Writing With Purpose

As a serious freelance writer and a former teacher, I have learned one important lesson that I think every freelancer should know: when you are freelance writing, back up everything. Save all of you client data, down to the last email. While you may never need a lot of this information again, it might save your professional butt some day.

Never 100%

I would like to say that you will always be appreciated by your clients, when you put extra effort into their projects. But, the sad fact is that even when you pay attention to the smallest details, you will never receive 100% gratitude. You will do the work and not even get paid. You will have clients that insist they gave you one set of instructions, when in fact they gave you another. In most cases, they want you to change the scope of a project for free, or they want an excuse not to pay for your services.

But, if you document everything, you will have some recourse. You will probably still not get paid. But, you will have the satisfaction of proving that you completed the assignment as instructed, and probably succeeded above and beyond the call of duty.

How to Save all of your Freelance Writing

At first, it will be no big deal to save files to your hard drive. Even the smallest of computers these days have plenty of room on the hard drive. But, what happens if you computer dies?

Recently, I had a laptop computer that would not stay plugged in at the back. It had always been a little wobbly, but it got progressively worse. Since I sit in the comfort of my recliner while I work, every time I moved or the dog jumped on the footstool I was on battery power.

It finally got so bad that I had to wedge the plug against my leg and tilt the laptop, so I could stay plugged in and work. It was time to get a new one. Unfortunately, all of my countless files are on the old one. I could not afford to lose any one of them.

Thank goodness I backed everything up! About a month later, when my son was playing games on the old laptop, it started to smoke out of the plug-in jack. Fortunately, it promptly shut down. But, it sure stank up the house for awhile, and was a little frightening.

Another Source

As you can see, backing up my files to a second hard drive on the computer is not really a wise idea. It may shift the inactive clients to a different disk, so there is more room on the main drive. But, it will be of no use, if the computer starts to blow black smoke and dies.

So, it will be vital to purchase an external hard drive that is totally separate from the computer. At least once a week, copy all of your work files onto this drive. Then, if your computer crashes, blows up, or is infected by a virus, you do not have to worry about losing all of your work, past or present.

A good external hard drive can be purchased for around $100. Speaking from personal experience, it will be one of the best business expenses you will acquire.

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