You now have (I know you have a ton because we all love to hoard our public domain treasures) – files and files and more files of public domain “stuff” downloaded onto your hard drive.
I covered “niche research” already… so you should have files on your computer with everything you might want to include in your product.
Remember – located in these files can be .pdf, word docs, magazine articles, stuff from gov. websites, stuff you scanned yourself, images, maps, video, audio – anything! As long as it “might” be related to your niche subject. You did research and found everything you could and “dumped it” into a file folder on your computer.
I have One File On My Desktop – I named it Public Domain (super inventive I know).
Inside that file – I have two main files so far:
I have a “jillion” files inside those two files (it seems that way) -
I am organizing (creating sub-folders) as I go:
For instance – a file for Garden>Orchid – (giving away a niche idea is not always a great idea for my personal business… 
)
As I find more “stuff” I can segment content as I want… but for now I’m just trying to get related content into a file that “means” something to me.
I don’t spend time looking at the content I’m downloading (much). If I open up the PDF and it looks clean and not a huge mess – I download it. I’m downloading anything I think “might” be related.
I also have a .txt document in most of my files for notes, links, keywords etc.
Today I went on the hunt for lost public domain “stuff”. I’ve been downloading public domain content for at least 6 years now. I have it saved in a variety of places and can’t remember where it all is.
All of it “should” be located on my Amazon S3 Account:
Somewhere in those backups should be everything I’ve ever downloaded.
I am going to spend some time gathering all of it into related files on the computer I’m currently using. (Then I will upload it all again to Amazon S3 just to be safe).
Again – just because I want to be very clear – I am not proofreading or editing this content in any way. I’ll do that later.
I want to spend my time getting organized first!
What If I Find Public Domain Content That Would Be A Great Addition To Several Files?
This is a conundrum of sorts.
- Should I download the same content and store it in each different “file” it might be related to?
- Should I notate it on my .txt document?
- Should I download it once and put it into a “general” file?
Geeesh… it’s a bit confusing to make a decision unless we stop the flow of research.
When I download and save a file – I’ve been creating links that will help me when I “search” on my own computer.
For instance – I downloaded a book that has a title that isn’t really descriptive of the content.
Principles of Decorative Design
From that title can you “really” tell what “niche topic” I should file this content?
This book is for Home “Goods” (products for the home) Designers.
So the downloaded content has been named – “Principles of Decorative Design – Home Goods Design – Dresser – 1870 - AO”
Title – My Own Keywords – Author – Date – AO=Archive.org
How does this help?
I downloaded this book and filed it into the “most” relevant file I already have.
Now – when I am searching for “Home” or “Design” public domain content on my computer – This one should pop up right away. I might want to include it in several different niche topic products and I don’t need to save it right now in a bunch of different files.
We don’t want to use anymore hard-drive space than is necessary… right?
Do You Have Better Or More Productive Ideas?
Please – share your organizing ideas below in the comments… I’d love to know how you are storing (and able to easily find) your public domain content.
p.s. Next up – Documentation or “Keeping Good Records”. It’s not an option!
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Debra,
I am much lazier than you!!!
I just have a few folders called PDTH, PLR, Boxing, Dogs etc.. and store them all on an external 1T(erabyte) drive. I use Windows 7 and the search function is excellent if you know how to use it properly, so I just type in part of the word I am looking for and all relevant files are listed. Rather than be super organised I actually like this method because items I had completely forgotten about come up in surprising ways and I start remembering ideas I had for them.
Someday I will sit down and organise things better though. Some day….
Agreed with the post above. I’m still running XP and there’s a search function for all files available by hitting “start”. Usually art the bottom of the far right column in the window that pops up.
The “find on page” search available different places in the browser (name and location of this vary browser to browser…usually under “edit” or “page”) is a jewel too.
Other than that I organize pretty much as you suggest here.
Hi Debra,
What PDF editor do you recommend for doing edits in scanned books i.e. cropping, deleting pages etc.
Cheers
Paulus
I use 2 flash drives, one labeled PLR, and one labeled Reseller PLR.
The PLR one is just that, plr that cannot be resold as plr just used on my own products or websites.
The Reseller PLR flashdrive has plr on it that I bought that can also be resold as plr, but that is also where I keep my Public Domain “stuff”.
I have different folders for different subjects, for example, a folder for dogs, a folder for gardening, one for fishing and so on.
If the Public Domain book doesn’t fall into a folder category, I just leave it out of a folder until I figure out where I want to put it.
This system works for me, plus with working on 2 different desktops and a laptop, depending on where I’m at, I can carry my projects with me where ever I go.
Besides my desktops are dinosaurs, 2003 vintage, so if they crash and burn I won’t lose all my work.
I use a 3 flash drive for my own ebooks that I am currently working on, aptly titled, My Ebooks.
LOL
Mary´s last [type] ..Jules’ Baker’s Dozen eBook Gluten-Free Freebie
Dave L – I agree that Windows 7 does help us find the “missing pieces”.
When you are ready to create a product you do need all the content for that specific product in one file… it seems as if organizing would
make the process of creating a product much easier in the end.
8)
Mary… so smart to have all of your stuff organized on flash drives – and different flash drives labeled is brilliant.
I know you need to have your work very mobile so this makes perfect sense.
I also have the same method for public domain that doesn’t fall into a “niche” yet – but I know it’s going to fit somewhere later. I have this long
list of “loose ends” under all my folders. Now it’s starting to bother me… I’ve got to make a folder for each one so I don’t have the “anxiety”
of feeling unorganized. (or that I might miss something).
8)
Paulus – I will be writing an extensive article about editing PDF’s soon. I am testing a product that is much cheaper than Adobe. Stay tuned.
8)
Dave B – What is “find on page” in browser? You have me curious. Do you mean in Firefox or IE?
8)
Hi Debra,
I recently purchased Steve Poke’s amazing product and following his recommendations I am using initially the free version of nitro pdf editor. Even to a relative layman like me it is proving easy to use and does a great job.
Dave.
Dave Robus´s last [type] ..Insects can be a Real Pest
I tend to flit from one computer to another so I decided to use cloud hosting for my PD downloads. I use Google’s free services. Google docs for my PDFs etc, Picassa for images and Tube for videos. Works for me.
That way they are available to me whenever I need them.
One thing I’ve learned (the hard way) is to keep a small file where I include my original source for the PD material (website, catalogue, database, whatever) and if possible a short (not more than a sentence) of WHY I know/believe it to be in the Public Domain.
Accusations/misunderstandings can usually be pretty quickly sorted out with people (like Zazzle, for instance) if you can quickly and concisely give them a reason to be on your side:)
Magpie´s last [type] ..Black Cat Notebook