BTW, here's a link to a remake of Carly's song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly2TiqbkT7Y
Years ago, while I was in the service, at a duty station, one of the secretaries told my buddy he was vain to which he replied: That can't be. Vanity is a fault and I have none.
Nonetheless, give it a try, be a little vain — in other words do some egosurfing, auto-googling, egosearching, a vanitysearch ... whatever you want to call it.
Using your favorite browser — Google, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc. Type in your name, hit "Enter" and see where your name appears. You might be surprised!
On a whim, I did this the other day and discovered I was all over the Internet. A pleasant surprise — okay, I'll admit, my head did swell just a tiny, tiny amount, if you're comparing it to Jupiter. I'm amazed I didn't soar with the other hot-air balloons in the area that day.
Discovering your name at this website or that website can make a person rather proud. Of course, what is even more exciting, to find your name at a site you didn't know your name was going to show. Imagine my surprise, years ago when I did this to find one of my "paintings" at a website to honor John Carter. I'm a big fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs and his writings, including the John Carter of Mars series. I'd created a 3-D image, rather bland in shades of reds, blues and lavenders. With the soft plateaus and hazy plains, I envisioned it as Mars. I need to have that website updated, too. LOL.
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| http://www.erbzine.com/mag9/0989.html |
But, I digress. When I did the search the other day, being coerced by PCH (Publishing Clearing House) to use their search engine to enter the drawing, I entered "Bob Nailor" to see what would display.
To quote Gomer Pyle: Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!
I discovered on one of MY personal web pages, the data was a tad out of date, by about three (3) years!! Of course, I was able to immediately go into my domain and correct the offending page(s) as needed with more updated information.
I also discovered that my information was out of date at several other web pages including Google+, Good Reads, Amazon and, color me red, too many other places that I had some control over but had not kept updated.
Therefore, don't feel it is vanity to search for your name. Do so and find out if you are inadvertently being publicized on a page you'd rather not have your name plastered on, or discover, as I did, that your data is out of date — which could be worse!
Did you catch that? On a page you'd rather not be on? Imagine finding yourself on a web page, which in and of itself can be considered an honor, but it's a website that you'd rather not have your name associated with. For instance, a raunchy romance web page with an image of your book cover and your name.
I found my latest book cover, The Secret Voice which is an Christian Amish novel on a gay site with the following blurb: One hot dude. I sent a letter to the web owner with a simple request, either post a review of the book or remove the cover since I was quite sure the original photographer would be upset. I had no issue with it being on a gay website but I didn't want it the cover to be used as sensual endeavor. I can't control who reads my books or who reviews them or how they review. The web owner was very nice and explained that other people could post to his page and he would take it down since the object of the page was to invoke sexual responses. Not all website owners will be as nice, but if you approach them nicely and professionally, most will respond politely.
The bottom line to this ego trip is simple. Find out where your name is listed. Is it correct? If not, can you correct it or have it corrected?
Go forth, my friends, and EgoSurf.
Until next I ramble on...
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