What experienced author has not asked, “Where should I publish my public domain book?” Any author who has had any experience with KDP and Amazon republishing public domain books knows what a frustrating nightmare it is to get a classic public domain book republished with commentary and illustrations. Why? What is going on with KDP? Let me save you a lot of bad experiences and a wheelbarrow load of frustrations.

The Nightmare List of KDP Problems with Public Domain Books

I’ll give the problems to you in a simple numbered list to make this easy for you:

• Get ready for more rejections than you got trying to get a date as a teenager.
• Be prepared for boilerplate emails from KDP telling you how bad you’ve been and that your book does not comply with their terms, but nowhere in that email does it tell you what you did wrong. Feels kind of like being married to that dysfunctional spouse all over again.
• Read the KDP terms on public domain works, but be sure you drink a dark beer with at least 7% alcohol, even if you don’t drink. When you get done reading, you won’t know what you read with or without the beer.
• Do not include your name in KDP as a contributor even when you put the original author’s name as the author. Do not let your name show up anywhere on the front cover. Do not include any section showing your other books. Be careful how you tread because you might do something that someone at KDP might find objectionable (wherever they are located, which is believed to be the dark side of the moon).
• Do not copyright your public domain book because it cannot be copyrighted, even if you added 10,000 pages of commentary, analysis, and illustrations.
• If you persevere and finally get your public domain book published as a Kindle and Paperback book on Amazon, do not expect both of your books to be linked to each other. No, no, no. KDP tells us they cannot control the links on public domain books. So your beautiful Kindle version of a book you worked very hard to republish with a couple of hundred additional pages of commentary after lots of research and editing will probably link to some other jokers paperback version of that same titled public domain book.
• You know what this means? It also means that if anyone finds your paperback version of this public domain book, the Kindle or hardcover links will link to your versions of that same public domain book, but someone else’s. It is so bizarre! You can argue with KDP reps about this, and they just keep repeating the mantra, “We don’t control the links. Those are done automatically by the software according to the title of the book. We cannot unlink them.” This is, of course, absolute nonsense and nothing more than KDP/Amazon trying to discourage every author from republishing public domain works. It’s insane.
• Be prepared to earn only 35% as a royalty. I know. Amazon takes 65% after they’ve thoroughly abused you and threatened to terminate your account.

What About Draft2Digital, IngramSpark, Barnes & Noble, Findaway Voices and Other Aggregators?

Draft2Digital does not accept public domain books. IngramSpark accepts them under a very complicated set of rules, and you have to own your own ISBN. Barnes & Noble has its rules for what is and is not acceptable with public domain books, as do the other distributors. In summary, KDP is a nightmare for distributing public domain books, but the other distributors are nightmares with different scary parts.

What is The Solution To Your Public Domain Books?

You’ll not believe how simple and wonderful all of these problems are solved for you at BooksOnline.Club. Are you ready? Here we go.

BooksOnline.Club lets you publish any public domain book you want to in any form you want and with or without added material, and it will be linked to your other books whether they are hosted at BooksOnline.Club or anywhere else. You can include your name on the front cover after crediting the original author. You also get 60% (30% base royalty plus 30% affiliate fee) for your public domain books, no matter how you price them. 

Notice in my public domain book images to the right that my name is included with “Commentary by Chuck Marunde, J.D.” You cannot do that at Amazon or with any other distributor! And why not? It’s all in-house nonsensical rules to control their profit. It’s perfectly legal to include your name after acknowledging the original author, and you should. You can still buy the paperback on Amazon, and it is the same, except it doesn’t have my name as a contributor on the cover.

Well, that pretty much ends publishing public domain books on Amazon, doesn’t it? Any other questions we can solve for you here at BooksOnline.Club?