Google Alert on the Oregon Trail: The Small Pleasures of Being a Writer

I have set up a Google Alert for references to “Oregon Trail.” Every week in my email inbox, I get a list of internet articles referencing the Oregon Trail. My purpose in setting up the alert was to keep up on what is happening along the trail.

Most of what shows up in the Google Alert doesn’t help my writing or my marketing at all. Most articles relate to local events in Oregon, or to people writing about the old Oregon Trail computer game. (Remember? The game in which one player always died of dysentery. Well, that did happen to many emigrants.)

But last week, I was surprised to open my Google Alert to see a picture of the Lead Me Home cover!

And a very nice article in The Marshall Democrat-News, the local newspaper in Marshall, Missouri.

I am doing a reading and book signing at the Marshall Public Library on Thursday, December 10, 2015, and I knew the library was preparing a press release. But I was still surprised to see the article in the local Marshall newspaper.

Being famous for a day is one of the small pleasures of being a writer.

Another is going off to run errands for an afternoon, and coming back to check your book statistics to see that two—or maybe even three!—people somewhere in the U.S. bought your book.

A third small pleasure is having your friends and family—and sometimes mere acquaintances—tell you they loved your book. And they want you to get the sequel done right away. (Well, maybe this last bit isn’t a pleasure, because I know how much work lies ahead to get the sequel ready.)

I suppose John Grisham and Larry McMurtry are past those small pleasures. But for just-published authors, it’s still fun.

I hope any readers in or near Marshall, Missouri, will come to the reading on Thursday. It’s at 6:00pm.

No one will die of dysentery in the selection I read.