Tech From an E-booker’s Viewpoint

We all know that we should backup our data on a regular basis.  We don’t always do it.  After all is it fun?  No, and depending on the extent of the backup it can take a long time.  Also, where do you store your backup files?  Hopefully the backup is not stored on your computer.  I have made a backup, put it on a disk, and then when I needed it, I couldn’t find it.  Even when I did find my backup, it didn’t work.  Then I thought, maybe I should have verified this file.  So what does this have to do with e-books?  The majority of books I buy, I purchase from Fictionwise and I believe they will be around for quite some time.  Then there are the other places I have purchased books and thought the same thing.  Then all of sudden their site is gone.  An example is Bookjobbers.  Granted, I only bought a couple of books, but it’s the principle of the thing.  My books were supposed to be available in my e-book shelf forever.  Forever came quick and sudden.  I tried emailing, but obviously they came back to me undeliverable. I received no notice.  And then there’s Ebookad.  If it weren’t from blogs like Teleread, I never would have known that they were on the way out. So, if I had not backed up my purchases to disk I would be out of luck.  I now make a concerted effort to backup my e-books monthly, whether I have bought news ones or not.  Instead of using a CD, I use a thumb drive that is dedicated to backups only.  Many times we e-books get wrapped around using our device and reading our books in the future.  This is a very valid concern.  Still, if we don’t backup our files, and they are lost, then this concern becomes rather moot.