to anyone. We can add, change, transpose, and remove words. We can rearrange and remove sentences. We can take out whole pages and add others. We can change character names and genders. We’re only limited by our creativity!

I decide textual changes on a book-by-book basis. Listed below are examples of changes I’ve made:

• I’ve updated some words to reflect more current usage.
• In non-fiction texts, I routinely do the research to learn and restore real women’s first names to them when they are referred to as Mrs. HusbandName. These women deserve to have and be known by their own identities and accomplishments separate from their husband. For example, if the text says “Mrs. Drew Commins”, I would change it to read “Karen Commins”.
• In one case, I surgically removed a couple of descriptive sentences from a fictional story. The author inserted her opinion demeaning certain women. I didn’t share her opinion and refused to speak those hateful words. The story flowed perfectly well without them.

If you’re distributing through ACX, remember that the audiobook still needs to be a 97% match to the text to pass QC. This means that in a 100,000-word book, you could change 3,000 words and still pass QC.

Racist Language

Narrators often ask about changing texts that contain racist language. You certainly have that option.

You may also choose to leave the offensive language in place. These 2 articles offer perspective you may find useful:

• Rebecca Lee wrote the article Modifying Text in Old Books is Form of Book-Banning. 
• PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel Criticizes Changes to Roald Dahl Novels

If you do leave the original racist language intact, include a disclaimer in your description. Here are 3 examples of disclaimers I’ve collected that you can use for reference when writing your own:

• Dreamscape Audio (Men Without Women audiobook)
• HBO Max (Gone With the Wind movie)
• Warner Brothers (cartoons)

 

7 – Narrate and record your book. Send your files to your post team and work with them to do pickups and complete the process.

At this point, your self-produced project is just like any audiobook you’ve performed for a publisher. You’ll schedule time to narrate the book. If this is your first audiobook, you’ll want to follow industry best practices.

 

8 – Transmit the finished files to your distributor(s) per their instructions. Your distributor may do QC before releasing the audiobook to retail.

This step is self-explanatory. The project’s end is in sight!

 

9 – Publicize your new release. Collect ALL the royalties forever! Start the process again with another book. 😃

Congratulations! YOU MADE IT!

My Audiobook Marketing Cheat Sheet contains a treasure trove of tips and tactics to market and publicize your audiobook. For instance, I always advise people to create a Promotions Calendar to give yourself dates and reasons to promote your audiobook long past the release day.

 

Like anything else, the more you do something, the easier it becomes.

What are your thoughts? Please leave me a comment below!