Preparing for an Indexing Career--Part 2

OK, you've realized you are going to have to do this "indexing-thing" on your own without help from a formal mentor or as an apprentice. Now what?

The next step is to subscribe to all the various indexing listservs, and there are many. If you aren't familiar with a listserv, here's a real brief primer:

E-mail serves as the primary vehicle for listserv communication. You must send an e-mail to the computer server to subscribe. When you subscribe, you are usually given various options, such as separate e-mails or digest form. Do whichever suits your situation best.

And joining the listservs is free!

In addition, most of the listservs are not chatty-types of listservs. The exception is the Index Cafe. The rest are strictly technical, job, and indexing related. In other words, when you join the listservs, you are not going to be flooded with hundreds of e-mails that talk about the weather, cats, grandchildren, and off-topic stuff--unless, of course, you subscribe to Index Cafe. You can be assured the questions and answers are genuinely worth your indexing education to read.

There is no excuse for "not having time to read that stuff or all those e-mails." These days, with all the chit-chat being over at the Index Cafe, if you don't have time to read the serious listservs, then you are saying you don't have time to learn indexing. If you are truly serious about wanting to learn about indexing, it behooves you to join the serious listservs. Then, as you have time, join us at Index Cafe.

In the beginning, I would highly recommend printing all the listserv e-mails, with their responses, and filing them in folders.

At first glance, this appears to be a waste of paper. But, it's not. It serves many purposes.

FILING SKILLS. It forces you to develop some type of filing system. Just start now, and get in the habit of filing. YOU are your own administrative assistant when you run a freelance indexing business.You will need a filing system for your business, and working with these files will help you create the system that works best for you. Don't wait until you have to have a filing system. It took me nearly 3 years to work out something that was efficient for me. By the time I started marketing, I was all set, with just a few very minor adjustments in the filing system.

EDUCATION. If you are on your own with this, you need all the educational help you can find! But, once you get on the listservs, you will start reading questions and answers that leave you totally in the dark. (What are they talking about?!?) By printing the e-mails out, as you grow in indexing knowledge, these things will start to make sense. When you are actually "ready" for the material to learn from, you can pull it out of your folder and have it at a moment's notice. You won't have to take valuable time to search the archives for the information. (I know it's here somewhere!)

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