A few weeks ago, a writer friend called and said her book club was going to read THRILL OF THE CHASE, one of my Loveswept Romances. She wanted to know if I had some extra copies; they were having trouble finding any.

So I looked. When we first moved into this condo, I put copies of my published books on a bookshelf. I noted then that I was missing a few, but I thought I’d find them in a moving box I hadn’t opened. Now I realized I’d never found that box (if it exists). The THRILL OF THE CHASE was not on that shelf, so I went downstairs where I have extra copies of books, mostly my mysteries, but a few romances. Nope, no copy in that bunch. So I looked on Amazon. Hey, they had two used copies, at twice the original price. Oops, no. They’re now gone.

THRILL OF THE CHASE? What was that book about? I remembered a couple things. It was part of a special theme group .Four authors, me and three others, would write a romance that was triggered by a psychic on a radio talk show. When my editor asked if I was interested in joining the other three authors in the group, I jumped at the chance even though she said I had only one month to write the book.That’s the fastest I’ve ever written a book, which might be one reason why I’m having trouble remembering the plot and characters. But I did it, and it was published in 1995. (Oh my gosh, that was thirty years ago.)

In 1995 we were sending our manuscripts to the publisher via the Internet. So that meant no printed copy.

I decided, I would find the file on my computer and read it that way.

Problem is, since 1995 I’ve moved 5 times and gone through three computers. I don’t have THRILL OF THE CHASE saved on this computer. But I do always save my files. EXCEPT, back om 1995 we either saved  on a floppy disc or a removeable hard disc. I don’t have any computers that have a slot for either those discs. I know there are some computer places that do, but which ones? What’s more, I have several of those discs, but all I wrote on the labels was BOOKS. Not which books, just books.

Then there were CDs. I have some of them. Did I use them in the 1995? I don’t think so.

Last Friday, the hostess of the book club called and said she had an extra copy. She brought it over and, since the book club meets this Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday I read.

Hey, that Maris Soule isn’t too bad a writer, but it was interesting to see some of the things that have changed in the last thirty years. For one, telephones. No cell phones.

Saving our work

All of this has made me realize how easy it is to lose our stories.

Files can be saved in the cloud. (I do that now.) But what if we have a cyber attack? What if the “cloud” I save to is destroyed?

We can save to thumb drives, but they may be obsolete in a few years, just like the CDs, hard discs, and floppy discs.

We can print our work and save it in air tight, waterproof boxes. But where do we store them? Who will keep them after I’m gone? (Important books will be preserved, I’m sure, but not the millions of genre novels that are being published nowadays.)

We can find copies on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, libraries, and so on. But really? Bookstores, physical or on-line don’t keep copies that are no longer selling or being checked out. Even readers discard or give away books they’ve read and no longer want crowding their bookshelves.

I wonder if other writers think of this?

BY THE WAY, if you’d like information about book fairs and book festivals, check out https://www.writersdigest.com/publishing-insights/list-of-book-fairs-and-book-festivals-by-state?utm_medium=email&utm_source=WDG+-+NL+-+Newsletter&oly_enc_id=2837H7719201B0G