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Right author, wrong credentials: oh dear, what can he do?

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

The only healthy exercise the IPKat gets is lifting heavy books

A dear friend of the IPKat has asked him a question to which he has no quick answer and which he thought it would be fun to share with hie readers. It runs like this:

"I was commissioned to write a book on physical fitness for a well-known international publisher, on terms that I was the author and would be acknowledged as such. I wrote the text, submitted it and corrected the proofs, which were of a very professional standard. The book was duly published earlier this year in a number of countries. While my text was the same in each country, the cover and the various small print details on the page with the copyright notice varied from country to country.

On holiday in one of the countries where the book was published, I dropped in to a large and well-stocked bookshop to see if my masterpiece was on the shelf. It was, and very handsome it looked too. My name was proudly recorded on the cover as being the author -- but something had gone wrong. Instead of being described as a fitness and health consultant, I was misdescribed as being a professor at a famous academic institution in a city the other side of the country from where I live, and as possessing a number of degrees which I don't have. It turns out that, when cutting-and-pasting my details into the publisher's template for books of this nature in the same series, my own credentials were inadvertently not copied over and I was dignified quite unjustifiably and rather embarrassingly with the position of the author of the previous book in the same series. This error has only occurred on the cover for this country -- which I did not get to see in advance or check.

Is there anything I can do? I've been told that there is a moral right to be named as the author of my book, but I have been named. I'm not a lawyer but, having read through the contract, it doesn't mention the author's credentials and qualifications at all. Is there anything I can do? If so, what?".

If you have any ideas and suggestions, please email the IPKat and let him know. Merpel says, I don't have any degrees myself, but getting this publisher to promote my writings might be the best way to acquire some!

Full post as published by IPKat on March 03, 2011 (boomark / email).