More about Crimperbooks
What is this and what can you find here
List of articles
- Award winning stories - 01 Jun 2015
I think my books are great and so do others!
Categories
- How I create award-winning free children's stories - 14 Aug 2013
Creative writing requires time, energy and an idea. There's a process and some tools I use to help me write mine.
Categories
- Is is all really free? - 05 Jul 2013
There's no such thing as a free lunch, so they say. So am I really giving all these stories and ebooks away and if so, why?
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- Sharing - the key to stories - 02 Jul 2013
One of the most important things at Crimperbooks is sharing. Stories - the heart of a good novel- are shared experiences. You are allowed and encouraged to share the stories you find here.
Categories
- Downloading - 02 Jul 2013
Did you by any chance come here for a free ebook? Why not download all of them? You are allowed. Here is how and why.
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How did Crimperbooks begin?
This project is about stories. We love stories in our family and sometimes we’ll sit around making them up with each other. On one of these occasions I started to tell a story about a toy robot who came alive and escaped out of a window. The story got retold a few times and changed along the way. Eventually it became the beginnings of a book - “Sugar the Robot and the race to save the Earth”. With some encouragement from the rest of the family, I decided to turn the story into a “proper” book and make it available online.
It was pretty well received and then a second novel “Do Not Feed The Troll!” was launched a year later. That was followed by ebooks and short-stories, some of which follow the same characters and some that don’t.
But this is not about books, it’s about stories and sharing and, as I am quite into the idea of freedom, I decided to make the stories downloadable for free and with encourage others to share them.
So that’s what this is about - stories and sharing. I hope you enjoy it.
Ryan (a.k.a Crimperman)
Questions and answers
- Why Crimperbooks?
- It stems from my own personal web nickname of Crimperman which I have been using since the mid 1990s.
- What’s with the sheep?
- Same as above really. I’ve been using Stew (for that is his name) as a mascot for some years now. ).
- Are you really giving this stuff away?
- Yes and I ask that you do the same. Download it, share it and pass it around. Just make sure you say where you got it and you don’t stop others doing the same.
- So can I photocopy the printed books?
- No. They are under normal copyright as it makes it easier with publishers and the like but to be honest why would you want to photocopy it when you can download the entire thing - images as well - from this very website.
- Thanks for the free e-books, can I send you a donation?
- I’m not looking for any donations but if you would like to tip me you can do so. Alternatively you could buy a paperback and donate it to a local school or library.
- So how do you make any money from this?
- I don’t make much and I’m fine with that. I’m not planning to either really. If it makes money that’s fine, if not that’s fine. There are authors who make their living from Creative Commons books using the same model I do but for this project - at present - I’m not expecting it to make me rich. I do answer this question in more depth here.
- So why make a printed copy available at all?
- Well mostly because I believe in books. Real, physical objects. Particularly for children. I know others feel the same and so I have made these available in print. I chose to self-publish to keep the costs down but to be honest the experience so far has been so good I see no reason to change that.
- But you use Amazon for your paperbacks, that doesn’t help independent booksellers
- I know and I’d love to have this sold in independent booksellers. The truth is that to do so costs me a lot more than I can invest in what is essentially a hobby (I take the writing seriously but not the “selling”). I use Amazon as a print on demand service which is cost-efficient but I do not say that only Amazon can sell my books. I just can’t afford to have boxes of them in my house in case independent bookshops want to stock them. In terms of perpetuating the idea that we can only get books and ebooks from a few large sellers, please read my longer response here.
- I’d like to exchange links do you do this?
- Sorry but I don’t have the time or space to maintain links like that. if you would like to link to this site then please do. if you would like an image to use, may I suggest this one.
- How do you produce the books?
- I’m an advocate of Free and Open Source software and so all the tools used were under that licensing. I have a page explaining my process which you can read.
List of articles
- Award winning stories - 01 Jun 2015
-
I think my books are great and so do others!
Categories
- How I create award-winning free children's stories - 14 Aug 2013
-
Creative writing requires time, energy and an idea. There's a process and some tools I use to help me write mine.
Categories
- Is is all really free? - 05 Jul 2013
-
There's no such thing as a free lunch, so they say. So am I really giving all these stories and ebooks away and if so, why?
Categories
- Sharing - the key to stories - 02 Jul 2013
-
One of the most important things at Crimperbooks is sharing. Stories - the heart of a good novel- are shared experiences. You are allowed and encouraged to share the stories you find here.
Categories
- Downloading - 02 Jul 2013
-
Did you by any chance come here for a free ebook? Why not download all of them? You are allowed. Here is how and why.
Categories