I got got back from a writers’ workshop in Tulsa where I met the author Aprilynne Pike. She mentioned in one session that she has a Google Alert set to her name, and some other authors on the same panel confirmed that they did as well.
So I have set a Google Alert for her name, and I’m posting her name here to see if in fact the search picks it up and emails me with a link. If it does, I will do a thread about how “critic” posts here may well get read by the subject of the criticism.
April, if you are reading this, I am Jim, and we spoke briefly at the reception where I expressed sorrow that all you writers were stuck back againt a wall in a line-up.
If you are not reading this, feel free to ignore it. 
Not yet, and I set it to email me “as it happens”.
If I get no alert today, I will come back tomorrow and post her name again. It is possible that I posted her name too quickly after setting the Alert, and that the Alert is not really active yet.
I have Google Alerts set to pick up my username and it sends me weekly updates. (And on my real name, but they come less often).
Yeah, I’d never heard of her before either, but she’s a hot commodity among aspiring writers at the moment, having achieved the dream of of her debut book going straight to number one on the NYT Best Seller list. It wasn’t actually her first book – it was her third. But the first two didn’t get published at all.
Do the alerts include when your name gets posted on the SDMB?
I have now received Google Alerts for her name, but not including this thread.
So I’m going to add her name to this thread again, and see if it works now.
Damn, I forgot. Aprilynne Pike
Maybe if we ALL start posting her name in this thread.
Aprilynne Pike!
Good thought. No alert yet. My last attempt will be another thread in another forum tomorrow with her name in the title. Doesn’t seem real likely that it would make a difference, but it can’t hurt to try.
Dunno, nobody ever seems to mention my name when I’m not posting in the thread.
Now do that in front of a mirror at midnight – I dare you! 