You can submit it, but you can't "just" submit it.
We wish we could give a permanent home to all the etexts that people have produced and placed on the Net, but without proof of their public domain [C.10] status, we can't.
We need to be able to prove that the eBooks we publish are in the public domain, so, in order to use one of the many texts that are just floating around the Net, you need to find a matching paper edition that we can prove is eligible [V.18].
(By the way, please be sure that it isn't already in the PG archive. A lot of texts circulating on the Net originated at PG, and people quite often submit them back to us.)
Before you get into this, you should check whether the text you have found is likely to be in the public domain in the U.S. A quick way to verify this is to hit the Library of Congress Catalog site at <http://catalog.loc.gov> and search for the title or author. If you find no publications before 1923, then you should probably move on; the Library of Congress doesn't list every book, and in particular doesn't list all books published outside the U.S., but, if there isn't a pre-1923 copy there, it may be difficult to follow up on. If you're not dissuaded, do a search on the Net for used book shops that might have pre-1923 copies.
Sometimes, with a text on the Net, you know who typed it; it's on someone's website, or the transcriber is named in the text. Sometimes, the text has just been floating around Usenet or old gopher sites for years, with no attribution.
The first thing to remember is that we would like to give credit to the original transcriber if they want it, and if we can identify them.
The next thing to consider is that the original transcriber may well have an eligible copy of the book, and may be able to provide TP&V [V.25] for it.
So, if you can locate the original transcriber, it makes sense to e-mail them, explain what you propose to do, and ask them whether they can help with copyright clearance and whether they would like to be credited in the PG edition. Often, you will get no response, or a response but no prospect of material that will help with clearance, but sometimes you will get lucky.
If the transcriber can't help with TP&V, it's up to you to find a matching paper edition of the same book. This may not be as hard as it sounds. Libraries can help, and may get editions for you on interlibrary loan.
This is an ideal way for students, academics and librarians to contribute texts to PG, since you probably have access to a good library with stocks of old books to find matching paper editions.
If you find a matching paper edition, you then need to compare the etext you found with the book. Legally, what we're trying to prove here is that we have done "due diligence"--that we have done our best to prove that the etext is indeed a copy of a public domain work.
The minimum "due diligence" we can perform is to compare the first and last pages of each chapter, (or every 20 pages where the book is not neatly divided into chapters of about that size). You should list all of the differences between the book and the etext that you find on those pages. It is to be expected that there will be some minor differences of punctuation, spacing and spelling, and even perhaps of wording. Minor differences are OK, but we do need to list them, to prove that we did the comparison. When you have your lists, you can send in the TP&V as normal, accompanied by your lists, for clearance.
Many texts floating round without attribution, and indeed many with attribution, could do with a thorough checking, and another option you have is "comparative retyping", where you go through the whole etext, proofing it carefully against the cleared paper book, and changing everything that is different in the etext to match the paper edition. If you do this, you don't need to produce a list of differences, since there won't be any by the time you've finished; you can just submit it as a normal text--and it may well be a lot cleaner! However, if you do take this path, please do a very thorough job on the proofing and comparison.
If the etext you find has been marked up, in HTML for example, you should remove all HTML for the PG edition, because, even though the text itself has been proved to be in the public domain, the original transcribers may hold copyright on the HTML markup, even if you can't find them. If you do want to make a HTML edition of it for PG, strip out all of the original markup and then re-add your own markup.
If you do find the producer and he or she wants to be identified, you may submit a double credits line like:
Transcribed by Sally Wright <theoriginaltranscriber@example.com>
Produced for PG by You <you@example.com>