Now, it gets somewhat complicated.
As you know, you don't spend your all of your working hours toiling on an index. And even when you are working on an index, not all your time is spent indexing. You may have several hours of project administration or paperwork.
Because of this, complications set in.
First, let's separate how many hours you are working on an indexing project vs. downtime, or time you do not have an indexing project in-house.
In the beginning, you will naturally have more downtime, or time between projects. This is normal. It's not reasonable to think you will earn enough to support yourself from the moment you get into indexing. That's why it's good to keep your day job, or at least have a supplemental income.
Some new indexers don't use this downtime to advantage. If you've decided to work an average of 20 hours each week, and you do not have a project in-house, how are you using that 20 hours? Do you feel you can just let it slide? Don't! Do all the things you won't have time to do later when the projects start to roll in. Whatever number of hours you have budgeted in your schedule for indexing, start working that full amount right now on all the business administration tasks.
If you are working a day job, for right now you might be able to only budget 5 hours a week. But, don't play hooky! Show up for your indexing job!
For now, let's project ourselves into the future, and you are now averaging 20 hours a week. Also, let's say for this example, you want to earn $25,000 to cover your allotted expenses.
Let's say that, through historical tracking, you know you have about 4 hours each week of business tasks.
This means for every 20 hours you work each week, 4 of those hours are spent in general business administration, such as marketing, file management, continuing education, responding to listserv queries, shopping for office supplies, organizing finances, and perhaps you are helping the local ASI chapter out. These things are not project specific. That's why I refer to these tasks as business specific, or business administration.
The more business administration you have, the more you need to earn on indexing projects. However, you can't run your indexing business without business administration. You need to take
