Hello,

Merry Christmas!

I know Christmas can be stressful for many, between family, travel, sickness, holiday traditions, or work. Whatever this season means for you or has been, I hope you are able to find moments of rest amidst all the busyness and cheer.

It is once again the last Tuesday of the month. Today’s question seems appropriate in anticipation of the New Year, as it is about beginning a freelance indexing career. The question is:

Thank you for the question. There are a couple of things to unpack here, starting with what makes starting a freelance business so difficult.

One factor, definitely, as noted, is finding work. A freelance business isn’t going anywhere without clients or projects. So when starting, one of the first tasks is to market. Marketing can be as simple as asking family, friends, and acquaintances for referrals. Marketing can also be more involved, such as researching and contacting publishers that you’d like to work with. However you decide to go about marketing, yes, finding clients and projects is an important bottleneck to break through while developing a freelance indexing business.

Another important bottleneck is acquiring and building indexing skills. In addition to landing projects, you want to make sure that you are doing a good job. This is important for building your reputation and for encouraging repeat clients and referrals. Long term, filling your schedule is going to be much easier with referrals and repeat clients, as opposed to constantly needing to find new clients because past clients don’t want to return. So to avoid client churn, focus on delivering excellent work. (And, on a related note, be someone who is easy to work with.)

If just starting out, building indexing skills can feel like the classic chicken and egg dilemma. Should you focus on developing skills first and then look for work? Or can you go ahead and look for work, knowing that your skills are still a work in progress? I think you can go ahead and start looking for work, so long as you know more than the client. But remain open to feedback and be intentional about continuing to learn. Treat each project as an opportunity to practice. It may take time for your skills to improve, and you may lose some clients along the way if mistakes are made, but the important thing is to be aware of those mistakes and to keep trying to do better next time. After fourteen years of indexing, I am still on the lookout for ways to improve. Over time, as your indexes get better, repeat work and referrals should come.

The last point I want to explore is the question of time and client management. With the question phrased as “having the time to even manage more and more clients every month?” I wonder how many clients or projects you anticipate each month. For myself, I usually index 4 to 6 books per month. I am also in contact with clients about potential upcoming projects, whether negotiating details or checking in to see if proofs are on schedule. Many of these projects are for repeat clients, which usually means less management on my part because we have a history and certain details are already settled. So for me, at least, client management usually does not require a lot of time.

If anyone requires a lot of time, it is usually new clients, especially authors who may not know much about indexing or publishing. These can require additional work educating them about the process or explaining what I need to do my part, though I also use boilerplate language that I can customize, which helps to cut down on the time needed.

As more work comes in, you will need to figure how how much work you can reasonably accommodate. More work may also prompt you to figure out how to streamline your process so that you can index more quickly (I still think about how to index more efficiently). More indexing work can also mean less time to market. This is where repeat work and referrals come in handy because once those relationships and systems are in place, they often don’t require much maintenance. But if you are having trouble retaining clients, or if you want to expand or shift clients, perhaps to indexing a different type of book or to higher paying clients, then that will require a new marketing effort, which can be difficult to find time for.

For now, though, when starting out, I think the main bottlenecks are finding those first few jobs and building your indexing skills. Gaining experience is tough, but if you keep at it, your efforts should begin to snowball. Focus on delivering excellent work and service, and clients should return or pass your name along. Once that happens, finding work should be easier, your schedule will begin to fill up, and you are moving past being a brand new freelancer.

To your freelancing success,

Stephen

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PS. My book is on sale again at Smashwords. 50% off the ebook for Book Indexing: A Step-by-Step Guide. Sale ends in a couple of days, on Thursday, January 1^st. Grab your copy here!​