The Russell Brunson Show - How To Leverage the Public Domain (Like Walt Disney)

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

I've written 3 books, but I don't consider myself an author - I consider myself a curator. Public Domain is the best-kept secret to collecting the best of the past and using it to leverage your current offerings similarly to what Walt Disney did once upon a time. Hear my process for curating the books, topics and ideas that I can present an offer that leverages the public domain! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing Secrets of Success Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Companion. Iris and Josh seem like the perfect match, but when a weekend getaway turns into a nightmare, Iris realizes that things aren't as perfect as they appear. From the creators of Barbarian, and the studio that brought you The Notebook, comes a twisted tale of modern romance and the sweet satisfaction of revenge.

Companion, only in theaters January 31st. Welcome to the Marketing Seekers Podcast. My name is Russell Brunson, and I'm what you call a serial entrepreneur, but with a twist. You see, 50% of my time, I'm the CEO of ClickFunnels, helping over 100,000 brands to grow their companies with funnels. And the other 50% of my time, I'm actually in the trenches using ClickFunnels to grow the startups I believe in. During this podcast, I'll take you behind the scenes and show you how we're bootstrapping ClickFunnels and my other businesses from startup to nine figures and beyond. Welcome to the show. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast.

I got a treat for you guys today. You may or may not know about this concept called the public domain. This is things whose copyright is expired and you can take these things and you can sell them you can republish them you can do a bunch of really cool things with it happens to be the way that walt disney made all his money and it happens to be a way i'm making a lot of my money right now with secrets of success a lot of things i'm republishing and stuff like that so uh about a year and a half ago i did a meeting with with my inner circle and i just showed them all my first edition books and stuff and then i spent 15 minutes kind of going over explaining how public domain worked and what they

could do with it and i've never published this anywhere i showed it anywhere so um i was trying to find a cool episode to share with you guys this week i thought this would be a fun one so uh here you can learn the secrets of public domain how it works why you should care and how you can find some really cool things you could republish for your market hope you enjoy it and we'll talk to you soon. My game plans, I'm going to talk about, I love about public domain. I printed out a two page thing that you guys all should have on your desk

and it's stapled. So this is kind of the legal side of the public domain, which is kind of cool. Then I'm going to walk you through kind of my vision what I'm trying to do with the library and the statues and all this stuff. This is the actual like print architecture plans for the library that'll be built on the land next door.

And then we'll walk over to, uh, it's like two buildings down and walk us through the, the makeshift library where we're storing the books until I have a big library to put them in. And then we'll come back here. And then these are all my first edition Book of Mormons and all stuff. So you guys want to see them. I'll probably go through and probably take 30 minutes or so for me to kind of go through them. Do you want to see them cool? If not bail either way, but these are so cool too, I think, but I'm a book nerd, so they're fun. Okay. Uh, is anyone here familiar with the public domain is okay. A few of you guys. So the basic gist is the copyright laws have changed throughout time. And so any book or any work, so not just book, any work that was published before 1923 in the United States is automatically in the public domain.

It means the copyright is expired. That means you can get those books and you can do whatever you want with them. That's how Disney made all their stories, like Aladdin and Princess – or not Princess Bride. Aladdin, Snow White, like all the old Disney movies, yeah, are all basically public domain books. They fell in the public domain. Walt Disney took them, turned them into – made a derivative work. And then the derivative work that you make is copyrightable. It's like Frozen is copyrightable.

Tangled is copyrighted. But the original story still came from the public domain. And so the majority – not majority, but a lot of their movies and stuff are. And so that's kind of cool. Now, anything published between 1923, 1963, um, if the copyright wasn't renewed, I think it's, uh, if the copyright wasn't renewed 28 years after it was published, then it automatically falls into the public domain. So it's like, it's estimated only 7% of works between 1920 through 1963 were ever re copyrighted. If not, so it's like 93% of

things published in that time fell into the public domain. And then after that, it gets all fuzzy. So for me, for the most part, anything pre-1923 is when I get really, really excited. Okay. So just kind of real quick, like my vision, what I'm trying to create with all this stuff, because yes, I'm going to build a library. Yes, we're gonna build big statues in the library over here. But like the goal and the plan is for this to be a super profitable income center. It's not going to be just me collecting old books. Like I want to do it for worth the reason. How many of you guys follow Ryan Holiday?

So Ryan Holiday wrote a bunch of marketing books, as you know, and then he got into the stoic era and he became obsessed with stoicism. And so then the next set of books he wrote have all been on the stoic era. That's the window in time that he was obsessed um with the the the writers and the people back then right so all the people he studied were like seneca and marcus aurelius and like all of the stoic philosophers and so he's taken all their works which are definitely the public domain that's like i don't know two or three hundred years after after christ or somewhere in that windows when when the stoic era was and he took all his books and he's rewritten uh eagles

the enemy the obstacles away um still this is the key those are all based on so principles and he took all his books and he's rewritten, uh, Eagles, the enemy, the obstacles away. Um, still, this is the key. Those are all based on so principles. And he wrote the daily stoic. And then he's done a whole bunch of other stoic books and projects and everything. He has no Instagram channel, uh, related to Stoicism. It's got a couple million followers. And like, he's just gone really, really deep on that era and that timeline. And so for me, the, the era that I'm obsessed with is from about 1850 to 1950. Um, that is an era that's, it's known as the new thought movement. And it's when people started like thinking for themselves and they started doing the same. And the very first person that was kind of the, the new thought leader, the very first one was a guy named Samuel smiles, uh, who was in England. And he did a

little event like this for some youth and told them that they could think and become better at life. And the people like, this is amazing. And so he wrote the very first ever personal development book called self-help by Samuel smiles. Um, and there's a ton of copies on my eBay for like 20 bucks. First edition is like 1850. Like it's amazing. Um, so you'll notice that when you go, there's a Samuel smile section, like every Samuel smiles book I found is, is in there. Right. And then Samuel smiles again, that was like 1850 ish. Um, in the early, like late 1800s, like 18, uh, like 1890s or something, some guy here in America found the Samuel Smiles book and he reads it. Uh, and he's like, this is amazing. And so he,

his name is Orson Sweet Martin and he got all excited and, um, he started a little magazine called success magazine and he was the founder of success magazine. Uh, he then wrote a book. Uh, I think it was four or 500 page book. He had written, he had the manuscript, he owned these hotels and stuff. And it was, the manuscript was in a hotel. And then one day the hotel burned to the ground and his manuscript was gone. Can you imagine Rachel, what that would feel like right now? Yeah. And so he literally was like standing in the ashes hotel, his things gone. So he walks to the bookstore, grabs a pad of paper and starts rewriting as fast as he can, uh, writes as much as he can remember and publishes his first book called pushing to the front, uh, which is his first book, uh, on personal development. And then he ended up writing like 50 or 60 books after that.

Um, and then published success magazine. And so over there, you'll see the whole section of Orson Sweet Martin, all of his books that I've been able to find. Plus I have a whole bunch of first edition success magazines, including the very first issue ever is over there, which is insanely cool. And I've got about a dozen that were published in the 1800s and then a whole bunch from the 1900s and beyond. Um, and then inside of Orson Sweet-Martin, that's where these other guys start popping up like Napoleon Hill and Charles Hanel and all these other people who've written all the books that most of you guys are probably more familiar with. Napoleon Hill's got all his stuff. Charles Handel wrote the Master Key Systems.

Anyway, so when you go over there, you'll see we have a Napoleon Hill room. We've got a personal development room. And then I've also been finding all the old business classics from all the big business people from back in the day. So there's also a business room. And right now it's in the middle of chaos. We haven't taken anyone over there yet, so don't judge the thing. The Napoleon Hill room setup, all the rest are kind of like chaotic. But I'll show you guys kind of some of the core things that are cool.

We also have a big scanner in one of the rooms. So I'm taking these books. We have a scanner to scan them all into PDFs and turn them into OCR, into Word docs so we can republish them and things. What's that? So we can all turn them into NFTs. Yes. Don't worry, Andy.

It's in works. So that's kind of the them things. What's that? So we can all sermon NFTs. Yes. Don't worry, Andy. It's in the, it's in words. Um, so that's kind of the core things. Um, any questions about that at all? I think we're not going to be able to believe what you see. Yeah. Have you always had this obsession? No. And it is an obsession. I tell you guys what's called, hold on. Let me tell you the definition. This is the legit thing. I tell you guys what it's called. Hold on. Let me tell you the definition. This is a legit thing. Um, there's a term for this. I found it. Um, it's, uh, okay, here's this call. It's called the bibliomania. It says bibliomania can be a symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder, which involves the collecting or even hoarding of books to the point where social relations or health are damaged. So that's about where we're at. No, so this is how I got into it.

So again, in the – yeah. So the very first old book I bought – so in the Mormon world, the Book of Mormon is our ancient scripture. And the first printing, there were 5,000 printed, but there's only about 350 of them on the planet. And so my whole life, I thought it'd be cool someday if I could ever afford to get one. So one day I was depressed and I found one on eBay. And so I bought it. So this is the very first, first edition Book of Mormon I bought.

And that was the first time I ever got into it. And then a few years later, I met this guy who then sold in all these ones. And so I bought all these. And that's when I had the idea for like, oh, I need a place to like, like right now they're sitting in a safe. This is stupid.

Why are they in a safe? Like I can't show them to people. I was like, I need a library to like, like right now they're sitting in a safe. This is stupid. Why are they in a safe? Like I can't show them to people. I was like, I need a library and we bought this land. I'm like, we should put a library. I could put them in there and put them under glass and it'll be this cool thing.

And I was like, we can have a religion section, but I'm like, what other things am I passionate about? I'm like, one passionate about personal development. Like I should have a section of personal development and then one on business and then one on stoicism,

all the like health and fitness, like all the things I'm passionate about. And I was like, well, I had these really cool first editions that would be cool to have under glass in those sections. But like, what about the personal development section? I'm like, what do I put there? And so, um, I started, that's what I started eBay looking for first edition book, uh, personal

development stuff. And you guys will see it today. I think some of you guys saw it last time, but the, the first edition of point Hill, uh, laws of success was, was on there for $1.5 million. I was like, Oh, that would be the piece that would be in the personal development section. And then, uh, when I got to know the guy who owned that, that's when I flew out to his place and I bought his whole 20 years of collecting. And then, um, that's start, that's where, and then, and then it was a slippery slope. And I was telling Rachel, like I was reading, like I read

Napoleon magazine. I'm sure reading, I'm like one page into it. And he's like, he's like, I met a millionaire today. And the millionaire told me to read this book called the goldfish. I'm sure reading, I'm like one page into it. And he's like, he's like, I met a millionaire today. And the millionaire told me to read this book called the goldfish. I'm like, what? So I'm like, are you being like the goldfish? I found the book. And then I see the author's name. I'm like, did he write any other books? I type that in and I find all the other books. I buy all his books there. And like within 15 minutes, I'm reading like three verses into our three, um, paragraphs in the magazine. I bought another like 22 books and that's like how it keeps growing. So, um, anyway, but it's been so much fun. And so's like how it keeps growing so um anyway but it's been so much fun and so it's it keeps growing and like i said uh there's 31 boxes from joe vitality's library being

dropped off here tomorrow but it's from that same era of like when they're learning about personal development and business and and sales and hypnosis and mindset like all the like all the things around that like it was like this time where everyone's minds were just popping up and new ideas are being created. And it's like the most fascinating time in the world. And you'll see like these guys are doing direct mail. Like we have a whole bunch of the first ads and things like that. It's just fascinating to me.

So that's kind of what it is. And yeah. Yeah. So you got an income model? Yeah. So a couple of things. Number one is NFTs. We're a bunch of NFTs.

My goal is to do an NFT launch that will pay for all the costs for the library and the statues and all that kind of stuff. Hopefully it's summer, maybe a little later on this year. But on top of that, like I said, some of the first edition stuff, we're printing them and we're scanning them and stuff like that because we'll be republishing them. My next book is a success book. And so, um, I'm creating a MIFGI offer for the success market, which is gonna have a whole bunch of Napoleon Hill stuff that, um, even the Napoleon Hill foundation doesn't have. So we'll be bringing people in the continuity through that. Um, there's a whole bunch of different ways we'll be doing it, but, um, all my favorite authors, there's, um, one of my, I feel like one of my callings is,

I had this conversation with somebody. Oh, I was talking to Rachel Hollis last night about this. Like, I don't, I've never really considered myself an author. Like that, that word never like, I don't know. I wouldn't say I'm an author. But I think I'm more of a curator. It's like, if you look at all my books, they're curation, right? I spent a decade trying to figure out marketing and I curated all the best things and put them in order and then doodled them. And I was like, this is my understanding of this topic and this topic and this topic and so I'm kind of same way like I have like Charles Handel who I love he's got you know a dozen books he

wrote nobody knows about anymore I want to go through all those books and then curate and like have one book that's like this is like this is Charles Handel like this is this this is the master key system like you guys and you know and like Napoleon Hill like here's all the stuff no one else is going to geek out and read all of this stuff but it's I can curate, this is the thing, the essence of what he had. Or Orson Sweet-Martin, there's so many amazing things. But no one besides me is going to go buy eight of his books. But I can go through all that and curate it and be like, this is the thing. And all the books have cool stories and cool VSLs.

And anyway, it's going to be fun. So that's kind of the game plan. Because most of the stuff that we're collecting all is in the public domain. So we can republish the majority of the things, which is cool. So anyway, I'm trying to create a lot of fun front ends that aren't like my face. So if I can leverage this huge brand and this huge movement and bring people from that into our world, it just gets really fun.