Today, I tell the story of an author’s tragedy. We had a client who lost their entire manuscript the day of their deadline. Poof. It was gone. Their thumb drive malfunctioned too; it was empty.
Because they had borrowed a laptop, the author didn’t know it was programmed to empty the trash each time it was rebooted. The author had moved the manuscript to the trash after emailing it to the publisher because they needed to return the laptop. Unfortunately, the file that went to the publisher was not the final version but an earlier version containing only 20% of the manuscript. (In addition, the file was not backed up to the cloud.)
The tragedy of this story is that the publisher had to declare the author in breach of contract and cancel the project because this was the last of three deadline extensions granted to the author by the publisher. There was no more leeway.
Technology failed. Sure, in this case, there was human error involved; but the human thought their technology had their back.
We all know we are supposed to back things up. I have even had clients email me their manuscripts, saying, “Don’t look at it; just archive it so I know of another place where it is stored.” (I don’t recommend this, necessarily; but there is a method to the madness of trusting a work colleague with backup.) Are you diligent in your fervor to back up your work? I hope so.
What about the “cloud”? Do you unyieldingly trust your cloud? Or trust the service you use? What if your wi-fi service goes down and your cell phone can’t create a hotspot? How do you access your cloud? This happened to me while traveling. The wi-fi wouldn’t work in our final location, and our cell provider was out of range. I didn’t have access to my “cloud” for many days.
Maybe you use a third-party backup like Carbonite.com. Have you checked those files lately? Years ago, I discovered my offsite backup wasn’t actually backing up anything. A few clicks later, all was well. But it meant that my safety net had holes in it for quite some time.
In December last year, the software subscription to send this blog post out every morning expired without notification. Thus, we had three days without blog posts being mailed. I had an annual subscription, but it failed us without warning.
Or you unwittingly click a bad link, and your hard drive is held hostage by a crook asking for ransom to unlock it (aka Ransomware)?
What about other tech? Is your website feeling its age and no longer reflects your professional demeanor? Or your phone isn’t “smart.” Or your computer is starting to act sluggish? Or your favorite writing software was upgraded, and now your memorized keystrokes no longer work. (Thanks, Microsoft Word … circa 2023.)
What do you do?
Share in the comments below. Maybe our community of writers can help one another survive and thrive a little bit better.
