Folks often walk into Singularity&Co. bookstore in Brooklyn armed with vague descriptions of bizarre characters and creatures they remember from rare pulp novels or science fiction books.

Ash Kalb, above, and his wife Cici James own Singularity&Co. bookstore in Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood. Andrew Spear for The Wall Street Journal

Some obscure requests are already out of print, lost forever to time. But others are tracked down by the husband-and-wife owners of the Brooklyn bookstore. During the past year, the couple has rescued 15 of these rare books by scanning and converting them into e-books, with more forthcoming.

Ash Kalb, 36 years old, and Cici James, 30, longtime sci-fi fans with no backgrounds in publishing, opened the brick-and-mortar store in August 2012 following a Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $60,000.

They sell physical books in addition to jewelry, T-shirts and souvenirs at their shop in the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn, situated near the base of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

Cover of the e-book edition of a classic sci-fi book that was rescued by Singularity&Co. Reversity Media

Their initial goal was to create a community for fans of the genre, from old-timers who miss the days of cheap dime-store paperbacks to young men in expensive eyewear who work at nearby tech companies.

But Mr. Kalb, an attorney, and Ms. James, a former model with a master's degree in anthropology, soon turned their attention to rescuing titles such as "A Plunge Into Space" and "Doomsday Morning" by raising funds through

"We also wanted to get back into the niche of the work," explained Ms. James, "and help people get their work out when they couldn't."

The process of republishing works isn't simple—and Mr. Kalb's legal training has come in handy. Because it is illegal to scan a book that isn't in the public domain and sell it as an e-book without the author's permission, the couple attempts to track down original authors or their close family members. They split the profits from the e-books with either the authors or their next of kin. Other projects, such as, use similar technology but focus on works that are now in the public domain.

Payne Harrison, a 64-year-old Dallas-based novelist who published five "techno-thrillers" between 1989 and 2010, worked with the couple on releasing his books as e-books. Once all five went out of print, Mr. Harrison was able to exercise a reversion clause in his contract, he said, which gave him back his publishing rights. He was already considering converting his novels into e-books when Singularity&Co. came calling.

Cover of the e-book edition of a classic scifi book that was rescued by Singularity&Co. Reversity Media

Although he was surprised by the couple's lack of publishing backgrounds, Mr. Harrison was impressed by their commitment. He also liked working with Ms. James and Mr. Kalb directly, rather than dealing with a large publisher.

Although Singularity&Co. will be handling the nuts and bolts of converting the titles, including "Eurostorm" and "The Thunder of Erebus," into e-books, Mr. Harrison views the process as collaborative. He plans to publicize the books' republishing via his social-media platforms and on his blog.

While Mr. Harrison says he was able to get his publishing rights returned to him relatively painlessly, that isn't the case for every author. Some of the writers Singularity&Co. has worked with saw their works go out of print but couldn't get out of their old publishing contracts. Mr. Kalb has helped some of the authors get back rights to their books, he said.

He adds that the publishing world is still struggling to figure out industry guidelines for e-books, leaving authors and their families confused about their rights. In some cases, old publishing guidelines are applied to e-books, even though they were invented long after the contracts were written.

Now past the one-year mark of their business, Ms. James and Mr. Kalb have set their sights on another underappreciated genre: adventure books. A new Kickstarter campaign aims to raise $12,000 to salvage and make some of these lost titles available in digital format.

"The thing that seems right to me about Singularity is it's not a broad attempt to fix everything," says Rachel Fershleiser, head of publishing outreach for Tumblr. "These books have a second chance to reach the exact right readers for them."