Author: Big Al

Big Al (who insists he only has one name, like Cher, Sting, and Madonna) spends his days writing computer programs that are full of typos, homonym errors, and incorrect verb usage. During his evenings, he writes reviews of indie books for BigAl’s Books and Pals and has recently taken over The IndieView, a website founded by indie author Simon Royle as a resource for indie authors, indie reviewers, and those who read either.

It’s Still Copyrighted, Knucklehead

copyright common sense courtesy of pixabaybanana gun suit-673697_640I’m not a lawyer, blah, blah, blah. And while marginally about copyright, this post is really more about common courtesy as well as common sense which someone (Wikipedia claims Voltaire) says isn’t so common. With a hat tip to Voltaire, I sometimes think common courtesy isn’t so common either. Maybe I should explain.

From a strictly legal sense, at least under US law, when you create a work of the kind covered under copyright law, you immediately have a copyright. While most of you think of this in terms of books and short stories, some of my musician friends are thinking in terms of recorded performances and lyrics to songs. Other artists think in terms of other output whether Kat’s photographs (don’t be using those without her permission), or the political cartoon in the Sunday paper, the same concept applies. Continue reading “It’s Still Copyrighted, Knucklehead”

You’re Going to Write What? – Part 5 – Indie vs. Trad Publishing

scribbling-152216_640This is an ongoing series about BigAl’s first experience writing a book. Join him as he flies by the seat of his pants and figures things out as he goes. For a more complete explanation about the book and this series of posts, you can read the series introduction here.

In this installment I’m going to look at my publishing choices. Continue reading “You’re Going to Write What? – Part 5 – Indie vs. Trad Publishing”

Are There More Amazon Review Deletions to Come?

amazon is ready for battle carnival-787071_640
Amazon is ready for battle. Image courtesy of Pixabay

Yeah, I know. That’s a clickbait title and possibly this article will end up looking like clickbait as well. Only time will tell. But I have a theory that the deletion of book reviews by Amazon might turn even more serious for some authors. Let me explain why.

I first became aware of bunches of reviews being deleted at least a couple of years ago. It happened sporadically; the authors of the books in question were never sure what happened or why. Usually some of the reviewers were identifiable as other authors, but only some. Inquiries to Amazon went nowhere. Continue reading “Are There More Amazon Review Deletions to Come?”

You’re Going to Write What? – Part 4 – Making Time to Write

scribbling-152216_640This is an ongoing series about BigAl’s first experience writing a book. Join him as he flies by the seat of his pants and figures things out as he goes. For a more complete explanation about the book and this series of posts, you can read the series introduction here.

It’s the end of September and this will be running sometime the first part of October. In this post that ran September 9th, I established what I had done in 2014: both an outline and a start on writing several sections. I’ve since added about 10,000 words. I can spin that into a good story or a bad one.
Continue reading “You’re Going to Write What? – Part 4 – Making Time to Write”