Promotion tool: Google Alerts

[Richard Herley]

Sorry if this is old news to many, but a friend has just told me about Google Alerts. This is a free service from Google which, er, alerts you to the appearance on the internet of any word or phrase you choose to enter as a target.

If you are an indy author you can enter your writing name as the target. Then whenever you're mentioned anywhere on the net (on a blog, forum, or wherever), Google will pick up on that and send you an email with the appropriate link(s).

That means you can scuttle along there to see what's been said about your work and, if appropriate, participate in any discussion of it, thus earning you kudos and possibly new readers.

You can choose two levels of alertness -- all mentions or just the more important ones.

Google Alerts is here:

http://www.google.com/alerts

I hope this proves useful for others toiling on the depressing treadmill of self-promotion.

[sassanik]

Very interesting! Thank you for the info!

Amy