From the very millisecond you decide to enter the e-world, make sure your data is squeaky clean. “Clean data” just means consistent information. David published his first book under the name David Sterry. That was in 2001, when Facebook was just a glimmer in a 13-year-old’s eyes and David didn’t have a website. Then he discovered there was an Australian pop star named David Sterry. So when his next book came out in 2002, as the World Wide Web was becoming more prominent, he very consciously changed his professional name to David Henry Sterry, which he’s meticulously stuck to ever since. Not David Sterry, not David H. Sterry, not Dave Sterry or any other variation. Same holds true for any other information that you want to follow you around. The cleanliness of your data is so important because search engines do not have brains. They simply crawl through the gazillions of characters on the web, and when they see a bunch of characters show up together in one place and then show up together in another, they lump them together. If you give mixed information, like entering David Henry Sterry in one place and David H. Sterry in another, you’re not search-friendly. And you want to be best friends with all the search engines. So you can make friends who will buy your book.
It may seem obvious, but be sure to upload a profile photo. Nothing screams “My heart isn’t in this” like a profile without a photo. Second: For goodness sake, make sure your profile photo captures you on a good day. Third: We need to see your face–not a speck of you off in the distance. Faces are important. It’s human nature to want to put a face to a name.
Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry
