How To Become an Indexer
Excerpted from Turn Your Talents into Profits: 100+ Terrific Ideas for Starting Your Own Home-Based Microbusiness by Martha M. Bullen and Darcie Sanders (Pocket Books, 1998).

Indexing Service

To succeed as a freelancer you'll need the intellectual capacity to grasp a wide range of subjects and properly organize a book's contents into a coherent, detailed index.  Most indexers read a lot, and are familiar with and have degrees in an academic discipline; many stray into the profession from related fields such as editing, research or education.  Indexing is probably as close as you can get to being a professional grad student who actually gets paid.

Indexing is truly a solitary, anytime kind of work.  It is deadline driven, but within that time frame it doesn't matter if you work at your craft at 2 p.m. or 2 a.m.  Clients are usually not put off if the answering machine picks up instead of a person.

What skills make an indexer more marketable?  Knowledge of a foreign language and familiarity with the specialized terminology of any of the sciences or professional disciplines are especially valuable assets.  Besides specialized knowledge, good proofreading skills that produce clean final copy and an absolute adherence to deadlines will keep your clients coming back with more work for you.

There are many books available to help you learn how to prepare an index—you'll probably need more than one.

* Handbook of Indexing Techniques: A Guide for Beginning Indexers by Linda K. Fetters (Fetters Infomanagement Co., 2001)
* Indexing Books (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing and Publishing) by Nancy C. Mulvany (University of Chicago Press, 1994)
* Indexing from A to Z by Hans H. Wellisch (H.W. Wilson, 1997)
* Starting an Indexing Business, edited by Enid L. Zafron (Information Today Inc., 1999)

While indexing is not a licensed profession and formal training is not a requirement, numerous opportunities for professional training exist locally and nationally.  Many colleges offer indexing in their extension programs; library science or information science courses are also valuable.  The Graduate School of the U.S. Department of Agriculture offers two courses through its Correspondence Study Program: Basic Indexing and Applied Indexing. For more information, write to: The Graduate School of the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Correspondence Study Program, Room 1114, South Agriculture Building, 14th and Independence Ave. SW, Washington, DC 20250; (202) 720-7123. In addition, off-the-shelf indexing software programs contain their own tutorials.

Top Tip: Prepare a one-page resume of your background, areas of knowledge, and specialized indexing education, and include a sample index that you have prepared.  Send this to the editorial directors of general, academic, and scientific presses nationwide—indexing is not a localized business.  Your best sources for lists of publishing houses are Literary Market Place (LMP) and Writer's Market, both available in public libraries.  Magazines, newsletters and journals also hire freelancers to do annual indexes.

Getting Started: "No matter how skilled or experienced you may be, or how impressive your educational background and previous work experience, it's generally hard to get started," warns David Billick, past president of the American Society of Indexers.  As a novice, be prepared to do your first project for a reduced rate or flat fee.  Billick's first indexing project was done for just $100 in order to get some book indexing experience on his resume. 

Join the American Society of Indexers (10200 West 44th Avenue, Suite 304, Wheat Ridge, CO 80033; 303-463-2887; info@asindexing.org) or the Indexing and Abstracting Society of Canada (P.O. Box 664, Station P, Toronto, ON Canada M5S 2Y4; www.indexingsociety.ca). The national office of the ASI can put you in touch with your local chapter. They will be the best source for information on local educational resources and prospective clients.  You can also find work through temporary agencies that staff technical writing and editing positions.

Darcie Sanders and Martha M. Bullen are co-authors of Staying Home: From Full-Time Professional to Full-Time Parent (Spencer & Waters, rev. 2001) and Turn Your Talents into Profits (Pocket Books).  They have appeared on "The Today Show," "CBS This Morning," CNN, "Rosanne," and National Public Radio.  For more information on Sanders and Bullen, visit http://www.spencerandwaters.com. Their books are also available through bookstores, amazon.com, bn.com, and this toll-free number: 1-800-711-3627.