While waiting for an agent’s reply to my query I’ve been trying to keep my mind otherwise occupied so I don’t go through the yo-yo of emotions I do whenever someone looks at my work. This is pretty easy during Christmas(isn’t EVERYONE crazy busy right now?) fortunately, but I still need something to distract myself with so that I don’t check my email every five seconds while on the internet. So I decided to check my ‘web presence’.
Anyone who wants to see their work published (traditional and indie alike) has probably read somewhere that they need a platform. For those who haven’t heard of the platform, this is the place where people can easily find you and your work, a place from which you try to sell your books. It isn’t JUST about sales, but that is a key component and purportedly every agent and publisher takes platform into consideration (though the exception would be if your work was so mind blowing they just don’t care, but I can’t imagine anyone sensible relying on that).
How does one check one’s web presence? Why by doing an act which is claimed by some as the height of narcissism: you google yourself.
So, I googled myself. The first time I tried this was pre-pregnancy and I did so partly out of boredom and partly because I’d watched three different TV shows in the last week that mentioned it and since I’d never tried I figured I’d give it a bash and see what came up. My search was automatically re-directed to Kirstie Alley. No thanks, I know my own name. When I corrected it all that came up was my personal facebook profile and a Myspace account I’d forgotten I even had.
Fortunately a whole lot pops up now and the entire first two pages only direct you to various pages of mine. The only thing that bothered me was that THIS PAGE, this website you’re reading right now did not show up. I couldn’t figure out why my webpage and blog didn’t show up, I must have flunked as far as SEO goes. Then I realised I don’t state my full name anywhere on this webpage. In some kind of internet privacy fear I must have automatically not included my last name.
Let me rectify that.
Hello everyone, my name is Kirstie Olley and I am a speculative fiction writer. Pleased to meet you.
Hi Kirstie … I haven’t googled myself lately. One of my problems is that computers and people always correct Tod to Todd. A second and more difficult problem is that Abraham Lincoln’s wife was Mary Todd Lincoln – so every time I look for Mary Tod, I get oodles and oodles of stuff for a woman who died in 1882. Perhaps I should change my name?
Mary Tod recently posted..Help was merely pixels away
I’m glad to see I’m not the only person Google tried to tell how to spell their name.
I don’t think you need to change your name (unless you really want to), because that name has some historical significance and you’re a historical fiction writer, I think that has some very cool resonance (even though 1882 might not be the era you’re writing about).