by Your Business
PI: How long have you been an associate at Potomac Indexing?
I celebrated my one-year anniversary with Potomac Indexing this past September.
PI: Tell us your indexing (or other information access system) origin story. All superheroes, including indexers, have an origin story.
I have always had an interest in the beauty of the written word. Often, though, people around me thought of me as a crazy perfectionist when it came to my own writing and especially the writing of others.
My mother, with a background in English, was the only one I knew who shared my “obsession” with language. Even as a child, I remember the “contests” that she and I would have as to see who would find more typos in the book each of us had picked out from the library. At the time, I was not aware of the multitude of professions related to writing; all I knew was that she shared her love of books and libraries so much with me and my brother that it was inevitable that both of us, as well as my sister-in-law, would become librarians.
After playing the librarian in a variety of elementary school plays, doing a high school internship at my local Jewish library, and more editing than writing for my school newspaper, I found it natural to major in journalism at Stern College in New York. The publishing field beckoned to me, but after a few short-term jobs, I didn’t feel like I had found my professional calling. After a few years of unsatisfying work outside of the field and a move back to my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, I finally saw the opportunity I needed. A “help wanted” sign on the circulation desk of my favorite childhood library appeared as I was ready to go back to work after a too-long maternity leave. I loved library work and requested several times to be moved to different departments so I could get a taste of everything it had to offer. It was less than a year later that I decided to get a master’s degree in library science. In my mind, everything was going along perfectly. I couldn’t wait to start working as a professional librarian full-time . . . but fate had other plans for me.
In my second-to-last semester of library school, while taking a course in cataloging, a fellow student happened to mention in class that I seemed to have a real knack for abstraction—or summarizing. In response, the teacher asked the class if any of us had considered indexing as a career alternative to librarianship. I honestly had not, but after only one day of intensive internet research about indexing as a profession, my only thought was, “How did it take so long for me to discover this?”
After finding out that most professional indexers work as freelancers, I was a little nervous thinking about all the things that starting a business entailed. But I was so excited to find out that yes, I could actually get paid to analyze words, that the business aspect was just a small bump in the road to being an indexer. I couldn’t wait to get started training. Before I was done with library school, I signed up for an internet-based correspondence course with one of the top indexing teachers in America. My teacher said I was a natural indexer, and I was thrilled that the nagging question “What should I do when I grow up?” had finally been answered in my mind.
With a little luck and a lot of hard work over the past thirteen years, I have successfully built up a freelance business. Indexing makes up only part of what I do for my clients. Sometimes books need to be indexed and also copyedited or proofread. Sometimes publishers refer my services to authors, and sometimes authors refer me to publishers. Sometimes authors will send me a pile of scribbles and ask me to magically transform them into a best-seller, also known as developmental editing. All in all, I am very happy with the way my business has been growing. My day-to-day operations constantly change and keep me on my toes. I also marvel at the thought that I learn more “random stuff” by indexing and editing than I ever did as a budding librarian!
PI: What are your specialties and/or favorite subjects?
It’s amusing to think about my specialties because I never marketed to specific genres when I was starting out in the business. Recently, though, when the number of books that I had indexed or edited got to a nice, round number, I thought it would be fun to count how many books were in each genre: exactly one-third of the books were scholarly Judaica, one-third related to the paranormal, and one-third other!
PI: Pick one of your favorite subjects and tell us why it fascinates you.
My specialties have definitely become my favorite subjects; I love that I am always learning new things about my religion, and it fascinates me how many nonfiction encyclopedias about aliens wind up in my indexing pile!
PI: What’s your best productivity or indexing secret tip (that you are willing to share, that is)?
My best productivity occurs first thing in the morning, so I aim to get my indexing for the day done before doing anything potentially distracting like checking my email and texts.
PI: What do you consider the most challenging aspect of the work?
Determining which clients and which books are the best fit for my knowledge and skills and knowing when to turn down those that are not.
PI: Where do you usually work? (Please include a photo of your office setup unless it’s a secret superhero location)
My office is in a corner of my bedroom: zero-step commute!
PI: Talk about your process (and this can be for book indexing or other related projects, like keyword tagging, embedded indexing, etc.). Any advice for other professionals—new and experienced?
I don’t use the same process from book to book or even from day to day—sometimes I’ll mark up a whole chapter at once and then enter the terms into my indexing software, sometimes I’ll enter terms without marking up, sometimes I’ll go page by page. It totally depends on my concentration level at the moment and the subject matter that I’m working on. Editing at the end is my favorite part regardless, though – that’s when you can really see the index come alive.
The best advice I can give both new and experienced indexers is that we are each other’s best resource in terms of sharing clients, projects, and work methods, so take advantage of it and make yourself known! The indexer community is a small but mighty group that I’m proud to be a member of.
PI: What are your favorite/most-used tools, for indexing or other business purposes?
My favorite indexing tool is the ability to color-code entries in up to nine different colors, so when it’s time to edit my index, I can focus on one type of entry at a time: I’ll do all the names at once, all the places at once, etc. Also, I always have a separate color for entries that I need to ask the author about later, which saves me from having to remember that while I’m in the middle of a book.
PI: CINDEX, SKY or Macrex (or other)? What do you like best about your choice?
SKY – I don’t remember even trying the other choices. I love how similar it is to Excel. It’s very user-friendly, and the technical support can’t be beat!
PI: If you could only recommend one book about indexing, what would it be?
Indexing Books by Nancy Mulvany.
Personal Perspective
PI: Where do you live (just approximately, since this will be published on the Web)? And if you like, tell us a bit about your surroundings and folks you live with (including furry friends) if you wish.
I live in Maale Adumim, Israel, with my husband and four children. The gorgeous, panoramic view of Jerusalem I have from my desk out onto my porch totally makes up for the fact that my office also doubles as my bedroom!
PI: Tell us about your hobbies. Are there specific ones you turn to as a break from work, or any that are a special treat in between or at the end of projects?
I definitely use my hobbies as a way to reward myself when the indexing is all done. In the evenings, I love to do digital scrapbooking. My newest hobby is traveling to Europe in between projects. I just finished indexing a huge book that took place in Prague, and it was so interesting that by the time I got my paycheck for the project, I had used a good chunk of it to book a bunch of vacations in Prague!
PI: What’s the last book you read for fun?
In all honesty, I feel very lucky that the vast majority of the books I index are books that I would read anyway for fun, so all the better that I get paid for it!
PI: What’s your superpower?
My husband and I both work from home and simultaneously juggle both the demands that our jobs entail and those of our special-needs kids, most of the time without wanting to kill each other, so that makes us both superheroes in my book!
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Shoshana Hurwitz has been working in the publishing field for over twenty years, taking a break along the way to pursue a master’s degree in library science. She started her own business, Hurwitz Indexing, in 2007, doing indexing, editing, and proofreading for a variety of publishers and authors around the world. She lives in Maale Adumim, Israel, with her husband and four children.
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