While it’s commonplace to hear people say they work best on a tight deadline, it’s something I prefer not to do. However, freelancing means sometimes (often), it’s necessary. So you have a rush job. Tight deadlines happen for lots of reasons. Working with many different clients means you can have overlapping schedules. Often these schedules […]
Beating the Afternoon Slump
The afternoon slump is a tough problem for most of us, and freelancers are no exception. In fact, working from home can have its own post-prandial pitfalls — namely, the sofa. While there’s nothing wrong with catching a quick 20-minute snooze, especially when tight deadlines mean working late into the night, there are a few […]
Indexing and Editing as You Go
At our 2017 ASI conference, I had so many great workshop choices that for once, I was glad to come home to an indexing project and put what I learned to practice. Usually, after a conference (and a 6 am flight home), I like to have a few days to recover and catch up on […]
Negotiating Rates
Setting rates is often up to indexers — we get a query about a project and respond with a quote. Sometimes, though, it works the other way around, and we get approached with a rate from a potential client. When the rate is just fine, our answer is mainly determined by our schedules and our […]
Special Topics: Indexing Cookbooks
While we’re definitely advocates for indexes in nearly all nonfiction books, there’s one genre in which an index is indispensable: cookbooks. Culinary pioneer (and indexer!) Julia Child wrote in The Way to Cook, “A reference or teaching book is only as good as its index.” Imagine trying to find a recipe without even a rudimentary list of titles? As in other subject areas, […]
Making the Most of the New Year
It’s unavoidable in January. Along with sending kids back to school, tax prep, and for many, snow, the start of a new year brings with it a chance to evaluate ourselves and our businesses. Articles on goal setting and resolutions are everywhere, with advice on topics from losing 20 pounds to gaining 20 new clients. My own goals are still […]
