In a local magazine article that I worked very hard on. The editor was hard to work with (would not return phone calls, e-mails, etc…), but I jumped through the firery hoops and finally the thing was published.
It looks beautiful…but they got my name wrong. Not only did they use the wrong name (a version of my e-mail address) they misspelled it.
They fixed it on the website “blog” version and will run a correction in next month’s issue, but the print version is wrong.
I am heartsick. I have published hundreds of articles, features, columns, etc. and this is only the second time this has happened. I guess I should feel fortunate, but jeez, Louise…I can’t seem to let this go. As a professional, I understand that this sort of thing happens, but I feel like a lion with a thorn in it’s paw.
I would like to be able to show this story off to potential employers. What do I say about the byline? It looks sort of like my name, but…
That sucks. If you’d like it for your portfolio, ask the art director or editor if you can get a PDF of the article with the correction in it, as it would be laid out in a magazine rather than on the website.
That definitely sucks. I like Cat Fight’s solution. If you want a paper clipping you can take with you to live interviews, then wait for the correction, and attach it to the paper copy. Anybody in this business understands that screwups happen, and editors definitely aren’t perfect.
As a writer, I haven’t had one quite this bad, although I’ve had my name left off completely.
As an editor, I did misspell an author’s name once (all I did was turn Jon into John, but I still felt bad). I apologized and made sure the author had a link to a corrected copy on the Web site.