Tips and Techniques You Do to Save Your Works

[Hans.Trondheim]

Okay, here's the thing. My good friend, @Paul_Tromba shared in his latest thread about Google Docs potentially deleting stuff that their AI found going against TOS. Now, I've experienced Google Drive deleting programs I uploaded for safekeeping, and was like, "if they can delete apps in GDrive, what stops them from deleting content they don't agree with in GDocs?"

As Western Managed Democracy goes in full swing, I ask, what steps do you--as an author--take to ensure the safety of your manuscripts and other files? Just so others can benefits from it.

I'll start with mine. Having been a victim of my own idiocy (formatting the wrong disk back in July 2022), I deleted an entire two-years' worth of illustrations and manuscripts without hope for recovery.

Good thing back then, I've been sending copies of my manuscripts to my beta readers, so I got my Saint Series files back (from Volume 1 to 9). The major casualties are my drawings, hence nowadays, I keep physical copies, and digital ones stored in flash drives, external HDDs, burned into DVD-ROMs, uploaded in GDrive, and sometimes in Discord, too (except PSD files coz those are big).

This is also why I still draw lineart via pen and paper, in case I can't recover digital backups.

The same thing can apply to my manuscripts. Those are stored in flash drives, external HDDs, DVD-ROMs, and uploaded in Cloud. That is, aside from the fact that my beta-readers got copies, and the sites I uploaded to.

What's yours?

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I keep my stuff on PC and Flash Drive apart from GDocs.

 

[jrell]

I've been using Mega.nz cloud to sync my local files for more than three years. It works really great, has version control, and is encrypted.

 

[ThrillingHuman]

Usb sticks and several pc's do the trick

 

[Kalliel]

I write directly on SH, which is apparently heretical, but that's one, and I also save each chapter on my own drive as a docx file, which I can then upload to Patreon, too.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I write directly on SH,

@RepresentingEnvy

 

[TASTYLEADPAINT]

I pay microsoft for cloud storage. It's not to bad besides that I have a hub I put everything once in awhile

 

[Deleted member 84247]

I write directly on SH, which is apparently heretical, but that's one, and I also save each chapter on my own drive as a docx file, which I can then upload to Patreon, too.

I can't believe you would do this. You said you would destroy the heretics, not join them!

 

[LoneQuack]

I write it on 4theword because I like to time myself with it and helps me start writing (its much easier to write 5 pages on the daily if you go with the mind of 'okay lets write a single page' and then all of a sudden I have only written for 10-20 minutes so at that point I go like okay 1 more is like what 20 more minutes? and so on until I am done). Then I paste it to Prowritingaid to correct vocabulary and a few missed (or overused) punctuations and then save them for in the folder for the novel and finally running it through Grammarly when editing the chapters before uploading. Damn reading this makes it feel like such a waste of time...

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I was worried as I use GoogleDocs for anything in progress (then pull it into Libre Office or Open Office to format and do stuff GDocs doesn't handle well).
Then I noticed that the article is from 2017, and remembered people on another group panicking over it back then... I THINK this issue was resolved and now they will only pull stuff that gets reported by one party it is shared with, and they don't actually "look" at your work (unless they have a subpoena), at least in the US.

 

[WinterTimeCrime]

Have none of you barbarians heard of Scrivener?

 

[Rezcore]

I back mine up in 3 ways. I print them, I literally save it to a minecraft server in books and I use a external. 2 of those are true... one is a lie

 

[Fox-Trot-9]

I keep all my drawings on hardcopy.

 

[John_Owl]

I keep all of my stuff saved in a format exclusive to my writing program (or, I should say, the writing program I use is the only program I've found that could read it properly. all others only show code), and I keep all copies saved local, online in 3 different sites, and backups on 2 different external drives. one of them I update daily, as it remains connected daily, and the other I update on the 1st of every month. if any one of them fails, I've got multiple other copies to fall back on.

edit: Also want to say that this level of paranoia has helped me when someone tried to claim my story was theirs and I could prove it was mine dating back a year before they claimed to have started writing it.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Have none of you barbarians heard of Scrivener?

Yep. Had several people try to talk me into it. It will be one of the first things I purchase if I ever start making money writing.

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

nextcloud

 

[Xcalibur_Xc]

After losing Google docs and drive failures, now,?I write on the go.

 

[Kalliel]

I can't believe you would do this. You said you would destroy the heretics, not join them!

Bruh.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

Have none of you barbarians heard of Scrivener?

You, a civilized criminal, have you ever heard of "I'm poor, and just doing this shit for hobby"?

(Sorry for my lame attempt of a counter. ?)

I pay microsoft for cloud storage. It's not to bad besides that I have a hub I put everything once in awhile

I also pay Microsoft...oh wait, I work for my government, so they pay for my copy. ?

 

[AnonUnlimited]

I save them on hard drive and Apple Cloud which gives privacy. I also save it to USB.