If you have aspirations of being a publicist, spell things correctly.

If you do not have aspirations of being a publicist, don’t put your name as a contact on the press release form.

Once upon a time, I was given a (very poorly written) press release by a local woman. The woman spelled at least two things incorrectly, quoted herself in the release, and got the name of an important competition wrong (luckily, I was able to Google the correct name). Then she wasn’t around to answer her work phone or her cell phone.

I finally got in touch with her, but she answered hardly any of my questions. Why? “I’m not really the best person to ask about this,” she said. “[The person you’re trying to reach] works here part time, but that’s all I know.”

Yikes! Happy ending: I was able to get a cell phone number for the source I wanted. But seriously. PR folks are annoying; amateur PR folks are awful.