Preferred way to check a record exists

What's the preferred way to check whether a record actually exists in a table? If I wanted to check whether author is listed, is it naive to do something like this, or it better to catch the NO_DATA_FOUND exception? Maybe there's another approach altogether...

SELECT COUNT (*)

        INTO v_count
        FROM People
        WHERE AddAuthor.address = Address
        AND author = Name;
    IF v_count = 1 THEN
        DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (author || ' in ' || AddAuthor.address ||


            ' was found in the database, now registering as an author ...

    ELSE

        DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (author || ' in ' || AddAuthor.address ||


            ' not found');