When you assume things

In a recent discussion with a collegue of mine the point was brought up: In your book you don't explicitly say how important it is to have a legible, well written and well presented, press release.

I had made the assumption that ANY such release would be legible and well written. However, this collegue was on the recieving end of press releases rather than the sending one and I was assured that this is NOT the case.

I know my blog is not exactly the paradigm of grammar and spelling, but when you are contacting a member of the press; be it from a press release or solicitation for review... USE PROPER GRAMMAR and SPELLING. If you are contacting places in English and English is not your native language- have someone else write it for you. Most people out there would be happy to take the 60 seconds and put it together for you. Not speaking the language is not an excuse. You don't have to appologize for it (I get a lot of 'sorry, I speak not english well.' e-mails). Nobody I know holds the fact you weren't raised in the US or UK against you, but if we can't figure out what you are asking the odds are your e-mail ends up in the trash rather than having us take the time to sort it out.

So my point:
If you speak english and write poorly you have no excuse. Get someone else to do it.
If you don't speak english, get someone else to do it.

The importance is the person recieving the e-mail can quickly understand what you want, be it review or news posting and believe that your company is as professional as any other.