Keeping your book secure

[Grand Lord BungleFic]

After more than a year of working on my novel I find that I am absolutely terrified of someone taking my ideas or some hacker breaking into my computer and stealing the whole manuscript.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to keep the book secure?

 

[Steerpike]

You could encrypt your files. Look into TrueCrypt, for example.

 

[Telcontar]

My first and only bit of advice is to quit worrying about the issue. Nobody is going to try and take your ideas (which are worthless on their own) or even your manuscript (which is worth lots to you, but not much to anybody else until its proven that it can sell).

This paranoia is oddly common amongst artists, and it is universally a waste of time. Once you start making serious cash with your writing - that is to say, once it has proven value - THEN you might want to worry about keep an eye out for fraud. Even then, however, it is only ever going to happen after the book is published.

 

[Chilari]

Yeah, Telcontar is right. People who are willing to illegally hack into someone else's computer do it for three main reasons: trolling hacking friends, making a political point, and getting money. If people try to get into your computer, they won't be after a half-written novel. They'll be after bank account details and personal information, things they can get money out of quickly before the crime is detected. Writing isn't something that generally involves a lot of money, except for the big names like Rowling, Martin, Sanderson, Pratchett and so on. So unless you're already a famous author don't worry about it.

As for taking your ideas, that's just ridiculous. I'd happily give ideas away. I've got more than I can handle. Seriously. I've got a document called "catalogue of ideas" on my PC and every idea I think of - whether it's a character, a scenario, a relationship, a good line, a theme, a concept or just an image in my head - goes in there. There's a column for stories the idea has been used in. It's mostly empty, because I think up ideas far faster than I write stories. And the same goes for any other writer. In fact as I was at a talk last night given by crime writer Peter James and someone asked him if he ever worried about running out of ideas. After he was done laughing, he said no, he's never worried about that. He's got more than he can handle and finds it very amusing when he gets letters and emails from readers offering to sell him an idea for a book.

Besides, even if some unoriginal writer who also lacks a moral compass does steal your idea, it's just an idea. What they do with it won't be the same as what you'd have done with it. The way you weave that idea into other ideas, the way it effects your characters, the way it fits within the larger plot, won't be the same as the way someone else uses the same idea (whether they stole it from you or thought up the same idea completely independantly).

 

[PaulineMRoss]

After more than a year of working on my novel I find that I am absolutely terrified of someone taking my ideas or some hacker breaking into my computer and stealing the whole manuscript.

Don't worry about anyone taking the manuscript. Worry about someone taking the computer. Or the hard drive frying. Or your house burning down. You do have backups, don't you? As in: an external hard drive in your house AND an external hard drive in someone else's house AND somewhere online (Dropbox or similar). You can never have too many backups. Yes, I'm paranoid, but I've had a hard drive crater and I've had Windows crater, necessitating the dreaded 'Reformat drive C'. I have backups everywhere (even the garden shed).

 

[Devor]

The best way to protect your ideas is to do a better job with them than any poser who would steal them.

 

[CupofJoe]

Don't worry about anyone taking the manuscript. Worry about someone taking the computer. Or the hard drive frying. Or your house burning down. You do have backups, don't you? As in: an external hard drive in your house AND an external hard drive in someone else's house AND somewhere online (Dropbox or similar). You can never have too many backups. Yes, I'm paranoid, but I've had a hard drive crater and I've had Windows crater, necessitating the dreaded 'Reformat drive C'. I have backups everywhere (even the garden shed).

I thought I was the only one that "paranoid" or as I prefer to think of it "prepared"!

 

[Sheilawisz]

I can totally relate to these feelings of fear and paranoia, because years ago I was so affected by them that I would even suffer nightmares about someone stealing my novels... What affected me most was to lose control over copies of my first Fantasy novel that I sent to some friends in Madrid, who refused to delete after reading it.

Just like the others have already said, this Writer's Paranoia (as I call it) is totally a waste of time because nobody really is going to try to steal your manuscripts!!

However, the feeling is very powerful: You have to make an effort to get over it, which can take years like it happened in my case. After all you have more important things to worry about, like having enough well protected back-up files to be sure that you will not lose the manuscripts that you have worked so hard to create.

We all suffer from this thing at some point of our lives, you will get over it =)

 

[TWErvin2]

If you are concerned about your novel being taken/stolen:

Microsoft Word, if that's what you're using to type, has an option to password protect files. Do that, make it a secure password, and don't foget it. Other word processors probably have the same option.

Limit the number of people you share the work with (for critting, editing, proof reading) to only those you fully trust not to share, distribute, lose it, etc.

 

[Nihal]

It's good to have copies, but I'm kinda the opposite of you all when it comes to the fear of losing it or being stolen. Of course I wouldn't like to have my ideas stolen, but I know I can prove they were stolen if needed. I like to be easygoing most of time, I know I can be fierce if provoked.

I'm confident that not only I have the strenght to fight back but if I can do something once I'm going to be able to do it again. But the one who stole? Hah...

Just chill and trust in yourself.

About losing the HD, I'm not that scared anymore. I'm used to HDs fails, in the past they used to do this a lot. My father is worked with electronics/PCs and taught me some ways to access the data of an dying HD, I can recount inumerous times when I didn't even reinstalled the OS, just moved all the data to a new one. Of course you still lose some things with the badblocks, but the most of it is intact.

I just can't picture a thief trying to steal my big-assed PC. It's big and heavy and he would be better off with the laptops, TV, etc.

Anyway, keep copies. It's not because it's unlikely that it's impossible, so keeping at least one copy wouldn't hurt. Just... relax. Stress is a bad thing to the heart.

 

[The Kyngdoms]

You could encrypt your files. Look into TrueCrypt, for example.

Yep, encrypting it is the way to go. Requires authentication, which means if it gets stolen everything should remain hidden.

 

[Devor]

Okay, a more serious answer than I gave before.

I went to college in New York for business, and I've heard dozens of speeches from top professionals in all walks of life, creative and otherwise. The topic of having your "big ideas" stolen comes up often enough, and the response was always the same:

If you're solid with what you're doing, then maybe one in every thousand people you speak with are even capable of stealing your idea in any way that would impede what you're doing. But the number of people whose input could help you to do it better is tremendous by comparison.

So the advice - which I've heard from numerous sources - is not only to stop worrying about hiding your ideas, but to readily share them with anyone you think might bounce ideas back to you.

That doesn't mean post your manuscript on your blog, but it might mean posting details in the Brainstorming forum (which is members only).

As for backing up your work, that's a different topic all together. You should do that, of course.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

I'm with Devor. I've even used sites like Critter and the SFF-OWW to get crits on work. HUNDREDS of people might see my story there.

Who cares?

They can't do anything with it (well, they can try, but that IS what attorneys are for). And if they think the idea is cool, and write their own story based on that idea? More power to them. If they're a good enough writer to craft a good story that way, that's fine with me.

Heck, I mine films, TV, and books for story ideas all the time. I might grab a grain from here...a few bits from there...blend with my own imagination...voila! New story.