I logged into my WordPress dashboard this morning, and my last 5-6 posts were gone, including paid book reviews.
Can you hear my heart breaking?
Thankfully, after about thirty minutes, they showed up!
Photo by MART PRODUCTION
Too bad I had already deleted the tweets to what I thought were now dead links. Way to go, Yecheilyah.
A glitch, maybe, but the scare was real!
Chile, I almost cried.
Then I put my big girl panties on and understood today’s message.
ALWAYS back up your content!
Make sure your photographs, graphics, videos, and articles are stored in a folder on your computer or on a USB drive. Before composing your posts in WordPress, it’s simpler to write them in a Word document (or whichever program you prefer) and save them to your computer.
Never depend on ONE social platform to reach your audience
I have never been a fan of putting all my eggs in one basket, and this experience reemphasized the importance. I am all for monogamy, but cheating on your other social media profiles with a backup plan is okay, lol.
It is not a smart idea to rely only on one platform, whether we’re talking about Instagram bugs or if US companies and content creators will no longer be able to use TiKTok. (Are you following the case with them? Back those videos up!)
Keep your options open and stay as informed of all the developments as you can. Even if we disagree with AI, for instance, it would be a bad idea to ignore how it is affecting the book publishing industry and how authors and publishers create and distribute their works.
Email is still useful
If these social media apps change their policies, having an email list can let you stay in touch with your customers, business partners, and author friends. Twitter and Instagram have already started using paid verified badges. Even further, Twitter claims that those who earned their blue checks will soon have to pay to keep them.
Photo by Pavel Danilyuk
It is not farfetched to say that we might one day have to pay to use these apps. If that’s not your flavor, you will want to maintain contact with your people somehow.
Blogs are great alternatives to email lists since subscribing to someone’s blog mean you get an email for every update anyway.
If you simply use your blog, however, always refer back to point one and backup your blog content.
After all, we don’t own WordPress either.
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Joel Friedlander and Nate Hoffelder 
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