Vanity, thy name is Debra Dixon.
The whole thing began so innocently. We had dinner with friends we hadn't seen in a dozen years. We joked. We laughed. I admitted to having a website. On the way home I realized they might do more than just check out the website.
They might...Google me. Ohmygawd! What was out there to be Googled? I hadn't Googled me in ages, surely there was more now. Did I seem interesting? (You did read the part about vanity right? Like you've never Googled yourself. ::eye roll::)
So I Googled me. Well, actually I "Copernic"-ed myself. It's a great program that runs multiple search engines at once and combines the results in one search document that is saved on your computer. You can delete entries or the whole search. You can finish looking at the results at a later date without losing the results. You can email it; you can update a search.
Very cool. They have a professional and a personal version.
http://www.copernic.com/en/products/agent/personal.html
I have it for business purposes, not for "searching" little ol' me. Honest.
Anyway...even if some of the results weren't really this Debra Dixon I found them hilarious. Apparently someone running around with my name has written an article for a health web site. "The Truth About Breast Implants." That's funny because even if I were a skinny stick I'd still naturally be sporting a cup size equivalent to a couple of bad grades on your report card. I had a good laugh thinking about my old friends who know I'm a writer but might not know I don't have any insight about boob enhancement and didn't write that article.
Another cool tidbit I found was that Tyndale House Publishers, a large player in the Christian and Inspirational market, recommends GMC: Goal Motivation and Conflict. In fact, it's the first book/article listed in their "further study"section for submitting a successful manuscript to their Heartquest line. http://www.tyndale.com/authors/details.asp?id=12
One of my old friends at dinner the other night is now the supervisor of a large urban county library system and wanted to know if I had any books suitable for school libraries. When I email her tomorrow, I'll be sure and mention that a major publisher thinks highly enough of the content of one of my nonfiction books to include it in their recommendations. See? Vanity pays off.
6 comments:
I have to admit, I've googled myself, too. There's a hat maker with my name. She hand-makes wide-brimmed sun hats! Wonder if she's ever googled herself and found me?
I have never googled myself. Maybe that's because with my system I could walk from door to door through all 50 states and talk to people one on one faster than I could get internet results. Or...maybe I'm just not very interesting.
Yeah, Googling one's self can be a humbling and at times startling experience. A guy I met, who apparently didn't believe I was a real author and intended to catch me up. . . googled me while I was on the danged phone with him! And after receiving an unsettling blow-by-blow of myself online, I realized I'd better check it out.
Ewwwwwwwwww. Not for the faint of heart. Book reviews, sales pitches from booksellers, conference and RWA group web sites announcing me as a featured speaker, mentions in blogs and on others' web sites. . . and of course the Amazon and B&N sites. . . Every one a potential mine-field of praise or criticism or both.
Another interesting thing to do is to go to Google images and insert your name. I was surprised to find my face listed several places. . . including some old publicity photos still apparently floating around. . . also a number of pictures snapped at conferences that were now on somebody's web site!
I suggest every author do it occasionally to find out what's out there about you. And I've got a hot cup of "commiseration tea" waiting for the first poor romance writer to find herself on Perez Hilton's web rag!
: Betina
Yikes! I've googled to make sure my web site comes up and look at a few beyond that, but I guess I should read futher. The thing is...lots of eagles.
Deb, I recommend GMC to my Loft classes. It's on the handout we, um, hand out on the first day. But I'm about to update and add your website. Every library should have GMC in its collection. It's that good.
Okay, I'm back from googling--only looked at 2 pages out of 1,130,000 matches (the eagle thing)--but I found something interesting. Called "The Literary Map" and they show your name in the middle with other authors people who read your books also read. The closer the name is to yours, the more people read both of you--I think that's what it said. Belva plain was my closest. Huh? Then Barbara Delinsky, I think. Anyway, the site is: http://www.literature-map.com
Helen-- That hat maker may be surprised the next time she Googles herself. LOL!
Lois-- Yep, nothing is more aggravating than a slow surf.
Betina-- I never thought about images. And I did find a Mrs. Giggles review which I never expected. It was for one of the Mossy Creek stories. It was "full of charm" so I breathed a sigh of relief. She did take a swipe at the end of the review but it was a dinky swipt so I was happy. (g)
Kathleen-- Oh, cool ! I'm just been happily checking various author names out on Literary Map. What's interesting is a I see "matches" I would expect and then the occasional surprise. Very cool.
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