I’m a Google common search term!

Searching my name on Google is a little hobby as some readers may already know from a previous post where I mentioned this. I recommend to anyone who has even the slightest web presence to try it out (unless you have an exceedingly common name in which case it’s likely to be tedious as you wade through references to all the not-yous). It is not just an egomaniac thing, but is helpful to see where I’m being talked about, if any of my work is reproduced without my permission for instance and where my book is mentioned. Now it’s on Tesco and other book sites which I’m quite pleased about though no idea whether this increases sales, as it’s not actually in the Tesco stores.

On my website I have a little button ‘Google me!’ in the top left of many of my pages, and I usually use this. However, I was already in Google today so just started to type in my name. And this is where it gets interesting. If you’re a Google user you may know that as you type something into the Google search box, a dropdown appears offering a number of choices, and for each letter you type this becomes more specific. Sometimes this predictive text thing gets on my nerves (especially on text messages) but in this case it can be useful to select one of the options rather than having to type in full.

So when I type in Josie, the first option that appears is Josie Lawrence, who is actually a heroine of mine ever since she first appeared on our TV screens when I was a teen. As well as being clever, funny, beautiful etc. she is also from Sandwell which is close to where I was born, and of course there’s the name-sharing thing, Josie being quite an unusual name when I was growing up. Big disappointment when I found out that her real name is Wendy (thanks a lot Wikipedia!). There are a number of other famous Josies in the list including Josie D’Arby.

Then if I start typing my surname, at ‘He’ I get another list of Josies and Josie Henley is number 5 with 100,000 results (this is my usual username on forums and blogs etc.). My full name, Josie Henley-Einion for those of you who haven’t worked that out (and 2,120 results to date), pops up with the addition of the ‘n’.

So does all this investigation lead anywhere? Well, I am assuming that these predictors are only used for common search terms or for phrases that have results over a certain threshold, so I’m thinking it’s quite cool that my name is in this category. I’ve tried various other phrases that include my name, such as ‘silence by Josie…’ or ‘books by Josie…’ and the predictor text does not come up with my name. I also tried other searches like Casting Pods (my podcast) and came up blank. So it must be significant somehow if I can squeeze some significance out of it. I’ve also tried other writer-friends’ names such as Sarah Mussi (130,000 results) and Susie Day (over three million results, now I’m depressed).

I don’t have a wikipedia page yet (not allowed to write your own or you get banned) so if anyone is a wiki editor then please go ahead!

Talking of Susie, I’ve just finished reading Girl Meets Cake and it is probably the funniest book I’ve read since her last book Big Woo. Actually, it’s funnier than Big Woo, probably on a par with Douglas Adams for my laughs-per-page ratio. I started having to read it in secret because it was getting embarrassing with all the looks I was getting as I snorted and guffawed my way through it.

There was a point where I wanted to clonk the heroine over the head and shout ‘look around you girl!’ but then she is fifteen and if I can remember that far back I do recall that my peripheral vision was mostly clouded by teenage self-obsession. And witnessing the predicaments she gets herself into with all the telling one lie and then having to tell a hundred more lies to cover up for the first one is really hilarious. Deliciously painful. There, that’s my Amazon review title sorted. Very definitely recommended for everyone about 13 and upwards (lots of snogging and references to SEC SEW AL stuff). Plus there’s the added pleasure for those who didn’t pick up who Mysterious Ed was immediately (like I did, *buffs fingernails*) of reading it a second time and laughing at all the very obvious clues a la Agatha Christie. Oh yes.