The Internet has made the professional writing industry go through some substantial changes. Now, writers rarely use notepads and typewriters, but have traded them for iPads and computers. This allows wordsmiths to capture their ideas whenever the mood strikes, whether they are on the road en route to visiting a friend or sitting in their apartment while listening to music and sipping tea. However, if writing is your business, you’ve got to get serious about keeping your documents organized. It doesn’t matter if you are writing for ten clients, or two. It’s crucial to store your work securely, and also access it whenever the need arises.

Exploring File Sharing and Storage Solutions

Ideally, your methods of document management should be as flexible as you are. Rather than using USB drives and other physical devices to keep track of everything, consider using something that’s entirely online. Many services allow you to categorize things into folders so that you can easily sort things by date, a client’s name, subject or anything else that might help you find things in a flash.

Learn to Sell Yourself

Although potential clients sometimes still do ask for a copy of your resume, they may just request that you write a sample piece for them, instead. If you already have some past articles that align with their needs, you might be able to pass that along to them and prove your worth.

With that in mind, you should strive to do your best work during every assignment. Your efforts will develop your writing skills, while teaching you how to deal with client expectations and write in the correct voice. Even if you never meet your clients face-to-face, they’ll expect you to deliver your work on time, and to their exact specifications. Your ability to do this can help to prolong your writing career and allow you to branch out into other types of genres, as well.

Now you should understand how important it is to save copies of your work and catalog it in a way that makes sense. When you take this approach, you’ll be able to send potential and current clients examples of past work or completed assignments in just seconds.

Your Work is your Livelihood

In the same way that a carpenter can take pride in pieces that he or she has done during the course of a job, the words that you’ve created and typed onto a blank page in a word processing program represent hours of diligence, and an ability to follow instructions.

Can you imagine how devastated you would be if you lost that work due to a power failure, hard drive crash or even a house fire? Don’t take that chance. Protect your files regularly by using a file storage service that also has sharing functionality. The peace of mind that you’ll get for making this choice will be worthwhile, and might even help you be more productive, because you won’t be preoccupied by wondering what to do if things go wrong. Although many services do have a desktop feature that you can download for your computer, it’s also usually possible to access your precious files from any place that has an Internet connection. Decide to use one of these services and continue to exercise your creative abilities without the risk of losing your work forever.

George Travis writes for several tech blogs and recommends finding out how to transfer files here on the internet.