Wednesday, January 15, 2014

How Can Google Alerts Work For You?

We all know the value of facebook and Twitter for marketing our books.  Social media has been a boon for the self-made and independent entrepreneur.  With all the various apps out there, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and probably a million others, it is not only in our best interest we avail ourselves of them as writers, it is damn near imperative.

Also, as indie authors, or even aspiring indie authors, we write posts for friendly blogs, articles for publication, and give interviews when we can.  Have you often wondered how to keep up with all the internet footprinting you must be doing?  I have and was given a wonderful tip that pays me back every day....google alerts.

Never heard of them?  They are great.  You input a search item, be it a word, a phrase, or like in my case, my book titles, and every single time that word or phrase shows up on the internet anywhere, you get an email advising you about it. This is a handy trick if you don't want to spend your whole day surfing the web.  Even every time someone posts a review of one of my books, I get the alert, even if I wasn't even aware of the review.  It's a nice way to keep track of who is reading your work, and which bloggers are in your camp.

Setting up the alert is easy and painless (way different than writing, huh?)  You simply plug in this web address:  http://www.google.com/alerts

You get a page that looks like this:
Search query:
Result type:
Everything
 
How often:
Once a day
 
How many:
Only the best results
 
Deliver to:
Samanthacombswrites@gmail.com
 
Manage your alerts





Identify your search item, decide how often you want to be alerted, than add in your own information for the email address.  Press the big red button and off you go!
I am the author of ten published books (as of yesterday!), so I have 11 alerts; one for each book title and one for my name alone.

Great luck to you discovering your own digital footprint!





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