In the new video course, InDesign CC Book Production, Putting the book together, one of the books actually produced is a Class Project MacDonald’s Light Princess. The Light Princess is a delightful, whimsical fairy tale by one of the major influences of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald. The cover is simply a book designer’s bit of humor.

I thought you might like to have a copy to read. By clicking on the cover or the link in the previous paragraph, you can get to a version published online [using the Publish Online feature of InDesign CC]. You can download a PDF from there.

If you want an ePUB version, let me know and I’ll email you a copy [and, no, I won’t add you to some email list]. It’s just a fun story.

The Class Project MacDonald’s Light Princess can’t be published because it is not differentiated

Amazon gives away many of these classics free. So, they will not allow us to publish our own takes on them—even though they are clearly public domain—unless we make them our own. They have a clear definition of what they consider differentiated.

One or more of the following criteria must be met:

• (Translated) — A unique translation
• (Annotated) — Contains annotations (unique, hand-crafted additional content including study guides, literary critiques, detailed biographies, or detailed historical context)
• (Illustrated) — Includes 10 or more unique illustrations relevant to the book

However, we can certainly offer it ourselves—which is what I am doing here. I hope you like it. I did.

It is good to know what you need to do to offer public domain work by making it your own

I know there are several I’d like to work over to make them more digestible to 21st century readers. Pieces like The Light Princess also make good copy to use for demos and group projects.

But I’m serious about you reading the book. It’s fun!