"Oh, Bother"

That's what Pooh Bear would say about my shenanigans this week. I allotted a certain amount of time to do promotion for my book signing, including mailing 140 postcard announcements to students and friends and about fifty press releases to area newspapers. I had it all worked out, cards designed, releases written and address labels printed. On Tuesday I mailed the postcards and this morning I mailed the media releases. When I got home from the post office today, I had a message in my voice mail: "Why does your postcard say the book-signing is July 17?" I don't know, why does it? Because I missed a typo. I must have read the stupid card twenty times. Now I know why they say we see what we expect to see. I saw "August 17" where it clearly said "July 17"--every time I looked at it. Oh, bother.

I quickly designed a correction notice and started printing it on 4-up postcards. Only this time the printer decided it didn't like the postcards. It took forever to get them printed. Oh, bother. But it only took a minute to print the labels. Fortunately I had saved the file I made for the first mailing. (Sing a song of bees & hunny.) I went to the post office late this afternoon, bought more stamps and mailed the correction notice.

I'm praying fervently that I didn't make any mistakes in the press releases. I'm afraid to look at the file. I sure wish I had taken my own advice, which is somewhere in my web site articles on marketing: Always have someone else proofread your copy.

Oh, bother.