This is my public service announcement for the next few months. :)
Y’all—back up your work.
Back up your writing and everything else that’s important to you on your computer.
And…back up to more than one place. What if your backup fails? It’s happened to me before.
Here are some backup options to consider that range from low to higher tech:
Use an online location to store your writing. You can email your book to yourself using any email address that can be accessed by webmail. You can also store your writing on Google Docs or an online story organizer (like Hiveword, from my friend Mike Fleming.)
Use a flash drive. Cheap. Easy.
Use an external hard drive. Word files don’t take up much space, but you might want to buy an external hard drive if you have a lot of music or pictures to back up.
Print a copy. Bulky and a pain, but an option for anyone looking for a really low-tech option.
Use an online storage solution like Dropbox or Carbonite.
Blogs:
You should also backup your blogs. They sometimes disappear, too. Here is an article on the Guide to Literary Agents blog that discusses how to backup a Blogger, WordPress, and LiveJournal blog.
Also, if you’re on Google Reader, remember to subscribe to your own blog there. You’ll be able to access all your old posts from the Reader.
Go forth and back up! And, while you’re at it, change your passwords, too. :)
What do you use for backing up?
I know I should, but I only back-up every week or so. I know I should be doing it more often, thanks for the reminder.
Thank you for the reminder. I’m over due for this!
AND–
invest in a second flash drive/burn another CD/whatever, back everything up and put it in a fire box or bank lock box. I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years. We have a lock box at our credit union for autographed books, collectible coins, car titles and so forth. I just backed up scanned pictures, music and all my fiction and put it in there. It’s like less than $40 a year. You can buy a fire safe at Wally for less than $20. Flash drives are super cheap and Target had 8 gb for less than $15.
Respect the paranoia. Think of all the work you’d have to try to recreate if something happened!
This helped me a lot. I’m just coming aross this site and loving it!
Hi Elizabeth .. thanks – always good to be reminded ..cheers Hilary
Amen, been there done the suffering. It’s on my to do list today.
T
I am really really bad at this.I have an external hard drive, but forget to plug it in. I have a flash drive, but only use it if I want to print pictures. Thanks for this very important reminder. I have a friend whose computer just crashed and burned and she lost everything.
Karen
Elizabeth – What a good reminder!! I use flash drives, as you do. I also back up some of my stuff on my net book. There are also a few things I put on my angelfire website. That shell allows you to store things, too. Always, always, save your stuff!!!
I use dropbox mostly. I also email my manuscripts to my daughter in Ireland. Odds are that lightning won’t strike both of us at the same time!
But what I’m terribly lax about doing is saving all the OTHER stuff–pictures, correspondence, and the kazillion other files on my hard drive. Once in a while I remember and copy them to our external hard drive, but I really need one of those programs that notices whenever you touch a file and automatically saves it.
Terry
Terry’s Place
Romance with a Twist–of Mystery
I use an external hard drive and also email myself a copy of my novels but I need to go and backup my blog. Thanks for the reminder.
I have been using Carbonitem,but didn’t know about backing up the blogs. Thanks for the link to the blog on how to do that.
Good post!
I like to tweet randomly a reminder to back up. (Just as I used to randomly call out a reminder to students to back up during open lab. Don’t do that any more. Probably should start up again.)
Anyone using an at home backup solution, i.e. an external hard drive should remember that if you house burns down (God forbid), your backup goes with it. You need to store the important stuff off site.
For my WIP, I also use a flash drive that stays in my pocket all the time. It’s my security blanket.
The free sites that allow backups aren’t the safest of ideas because of hacking and some TOS that all but gives them your copyright to do with as they please.
If you own a Mac, set up Time Machine to store to an external drive on a regular schedule so your whole drive is backed up without you having to remember to. Mine runs once a day.
I’m sure there’s all kinds of freebie applications for Windows machines, as well.
Most external drives have back up software that comes with them, as well.
Now is also a good time to remember to set up your virus software and diagnostic software to run on their own schedule. A saved manuscript is no good if you don’t have a computer to work with it.
I don’t trust storing anything online, but I do have a thumb drive and an external.
I use several USB/flash drives although I am currently looking at getting an external hard drive so that I can back up all the home systems (we have three).
Emailing things to yourself is a great idea. I use this for smaller things already but hadn’t considered doing larger projects as well. Thanks!
Heather–I thought I’d put a reminder out. :)
Epdallas–Thanks!
Hilary–So welcome!
Christine–Probably having a program that does it automatically would be good, too.
Julee–That’s fantastic! It’s good to be paranoid, isn’t it? :)
Clarissa–Yes, because Blogger crashes like crazy…
Journaling Woman–Good for you!
LD–Absolutely. Good to do a variety of different types of backups.
Karen–Oh, I hate to hear that! And we lose so much if a hard drive crashes.
Margot–It’s so important!
Terry–Automatic is great because we’re just not always going to remember to do it.
Maryann–Good luck backing it up!
The Daring Novelist–That’s great of you to do that…I should do the same. It’s too important and we *will* lose data from time to time.
Marilynn–Good points! And thanks for the reminder on the virus protection.
Alex–You’d have to password protect it really well. :)
Gene–External hard drives are great to back up big files. And the emailing thing is cool because you can search for the file and you can access it from anywhere.
I wish I had read this one week sooner. I was waiting until I was finishing the draft before backing it up on the internet, but I thought I was safe it was backed up on two computers and a flashdrive.
But my computer crashed, then the other computer’s port corrupted and broke my flashdrive and so I lost my current draft.
My last saved draft was three months ago so I’m pretty devestated. People back up your stuff before it’s too late.
~Danica Page