Shareware Book
"Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom - and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech." — Benjamin Franklin
This is a Shareware Book. You have permission to download it, own it, read it, copy and print it, share it and give it away, and you may use the lyrics, as many times as you like, for free, without the prior written permission from authors or publishers. With Shareware Books, you can do anything except earn money, as that’s the author-right of the artists who created it.
This book is free, but not for nothing. The price of a Shareware Book is one euro (€ 1,-). You can read the book first, and you only pay the price if you think it's worth it. This is our unique «money back» guarantee. Shareware Books are much cheaper than books from commercial publishers (who pay the author less than a euro per book and keep the rest). Therefore, Shareware is a much better deal for both readers and writers. By paying the voluntary contribution, you encourage the authors to publish more entertaining and affordable Shareware Books.
Language belongs to everyone. Commercial companies only publish profitable prose; their commercial censorship limits freedom of speech and diversity of opinion. Thanks to Shareware, any writer or poet can bring their work to the attention of readers, with a financial reward for their costs, without depending on agents or publishers. Thanks to popular mobile phones and tablets with free eReader apps (we recommend: PocketBook), billions of potential readers will welcome Shareware Books.
Shareware Books: a free university for the entire world
Imagine a world in which everyone downloads free Shareware textbooks. Nelson Mandela said: "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." With Shareware Books, thousands of writers might fill a freely accessible university library on the Internet. The complete world's population can visit school at home, with their mobile phone. There would be a free university for seven billion students, but only if millions of readers support the initiative, paying that euro or dollar or pound or franc.
Editorial Perdido is a non-profit publishing company, without even a bank account. Our sponsor, Admi365.nl, pays our costs and collects money for Project Haiti on our behalf.
At Editorial Perdido, we find reading and literature important, and we believe in the healing powers of humour. We take funny books so seriously that, together with our authors and the creators of Admi365, we launched the ambitious plan to build and run a school in Haiti. By publishing Shareware Books, we raise money for that project. Thanks to our writing and your reading, we teach children to read and write.
"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." — Benjamin Franklin.
We kindly ask you to transfer one euro (€1,-) to bank account NL96 KNAB 0258 6957 22 in the name of Admi 365 B.V., the Netherlands (Bank name: Knab, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, BIC: KNABNL2H), stating the text "School Haiti" and the title of this book. 100% of your contribution goes to charity.
On our website, www.editorialperdido.eu, you’ll find the latest news about the progress of Project Haiti.
Shareware Books: a helping hand for a country in need
"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it." — Benjamin Franklin.
Haiti is among the poorest countries in the world. In 2010, a devastating earthquake hit its capital, killing thousands and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. The international community raised millions for relief supplies and rescue services. Did that money go to Haiti? NO! Western suppliers and service providers received our donations; their income increased, thanks to the misery in the Third World. Virtually nobody invested in Haiti itself, not in building schools or hospitals, not in creating jobs. Since 2010, the government only restored government buildings to their former glory. The rest of the country needs even more help than immediately after the disaster. Tent City is the scandalous proof.
If no one does anything, we will do it ourselves.
"Well done is better than well said." — Benjamin Franklin.
Thanks to your Shareware contribution, Haitian men and women learn carpentry, bricklaying and teaching. They only use materials that Haitians produce. We teach others to grow food for the builders, the teachers and the students. We’ll even pay children to go to school, on condition of spending their income on goods and services, produced by their own community. This way, we teach children to read and write while we teach their parents to take better care of their children and their neighbours.
Your voluntary Shareware contribution pays for an hour of class of a Haitian child, which invites her family half a hot meal, which guarantees their farmer neighbours a paid job, while it gives their compatriots practical lessons in WE-Conomy. Also, for less than the price of a cup of coffee, you get this beautiful eBook, with hours of pleasure.
Solving poverty is simple: don't give your money to Amazon, allowing the world’s richest man to fly to the moon, but use it to teach poor people how to take care of themselves.
If future shows that our school project is too ambitious, we promise to transfer the funds to Médicos Sin Fronteras (Doctors Without Borders). Of course, we respect the privacy of our readers and donors: we promise we’ll never, never, never store or use the data of others.
We trust our readers to distribute our books, leave positive comments on Smashwords.com and Goodreads.com, support us with free publicity on their social media, and help us help others.
Alone, we can't do much, but together, we will make a difference.
Do you write to be fed, or do you write to be read?
"As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously." — Benjamin Franklin.
Statistics show that commercial companies only publish 2% of all offered manuscripts, and only 2% of those published books pay the writer more per worked hour than the minimum wage of a 17-year-old stocker. Thanks to the Copyright Act, 2,450 of every 2,500 writers receive absolutely nothing, and another 49 get only a poor compensation for all their creativity. In every other industry, this kind of exploitation is illegal. All non-creative employees in the book industry receive, of course, at least the minimum wage for every worked hour. The world’s richest man earns more per sold book than he pays the author for writing, editing and advertising that book.
Not only do we think that's unfair, we also have a creative solution.
Are you a writer, and the commercial censorship of other publishers rejected your work? Editorial Perdido is here to help. We give advice, workshops and courses, and we’re open to publish your work or help you self-publish without us. We might even edit or translate your work, for a fee or for a return service in hours.
Would you like to see your novel shine among our success stories? Are you looking for the largest potential audience for your poetry collection? Visit our website and send us a message. By publishing your story as a Shareware Book, you gain confidence, readers, and maybe even a few coins for all your effort.
"Words may show a man's wit, but actions his meaning." — Benjamin Franklin.