Tuesday, April 21, 2009

What Google Indexing and our Tax System Have in Common

I don't understand either of them.

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail from my publisher saying it was time to launch a website so I did. Then I Googled myself to see if the site turned up. Turns out there is another, much prettier, much younger Rachel Brady who was Teen California and she rates waaaay up there in the top Google hits. I'm sure she is as lovely on the inside as she is on the outside, but with her youth, beauty, and preferential Google treatment, I confess I struggle daily not to dislike her. Let me save you the trouble so we can get back to my story.

All the stuff I read online said to be patient. It takes the Google "crawlers" and "bots" a while to find new websites. I never would have thought the day would come that I'd long to be crawled... but come it did. And crawled I was not.

Every few days I checked. Then one night I Googled "Rachel Brady, Final Approach" and got a surprise. My new book was listed on Amazon! Wha?! Really? What a neat discovery. Suddenly, being dissed by Google didn't sting as much.

Then another fun thing. My first royalty statement came in the mail. This was extremely funny because, since my book isn't out yet, the statement reported a whole bunch of zeroes. Still. Who cares?! I got a royalty statement in the mail!

And finally today, I made it to the first page of the Google search. I'm still listed way below the better looking Rachel Brady but that's okay because Amanda has started to follow my blog. You made my day, Amanda. Welcome!

7 comments:

  1. Whoo-hoo! Good stuff! At one time there was an evil Jenny Askins living in Cincinnati. I don't know much more about her except that a friend accidentally called her and she was creepy. I fired her immediately and reclaimed sole title to Jenni Askins - she can be Jenny and I'll be Jenni. You are way prettier than ANY other Rachel Brady out there, no matter what the pageant judges say!!!

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  2. Thanks, Jenni! If anybody says otherwise, I'm sending them to you. :-)

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  3. Rachel,

    I LOVE the website, and the book looks thrilling. Can't wait until it's in the bookstores! And, IMHO, Miss Teen Cali can not possibly be as pretty!

    -Bill Tate

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  4. Bill! It's so great to hear from you! Thanks for stopping by the site and for letting me know you were here. Please e-mail me and tell me about your project!

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  5. I googled your name and author and you popped right up.

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  6. I enjoyed reading your blogs -- look forward to more and can't wait to get my copies of the book. (They have been paid for - Amazon took the money from my credit card - hope that was in the royalty check ;)).

    Cathy

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  7. Hi Cathy! I'm excited to see you out here on the blog! It's good news to hear that Amazon is taking money for my book, I suppose. But I'm afraid that when the royalty check arrives I'll find that my cut is something on the order of $0.17. ;-)

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