I think every author has been through it.  

But it shouldn't be a rite of passage; in fact, it should be avoided at all costs.
 

I’m talking about lost words.

You open your manuscript only to find it's an old version you saved weeks ago. Not the latest one that you’ve worked on all weekend.

You think you've saved your work but can't find it… anywhere.

Or worse: You KNOW you’ve saved it, but your computer has a malfunction and won’t even start.

Arrrrrgggggghhhhhh!

I’ve been there. But never again.

Here's what I do:

Set up autosave on my word processor. I use good old Microsoft Word and autosave has saved my bacon on numerous occasions.

I save three copies of everything.

The live copy - that’s the one that's autosaving.

A further offline copy which I keep in a folder. I use Hightail but you can achieve the same with Dropbox or Google Drive.

I also use Time-Machine on my Mac which is constantly backing up EVERYTHING to a meaty external drive.

One quirky thing I do (which has also saved the day), is to email important information to myself.

I know this is a little slapdash, but if I'm out and about I find it easy to send myself an email with a newsletter, idea or a chapter. Email also makes it simple to search for later.

I also have a ‘mirrored’ external drive where I keep a copy of pretty much everything I do.

This started with USB pen drives and eventually became a large backup drive that contains two hard drives mirroring the storage. This way, if one hard drive should fail, I’ll still have a copy.

I know, belt and braces!

I do this with video work, too.

As anyone who has worked with video knows, it's equally frustrating to have edited some content and suddenly… poof… it’s disappeared – arrrggghhhh!

Agreed, this isn't the most exciting newsletter I've sent you.  

But it's the one you’ll thank me for when your beautiful safely stored words are easily restorable rather than prematurely ageing you if they’re lost forever.

Thank me later ;)

Write That Book!