You might have heard that correspondence courses demand quite a bit of patience as you wait for your lessons to be graded and returned.

Take a look at the process of submitting lessons along with my suggestions for speeding it up.

Instructors of this course encourage you to submit index writing lessons (Lessons 5, 6, 8, and 11) through e-mail. If you'd like to do this, please follow these guidelines.

Nonetheless, if you want to work on indexing as you wait for your graded lessons to be returned, below are some suggestions.

• Join your national indexing society: ASI, IASC/SCAD, SI, AUSSI.
• Look through indexing society publications list and select a few pamphlets to purchase or to put on your "to buy soon" list.
• If your state or region has a chapter of your national organization, contact the Chairperson. Ask what committees need volunteers or what committees need to be formed. Getting involved in your local chapter will speed up the most important factor in getting clients: networking. If there isn't a chapter nearby, use the membership directory or post a query indexing discussion lists to find indexers in your area whom you could meet for coffee.
• Attend meetings of nearby chapters. Try to get to the national conference. Attend meetings of local book publishers or editors associations.
• Browse past issues of indexing publications (like Key Words and The Indexer). Read articles that answer your burning indexing questions.
• Consider asking a local indexer to be your mentor. Discuss what that means to you both.
• Practice indexing. Buy a book without an index and create one, or find a short book on a subject that interests you (don't look at the index); index it, then check against the original index. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. J
• Volunteer your indexing services. Ask the local library or historical society if they have a book or collection that needs a professionally prepared index. Not only will this give you practice, you never know what kind of future business contacts you might meet!
• Brush up on freelance business practices by taking a small business course or reading books on freelancing and owning small businesses. The ASI web site has some great starting points.
• Get a business license if you'll need one. Remember that all business-related expenses are deductible starting in the same calendar year as your first business license. You could deduct the cost of this course if you wrote that check in the same year as you got your license!
• Consult a tax preparer or accountant to find out what tax issues you need to know about (federal, state, and local)?
• Look into getting disability and health insurance.
• Write a business plan. Is there a local chapter of that could advise you?
• Plan or set up your office. What kind of furniture, equipment, and supplies do you already have? What more will you need to get started? What are some items that are in your dream office that you won't need right away?
• Investigate your computer needs. What do you have and what more do you need? What kind of backup system will you want?
• Get demos of dedicated indexing software and begin evaluating each program. The programs I recommend you check out are Cindex, Macrex and Sky Index Professional. Remember, they all do essentially the same tasks, they just do them differently. Find the one that works best for you.
• Brush up on computer literacy. Become savvy with your word processing program. Get on the Internet. Learn how to e-mail files as attachments.
• Check out project delivery service options in your area. Are there FedEx and UPS services nearby? What about Saturdays drop off and delivery?
• Go to the library and look through their periodicals for home-office type magazines.
• Check out books about working at home and being a freelancer. Paul and Sarah Edwards have a lot of very useful books and an excellent web site for freelancers and small business owners. Ergonomics and time management issues might be worth reading about.
• Read other books on indexing. Mulvany's is a fabulous resource, but it isn't the only one. Check out Norman Knight's and Hans Wellisch's work as well. ASI has a published bibliography to get you started. You can also find a thorough bibliography on the ASI web site.
• Read indexes. Find books on your shelves and read their indexes. Are the expected topics there? How is the index constructed? Is it helpful? What makes it most usable? Read a chapter and then check the index to see if the terms you think should be there actually are. Evaluate it from a reader's standpoint. That will help you as an indexer know what works and what doesn't. Often it is easier to evaluate poor indexes than good ones. Also, recognizing poor indexes will build your confidence in your own work.
• Plan your marketing campaign. Check Literary Marketplace at your local library for publishers in your area(s) of specialty or interest. Watch publications for ads, too. If Publisher X just published a book in your specialty, that's an opportunity to write to them and let them know you have some expertise in that area and are an indexer.
• Write a script for and practice your cold query phone calls or work on your cold query letter.
• Practice answering calls from clients and people asking for quotes.
• Finally, don't just lurk on discussion lists - ask questions!

There are even more ideas listed in the article "Over 80 Productive Things to Do" while you are waiting for your Graduate School lessons to be returned (written by Dawn Spencer).

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