Article
March 4, 2019
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by Stephen

What I Accomplished During My Sabbatical

Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash

Taking a sabbatical has been one of the best decisions I have made for my business. I am already thinking about doing it again next year.

For those of you who don’t know, I recently took nearly six weeks off work, from mid-January to the end of February. I did this for two main reasons: I was feeling overwhelmed and a bit burned out from a very busy year in 2018. I also realized that I no longer had a clear vision for what I wanted to accomplish through my work. When I first started freelancing, my goal was to earn enough money to support myself, and for a few years that was enough to keep work challenging. Now that I have moved beyond the start-up phase, I found that simply being busy was not enough. I needed a new challenge to focus on.

So my goal during this sabbatical was to figure out what that new thing should be. 

I thought the answer was going to be writing, because I do enjoy writing and as my wife can probably attest, it is something I frequently talk about. It is really because of writing that I sought to work in publishing in the first place. 

But looking deeper, the reason I enjoy writing—and why I enjoy indexing and blogging and introducing people to each other—is because I enjoy connecting people to new ideas and information. I enjoy being the facilitator who enables other people to accomplish what they need. 

Part of this shift, for me, came from listening to the audiobook version of Authority, by Nathan Barry. The book is about making the mindset shift from being highly proficient in your particular skill to becoming a teacher of that skill. Part of me quails at the thought of calling myself an indexing expert, especially knowing indexers who have ten, twenty, or even thirty years of experience over me. Yet I also have to acknowledge that I am no longer a novice and that I do have experience and knowledge that I can share. 

So this is my first pivot. I will continue to index, and I also want to find opportunities to share the indexing knowledge that I have.

I actually did just that during my sabbatical, by writing an email course on indexing. The course provides an overview of the components of an index and the indexing process, from the initial pre-planning to the final edit, in seven lessons delivered over seven days. It took me five and a half days to write and publish the course, and I have to admit I had a blast doing so. If you are interested, you can check it out here.

Writing is still important, though. The shift for me was to realize that while I still want to publish fiction, I am also just as happy writing nonfiction. Writing is one of the ways that I can teach and facilitate, in a more direct way than indexing (though indexing is also in service to the reader, making the text accessible). This is my second pivot, to be intentional this year about making writing part of my business. The finer details of how this will happen still need to be worked out, but I have a few ideas for writing projects and have dedicated 9-10 every morning to writing, to make sure that words are produced. 

I did some other things during my sabbatical too. Besides a week away visiting friends, I still showed up at my office almost every day. In addition to what I have already mentioned, I spent time brainstorming and writing a two page vision document; read several books to help me reflect on my work; worked my way through the exercises in the writing book Story Genius, by Lisa Cron, to improve my fiction; established a new daily and weekly schedule; and I finally finished setting up investments for retirement, which is something I started a year ago and then let fall to the wayside. In a way, I used this time to try out and practice new habits and new forms of work, such as writing the email course. Without this time, I would have felt too stressed and squeezed to invest the time and effort. I also made sure that I spent evenings and weekends resting, which was sorely lacking before. 

Returning to this theme of vision and purpose, I think the biggest benefit from this sabbatical is that I do feel energized again about my work. If I had done nothing else, the sabbatical would have been worth it to have accomplished only this. I have a much clearer sense for what I want to accomplish in the remaining ten months of 2019, and most importantly, I am excited to get going.

Article
February 16, 2019
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by Stephen

The Lazy Person’s Guide to Business Development

Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

The title for this post is, admittedly, tongue in cheek. I am not suggesting that those of us with our own businesses are lazy. It does point towards the reality, though, that it can be so hard to make time, or even know where to start looking, when it comes to business development. 

I think we know that we should be doing something beyond the day-to-day busyness of keeping our business moving along. We know that professional development keeps us sharp, that the market we are currently working in may change in the coming years, or that there are aspects of our business which could become more efficient. But none of these are, at least right now, immediate concerns. We will get to them someday, right?

I struggle with finding time too. My recent sabbatical, which I am almost finished with, is a more extreme attempt to make time for business development and growth. It is not the only way, though. 

Another approach, which I have been doing for a few years now (and which is where I first got the idea for a sabbatical) is a more passive approach. I have made it a habit to regularly listen to podcasts related to business and writing, and to read books on business and personal development. I try to read one book a month in this area. Occasionally I also attend webinars that come to my attention.

I describe this approach as passive because while I do make choices about what I read or listen to—and I do sometimes seek resources on specific topics—for the most part I am just going by whatever seems interesting and by whatever happens to come to my attention. I don’t yet know if there will be something of value that I can apply to my business. Not everything has gems that I can use, but the main point is that I keep reading and I keep listening. 

I think it is important that this has become a habit. I am regularly exposing myself to new ideas, increasing the chances that something useful to turn up. It helps that this also does not usually feel like work. I do enjoy learning, nor is there a deadline I need to meet, though there are times when I need to learn something that I don’t enjoy as much. 

Of course, if I do come across information that I think I can and should apply to my business, then I have to put in the work to do so. I am not saying that change and growth is always easy, but at least identifying the path towards growth is fairly easy. 

To illustrate what I mean, I would like to mention five examples—three books and two podcasts—that I have either read recently or I regularly listen to, which I have found helpful and would recommend. Your list will probably vary based on your interests and needs, but maybe this will give you some ideas for what you can look for.

Lead to Win podcast

Michael Hyatt bills himself as a virtual mentor for leaders. He spent most of his career in publishing, becoming CEO of Thomas Nelson, and now runs his own eponymous company offering various products, mostly focused on leadership and achieving goals. His podcast Lead to Win, co-hosted with his daughter and COO Megan Hyatt Miller, is free. He also has a previous podcast, This is Your Life, which is similar and also quite good.

I don’t find everything discussed in these podcasts to be relevant. Hyatt’s main audience is leaders in companies with actual employees, much bigger and more complex than my freelancing outfit. That said, because Hyatt is working at a higher level of business than I am, the podcast does introduce me to topics I wouldn’t normally have considered before and it does inspire me to think big and push beyond my comfort level, which I think is good for me. 

The Prolific Writer podcast

The Prolific Writer is a podcast that challenges my writing goals. It is hosted by Ryan J. Pelton, often features interviews with other indie authors, and is dedicated to prolific writing. Pretty much all of the authors involved publish multiple books a year. I am still trying to write my first book, so I am not in that league yet, and I am still a bit incredulous at what some of these authors are able to accomplish. The value for me, though, is that it does challenge my beliefs about what is possible, and besides being inspirational I do pick up nuggets here and there about writing, self-publishing, and the writing market. 

Deep Work, by Cal Newport

I mentioned this book in my blog post last week. Deep work is deliberately spending long periods of time concentrating, without distractions, on high value and cognitively demanding tasks. I’ve been aware of deep work for a couple of years, and finally read the book last month. I am convinced that indexing requires deep work in order to be done effectively, and reading this book has helped me to reconfigure my workday to minimize distractions and maximize the amount of focused time I spend indexing. I highly recommend it.

Make Time, by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky

Make Time is another book I have read recently and referenced in a blog post. It is also about how to remove distractions and to make time for what is most important. This is more of a how-to book, as it contains over eighty techniques that you can try. What I found most helpful was their experimental approach. The authors acknowledge that different techniques are going to work for different people, and that everyone is unique in their work demands, their goals, and their biorhythms. So they encourage readers to try different techniques, keep a journal of what works and what does not, and to gradually figure out a personalized schedule. I also recommend their book Sprint, which is not easily applicable to someone working solo, but I still enjoyed learning about their approach to problem solving and product development.

Perennial Seller, by Ryan Holiday

I read this book last year, and the ideas it contains continue to stick with me. Holiday discusses how to create and market items that will continue to sell year in and year out. These may not hit the bestseller lists, but that’s okay because their value will continue to grow over time. This really resonates with my own beliefs about producing quality work. The book read like a road map for the direction I knew I wanted to go in but was not sure how. 

What resources do you find helpful for growing your business?

Article
February 8, 2019
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by Stephen

Indexing as Deep Work

Photo by Nathan Ziemanski on Unsplash

Deep work, as defined by Cal Newport in his book of the same title, is “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”

As I was reading Newport’s book on this topic, it struck me that indexing is ideally suited for deep work. Especially as I work as a full-time indexer, with often a handful of deadlines in a month, I need to spend several hours every day, sitting at my computer, indexing. I need to be able to see, understand, and hold in my mind both the overarching argument or structure of the book (as well as the overarching structure of the index) as well as the smaller details that flesh out that argument and structure. I am creating a document from scratch that to some extent is unique to me, in that other indexers would write their own variations. And the index will, I hope, add value to the book and for readers. It is not something that is easy to replicate. 

Newport identifies shallow work as being the opposite of deep work. This is work that is low value, non-cognitively demanding, and easily done by someone else. The trick, to reach professional goals or to simply stay on top of deadlines, is to focus on performing deep work—what does drive value—and to minimize or eliminate shallow work. 

I think this distinction between deep and shallow work also applies to indexing, and is highlighted by the contract nature of freelancing. Being a freelancer gives me a lot of freedom in how I use my time—which can be used poorly to read the news or watch Youtube videos. It also means that I need to be aware of and responsive to my email inbox, both for new project offers and to be responsive to existing clients. I would say this is all shallow work, because while I do need to communicate with clients and have a method for accepting new projects, I don’t get paid for checking email. While I do need some breaks throughout the day when I index, news and Youtube can serve as distractions and prove to be less effective as breaks if they are taking me away from indexing. While shallow work is not necessary bad, if we do not prioritize deep work and find ways to keep shallow work at bay during those times, then deep work is unlikely to happen.

So how to prioritize deep work?

Newport’s book has challenged me to rethink how I work. In particular, what are my distractions and how do I handle them? Distractions, even ones that seem fairly innocuous, pull you out of a state of concentration and it can take several minutes to return to the task at hand. This happening once isn’t too bad, but if it is repeated throughout the day those minutes can add up. In my experience, distractions also build upon each other. If I follow that sudden urge to check a fact on Wikipedia, I am likely to have subsequent sudden urges that will be harder to resist. I find distractions can also cause a lot of stress and anxiety, because while a part of me is enjoying the distraction, another part is aware that I am falling behind on the task I should be focused on, which creates a vicious cycle. The more anxious I become the more I seek distractions to sooth the anxiety.

As I have come to realize, the costs to the quality of the indexes I write, how quickly I can index, and the stress I inflict on myself through distractions are too high. At least, I do not want to pay them anymore. I know I can’t eliminate every single distraction, but I can do a lot to eliminate most of them, at least the ones that are self-inflicted. 

So far, I’ve come up with a few strategies to better facilitate deep work. Here are three of them:

  • I use the Freedom app to block myself from most news sites and blogs that I typically frequent. The only day I allow myself to browse these sites are Sundays. I have a different block for social media. This does not work perfectly as there are, of course, other news sites and blogs that I have not yet discovered (and which I subsequently have to block), but overall I do feel much more focused and less anxious. And to be honest, I find I don’t really miss the news. I still get a general sense of what is happening in the world from talking to other people and hearing snippets on the radio, and I have enough interesting things to focus on among my own work.
  • I have stopped checking email in the mornings, and I try to only check email twice in the afternoon. I have been surprised at the results. I have come to value my distraction-free mornings, which is when I can create my best and most important work. So far clients have not noticed or commented on slower replies.
  • I take a long break in the middle of the day. I go to the local YMCA, and depending on the day I either join a circuit training class or I swim. I also eat lunch. All of this takes about an hour and a half. What makes this work is that if I get out of bed on time, I have three hours of deep work in the morning, and then another three and a half hours of deep work in the afternoon. The exercise gives me a chance to rest my brain and recharge for the afternoon session.

These new habits do, I realize, introduce some inconveniences for myself and others. I am not likely to reply immediately to an email. There have been times my wife has forwarded me an interesting news article which I cannot read because of the internet blocks I have in place. Last Sunday, I was surprised to learn that the Super Bowl was happening, and realized I had completely missed the buildup. 

I think the trade-offs are worth it, though. If my clients are hiring me to index, and if indexing requires long periods of concentration, and if I want to produce quality indexes while also preserving time for rest in the evenings and on weekends, then I need to structure my workday and put safeguards in place to make sure that indexing happens in the scheduled hours. I wish I could say that I did not need these safeguards, but I have come to realize that I do. 

The questions are fairly simple: What are my priorities? How do I create lasting value for myself and for others? What do I need to do to make sure these happen?

Article
January 8, 2019
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by Stephen

Making Friends with My Calendar

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Happy New Year! 

I hope your holiday festivities were heart-warming and restorative. My wife and I started ours with our car dying the night before we planned to hit the road, though the holidays did get better from there and we are thankful for a few days with family. 

I don’t usually make New Year resolutions. I think that is largely due to a fear of failure, and of not knowing how to actually implement these goals and aspirations. Change is hard. But I have been thinking recently: if there is one thing I could change this year that would have a significant impact on my life, what would that be? I have decided that that one thing is to make friends with my calendar.

What do I mean by that? Why do I often feel like my calendar is my enemy, or at least a puzzle that is impossible to decipher? There are a number of reasons. Especially as my business has grown in the last few years, I have often felt like my schedule controls me. I feel like I need to work on evenings and weekends in order to meet deadlines, which means making trade-offs with other activities that are also meaningful. I realize this may not be so much a scheduling problem so much as an I’m-accepting-too-much-work kind of problem, but either way it boils down to feeling out of control and overwhelmed.

The problem goes deeper, however, as I have struggled with setting schedules for myself since university. This seems counterintuitive, as I actually thrive on routine. And therein lies the problem, I think. My tendency, when I devise a schedule for myself, is to stick to it as rigidly as possible. Interruptions or other unplanned changes cause me to panic and get disoriented, and eventually I abandon the schedule for a more reactive, and stressful, mode of being. I seem to be in a bind where not having a schedule is not serving me well, yet my typical approach to scheduling and calendars is also not serving me well. I need to find a better way. 

So how do I become friends with my calendar? I mentioned this resolution to my wife, and she astutely pointed out that it is quite an abstract goal. 

I agree with her, and I am okay with that. I am realizing that my relationship to my calendar and schedule is multi-faceted. There is coming to terms with my years of fears, anxieties, and frustrations with schedules. There is learning how to productively handle changes within a schedule. There is finding a scheduling framework that seems to work for me. There is understanding my own biorhythms so that I am working with myself, rather than trying to cram myself into an artificial construct. All of this will take time to figure out and understand.

One book I have read recently is Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day, by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. What I appreciate so much about their book, compared to some others I have read about calendars and schedules, is their acknowledgement that everyone is different. They offer eighty-seven tactics to try, but fundamentally their approach is to experiment and be reflective about what works and what doesn’t. I found it incredibly freeing to realize that I don’t need to have the perfect schedule right away, but I can take time to develop it, and that setbacks along the way are part of the process. Indeed, as I age and other life events happen, my schedule will probably continue to evolve. 

The book also discusses a scheduling technique from Cal Newport, who wrote the book Deep Work. In this technique, you write a new schedule for yourself every day, and leave room to revise the schedule as needed. This provides a mechanism—which I have been sorely missing—to thoughtfully acknowledge that change can and will happen, and to recognize that the remaining time can still be reallocated and used productively. I’ve been trying this for a week now, and it has been a helpful tool for reflection. I have handled interruptions better, and on the flip side, it has also helped me stick to my schedule when I’ve been tempted to change for no good reason. 

Another new initiative I’ve been using for about six weeks now is to put up white board wall stickers in my work space. This has been a fantastic change for me. I think I am still learning just how tactile and visually-oriented I am, as I am enjoying both seeing my work on the wall and the physical labour of writing, crossing out, and erasing. Borrowing the concept of sprints and burndown charts from a book I indexed, I list all of my current projects for a two-week period so I have the constant visual reminder of what I need to accomplish. I also graph my progress each day, so I can see where I am with each project. The whiteboard is also a great space to brainstorm, to write notes, and to make lists. I use it every day.

I already have some ideas for what else I want to try this year to become more comfortable with my calendar. I am happy with some of the results so far, and I am sure more ideas will come up as I experiment and reflect. I am hopeful that 2019 will be the year I finally get a handle on my schedule. I wish you all the best in your endeavours this year too.

What are some of the ways or resources you use to keep your calendar in order?

Article
October 28, 2018
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by Stephen

Freelance Anniversary Reflections

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This is my sixth anniversary as a freelance indexer! It was the end of October, 2012, that I left my job at Harbour Publishing and moved back to Vancouver with the intention to work for myself. That first year I received only a few projects, which I have to admit I used as an opportunity to travel. Since I have started, though, I have worked on (or will, once I finish what is currently on my desktop) 224 projects. Work certainly picked up, especially starting my third year. I don’t have an exact count of books indexed, but including books from when I worked in-house, I think I am somewhere in the range of 210-230 indexes written. Someday it would be really neat to be in a room with all of the books I have worked on. For the most part I work on the computer with digital files, so to see the actual physical product all around me would be amazing.  

I’ve been doing some reflection on my business. When I started, part of the motivation was to see if I could start a viable business. I think I can now say, with the support of all of the publishers, editors, and authors who have entrusted their books to me, that I have. I am thankful for the relationships that I have built with clients and colleagues. It is a great little community that I had no idea existed when I started. 

Recently, I’ve been asking myself, “What’s next?” I don’t see this as a negative question, and for the time being I plan to continue in this work. I think every business changes over time, either in response to the market or due to changes in the people working in the business. I know I have definitely changed in the last few years. Some of my reasons for freelancing have either been fulfilled or are no longer applicable, which I think is worth reflecting on. I have also been feeling like the pace I have been working at over the last few months is unsustainable. Being a one-person business, I am not doing myself, or my clients, a favour if I burn out. 

I have decided to take January and maybe February (I’ll see how I feel when I get there) off as a sabbatical. I am a bit nervous as I have never done this before. This is not intended to be a holiday, and for the most part I will stay in Edmonton. I am still working on the details, but I hope to use the time for a mixture of rest; reflection and strategizing for the next few years, both in business and in life (which are very much intertwined, especially as a freelancer); and to get caught up on some projects and tasks I’ve been neglecting. I hope to emerge with a renewed sense of purpose and a more sustainable approach to work and life. I see the sabbatical as an opportunity to grow.

I am sure that I will have more to write later on the sabbatical, as I continue to prepare and then once I’ve completed it. For now, I am looking forward to it. It does feel like the right time. When indexing, it is easy to get caught up in the small details of each project and to not see the big picture of my business and life. I look forward to taking a step back and getting a sense for what the next six years might look like.

Article
July 25, 2018
2 comments
by Stephen

Holidays, and the Fear of Missing Out

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I am entering the final stretch of scrambling to wrap up projects before I leave tomorrow for a week-long holiday. I have yet to manage a smooth transition from work to holiday. Somehow I just cannot seem to finish projects until the very last minute. Sometimes I end up taking the project on the airplane to finish. This trip, though, I am driving, so double incentive to finish before I go.

At least I have a week away to look forward to.  

As a freelancer, I have often heard people voice a fear of going on holiday, which is really a fear of being out of contact should a potential job come knocking. I have also felt this fear before, especially as a new freelancer when work was sparse. At that stage of one’s career, every job can feel like a big opportunity, and you don’t want to miss out. It can be hard enough to find work as it is.

In the last couple of years I’ve had the opposite problem. I have had steady work, and it has felt like the only way for me to take time off is if I schedule it in advance and proactively tell clients when I am going to be unavailable. Thankfully, most of my regular clients seem to understand, even if it occasionally means I have to turn down a project. I think I’ve even had a client once ask when my summer holiday was going to be, so they could schedule around it. That is one way to melt your freelancer’s heart.

Being busy as a freelancer is a two-edged sword. As new indexers, it is what we aspire to, if we are trying to derive a living from our work. I find that people often respond, “But that’s a good thing,” when I tell them that work has been busy. Because work equals money, right? At the same time, I have experienced periods of burnout as a freelancer, when I can feel my focus, intellect, and motivation stretched thin. I believe that as humans, we are made for periods of rest, so I have become quite deliberate about taking regular holidays. They are a necessity if I am going to freelance long term. If anything, I think that my clients should be thankful when I go on holiday, because I will probably be a better indexer in the couple of weeks after I get back. 

(Finding and creating periods of rest and margin in everyday life, such as actually taking evenings and weekends off, or whatever time period works best, is a similar issue, and one I still struggle with. It is not quite enough to take a holiday every few months. Smaller breaks are needed between the big breaks.)

Still, as freelancers, planning a holiday can be nerve-wracking. There is the risk that we will miss out on work. It can be hard to schedule if clients are contacting us months in advance with a project, before we  have figured out our own holiday plans. How can we successfully plan and take a holiday without ruining our career?

For me, it starts with making holidays a priority. As I mentioned, I have realized that I need periodic holidays in order to maintain peak indexing condition. I also have family and friends who live far away that I want to see, and I don’t see them if I spend all my time at home working. So while work is still a priority (I still spend most of my time indexing), I also have reasons for taking time off. I have also come to trust that turning down the occasional project is not going to ruin my work schedule or relationships. My regular clients, thankfully, are understanding, and I already have projects that will be waiting for me when I return. 

If you are a newer freelancer, missing out on work is a very understandable concern. I think you can still get in the habit of scheduling holidays. Recognize that you are at a stage in your career when work is likely going to be sparse, regardless of whether you stay at home or go on a holiday. You are not going to be in this stage forever. You may miss out on an opportunity for work by going on holiday, but if going on holiday is a priority, then missing one or two jobs, in the long run, is going to be okay. To be honest, I wish I had established the habit of holidaying earlier, so I could have avoided burning out once work got busy. Early in my career, I did not really know how to say no or how to pace my schedule, which eventually became a problem. 

Once the priority has been set, I find it important to schedule the holiday a couple of months or more in advance. My work schedule is usually booked two months in advance and I do not want to kick clients off my schedule if I have made a prior commitment to them. So for holidays, I find a clear spot on the calendar that is not already occupied, and stake out that space. It is mine, and I am not going to allow a client to take it over. 

The next step is to tell clients. I have been diligent this last month, and especially this last week, reminding clients that I am going to be away and unavailable. Occasionally this means turning down a project (I did turn one down this week). More often, it is a scenario like accepting a project but letting the client know that I will be starting a couple of days after the proofs become available, because I will not be home yet. I think some clients can be amendable to working with your plans so long as they are not surprised at the last minute.

If you are going on a longer trip, say longer than two or three weeks, you can let regular clients know ahead of time and ask if they have upcoming projects they want to schedule for when you return. This can mitigate the scenario of the client trying to contact you while you are away and you being unable to respond. This can also provide some peace of mind, knowing that there will be work waiting for you when you come back. Alternatively, you can contact clients when you return, to let them know that you are open again for business. Either way, you are giving the client some guidance, both about your schedule and about when is the best time to communicate with you. 

The last consideration is, do you stay connected while on holiday? Ideally, to fully disconnect, I do not take my laptop with me, and I do not check email. I instead set up an auto-reply letting people know when I will be back. When I am away, I want to fully engage with my holiday. Occasionally, though, I do need to finish a project in the first couple of days away, or I need my laptop for other reasons, which often leads to checking email every few days. Still, I find it can be so satisfying and refreshing to be free from my devices. To read a paper book instead of the screen. 

On that note, I should get back to work and get my remaining projects sewn up so I can depart tomorrow guilt-free. I hope you enjoy a wonderful holiday too, whenever you take your next.

Article
June 25, 2018
1 comment
by Stephen

Standing Up to Imposter Syndrome

Photo by James Pond on Unsplash

It occurred to me, after I published the post a couple of weeks ago on how to define and self-assess experience, that imposter syndrome is closely related. How many freelancers experience that? I do. 

Imposter syndrome is that nagging feeling that my accomplishments are all a fraud. I don’t actually know what I am doing. Sooner or later a client or a colleague will call me out on the terrible quality of my work. 

This can often flare up with a more difficult project. Perhaps the index is for a subject I am less familiar with. Or maybe I am in a dry spell for work, and I am wondering, will anyone ever send me work again? Or maybe I am just tired, which causes the project I am working on to seem more daunting than it actually is. Whatever the case, I start to doubt myself. I second guess decisions. I get anxious when faced with a difficult section in the index and I have to step away for a moment to refocus. 

Do you ever feel this way? I suspect it is fairly common. The Writing Excuses podcast has an excellent episode on imposter syndrome from a couple of years ago. 

I do not know if imposter syndrome will ever fully go away. I seem to be in its grips less often now, though I can see a couple of upcoming projects that are a little outside my comfort zone. I wonder if it is most common in that career stage shortly after being a rookie, in that time when you are coming to grips with newfound success, and are trying to turn that newfound success and experience into confidence. 

Occasionally clients will send me a handwritten note of appreciation. I have three of them pinned to my bulletin board, to remind me that at least three people like my work. I also have a handful of testimonials that I can refer to, sent via email. These are all confidence boosters, and very much appreciated. If you are someone who hires indexers, and you genuinely like the work, take a moment to say so. Your comment will make a difference. 

If you are someone who experiences imposter syndrome, know that you are not alone. It can happen to all of us. At best, use it as a tool to deepen your craft and improve. Otherwise, know that what it is telling you is false. Try to find ways to remind yourself of that fact. You are a professional, and you do have what it takes to do your job. 

My apologies for not blogging last week. I was sick two weeks ago, which made last week extremely busy, catching up on work. I did draft this post, but did not get as far as revising and posting it. I hope to get back on track going forward.

Article
June 11, 2018
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by Stephen

Defining Experience, One Index (and One Tree) at a Time

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Experience can be tricky to define and gauge. As a freelancer, what standard do you compare yourself to? When are you no longer a “newbie”? Some professional societies, such as the UK’s Society of Indexers or Editors Canada, offer certification, which can be helpful. Many others do not offer these external standards by which we can gauge ourselves. Is it a matter of, “I know it when I see it”?

I returned home a couple of days ago from the Indexing Society of Canada’s annual conference, held this year in Winnipeg. It was the fifth indexing conference I have attended. Unexpectedly, I came away feeling like I was truly an experienced indexer. I do not say this to brag or to say that I have finally arrived, whatever that means. There has been a shift, though—a subtle, unlooked for, shift, perhaps—in how I view myself, and perhaps in how I perceive how my colleagues view me. 

I have been trying to think about what happened at the conference that might have contributed to this shift. I did announce our new mentorship program, which I helped to write the proposal for and for which I am now one of the two coordinators tasked with turning the proposal into a functioning program. I know that indexing experience is not strictly necessary to put together a mentorship program, but I am still feeling the weight of this responsibility. I did feel like I recognized more colleagues than I have in the past, and in turn was recognized by them. I have been around long enough that colleagues are starting to turn into friends. I did talk to a number of newer indexers, compared to whom I am, I realize, more experienced, while there are others who have been indexing far longer. I suppose you could say that in my sixth year as a freelancer I am somewhere in the middle of my career. The beginning is now past.

I often think about the two seasons I planted trees in northern British Columbia, when I think about the acquisition and progression of experience. I turned nineteen and twenty those two summers. Tree planting is seasonal work in Canada, to replace the trees cut down by logging. First year planters are called rookies, and you remain a rookie until the last day of the season. If you come back for a second year, you are a vet. The demarcation is clear.

Experience is what differentiates rookies from vets. The first season is dedicated to learning proper technique, how to read the ground, and how to add speed, once technique is ingrained. I only hit the two thousand tree mark three, maybe four days that first summer. For me, much of that first season was also the mental struggle to stay engaged in a repetitious, physically demanding task and environment. Especially in the third month, I am pretty sure I was burning out. One afternoon I literally threw my shovel away and cried, alone in the middle of the clearcut. I felt numb and exhausted. All I wanted to do was to sit and be somewhere else. But, I was in the middle of the wilderness with a bag of seedlings strapped to my waist. At the very least I needed to walk back to the truck, which I think was at least a ten minute walk. So after sitting for a bit I found my shovel and dragged myself back to work.

In contrast, my second season got off to a flying start. I hit two thousand trees within the first few days and maintained that pace for the rest of the summer. I would often plant upwards to 2,200 trees a day, occasionally more, with my personal best being about 2,650, on trenched ground, with a sore knee. I was refreshed from nine months away, and all of that experience from my first year—all that I was trying to achieve my first year—suddenly became possible. I was clearly no longer a rookie. That said, there were a few vets on our crew who had been planting for five or more years. They would routinely plant three thousand trees a day, sometimes going up to four or five thousand if the ground was creamy. Experience exists on a continuum. 

Bringing this back to indexing, I think there are a few markers for experience. One is simply putting in the work, measured both in time and in indexes completed. Indexing, like tree planting, is inherently hands-on. While knowledge about technique can inform practice, that knowledge will never replace practice. The best way to gain experience is to just do the work. 

A second aspect is self-reflection. I think it is possible for someone to index poorly for a long time, because they have never thought about how they index or how they can improve. I think when someone is described as an experienced indexer, quality is often implied, which requires attention to craft. The other side of this is that even experienced indexers can get better. There is always room to learn. 

I think that mindset is a third aspect. I see this in myself, in that somewhere along the way I have come to recognize that I have completed a significant body of work, that my work processes and skills have changed over time (hopefully for the better), and that I am better able to deal with challenges as they arise. I also have a changing sense of myself in relation to my colleagues, whether those are colleagues ahead of me, with me, or behind me on this continuum of experience. I am coming to see that I am experienced, while also seeing that there is still more that I can learn. 

Maybe I am premature to consider myself experienced. Maybe I will look back on this post ten years from now and think, “What is that idiot talking about?” And maybe I will think the same again twenty years from now. I don’t know. Either way, the work continues. I trust that you and I, if we keep chipping away at our craft, will find experience, one way or another. And there is always another indexing conference next year to look forward to.

I wasn’t able to find a stock photo of tree planting, but check this article out on Vice for some stunning photos. There is nothing quite like pounding trees. It is as much a lifestyle as it is a job.

Article
May 21, 2018
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by Stephen

Code-Switching, in Language and in Freelance Life

My childhood was conducted in three languages. 

At home, my family spoke English. School, from grade one to halfway through grade three, was conducted in Mandarin Chinese (half way through grade three I transferred to the English-speaking international school, where we still had daily Mandarin classes). The language spoken at the church my family attended was primarily Taiwanese, which is the language my parents first learned when we moved to Taiwan. Everyday life outside of church, school, and home was conducted in a mixture of Taiwanese and Mandarin, except for the rare occasions when we got together with other foreigners. 

The technical term for this fluent switching back and forth is code-switching. Most Taiwanese are experts at this. If you only know one of the two main languages in Taiwan, there is much that you will not understand.

As a kid, I took code-switching for granted. Even today, though my ability to speak in Mandarin and Taiwanese is rusty, and my vocabulary is not as broad as I would like, my comprehension remains stable. I can still follow a conversation in which Taiwanese, Mandarin, and English are all being used in some combination. I often think in Mandarin and Taiwanese. This is not something that I consciously try to do; it just is, in the same way that I can understand Taiwanese, but am unable to explain its seven tones.

I have been thinking about code-switching recently in relation to my work. I have been juggling multiple projects over the last few weeks. Too many projects, it seems. There is the indexing, of course, often two books at a time, with more waiting my attention. I am also consulting on a long-term project rewriting a policy document, which is a new type of work for me. I am also nearly finished proofreading a book, for which I also wrote the index. Add in an hour of writing for myself every morning, and it feels like each day I am working on four distinct projects, at least, trying to keep each moving forward towards their respective deadlines.

Am I too busy? I admit I have taken on too many projects. Learning to say no to clients continues to be a challenge, while also accurately judging how long projects will take to complete, my own energy, and being protective of my own time and priorities. I am still learning how quickly or slowly I can turn around a project, which seems to vary anyway as I become more proficient at indexing, or if a project is easier or harder than expected. It is the usual fluid and chaotic schedule of a freelancer, or at least how I imagine most freelancers work. 

Specifically, I have been thinking about my need to quickly switch between projects throughout the day.  I need to put down my consulting for the day and pick up the indexing or proofreading from where I left off the day before. I need to be able to finish indexing a chapter in one book and then start indexing the next chapter of another book. I do not have much time to catch up on what I previously completed; I need to have that knowledge ready to go.

This is tough work, I am realizing. It takes a mental toll to be on like this throughout the day, to be able to jump from task to task, and topic to topic, while maintaining the same pace throughout. I try to make it easier by working on these projects in the same order each day, so that I can have a routine and rhythm that I can take for granted. 

I have also been wondering if code-switching might be a metaphor for this switching back and forth. A bad metaphor, perhaps. Code-switching in speech often occurs within the same sentence, at least in Taiwan. The switching I am doing in my work is sequential and not nearly so rapid. But I still have to maintain fluency, so to speak, in all projects. The pivot from one to the next has to feel effortless.

Easier said than done, I know. This post is not meant to brag about how much I can accomplish. It is, instead, admitting that I’ve been in over my head again these last few weeks, trying to do too much. I look forward to saying goodbye to projects and finding some margin again for rest and other activities. I find three projects per day to be my sweet maximum. That is the number I need to keep in mind as I book projects and plan my schedule.

If you are a freelancer, how do you tame your schedule? Do you try to work on more than one project at a time?

Article
May 14, 2018
2 comments
by Stephen

Strategic and Persistent Marketing

Marketing is probably the one area that most stumps freelancers. Unless the skill you are offering is that of marketing consultant, this is not what you trained for. The thought of cold-calling reduces your voice to a stuttering whisper. If you are new to freelancing, you might also be wracked with insecurity about your qualifications. Are you good enough for someone to hire?

Let’s say that yes, you are good enough to hire. If you have undergone training, have made opportunities to practice your craft, and gotten feedback from others, then you are already a big step ahead of the amateurs. You will continue to learn as you work, but for now, yes, you are good enough to open for business.

So, back to the question: how do we market ourselves?

The actual how is difficult to answer. So much depends on what you are comfortable doing, and what will most effectively reach your target clients. I once read an article in an indexing resource titled something like “A Hundred Ways to Market Yourself.” (I wish I could find that article again.) Some of the ways given were very practical and others were a bit goofy, but the point was, marketing is basically getting your name and services in front of the right people, however that happens. 

I like to think about marketing as forming relationships and connections with the right people. In a niche industry like indexing, it is only a small subset of people who actually need to hire an indexer. Trying to sell my services to the marketing team may lead to a referral to the managing editor, who is the person I actually need to be talking to, but it won’t be the most effective use of my effort. So one of the first considerations is, who do I actually need to talk to? 

To help narrow down the possibilities, answer these questions:

  • What is your market? There are hundreds of publishers out there, and who knows how many thousands of authors, not to mention journals and possibly corporations and government entities who could use an indexer. Unless you plan on starting a large indexing company, working across the whole field, you can’t possibly serve them all. So what kind of clients do you want to work with? Do you want to work with authors or publishers? Do you have a preference between trade, scholarly, or a speciality subject? Do you want to work with clients within a certain geographical area? Your market can overlap any or all of these areas. You can also choose to target different markets as your business grows. But to provide focus, pick a market and focus on that for now. 
  • Who, within your chosen market, are the gatekeepers to paid work? As I mentioned above, marketing is about connecting with the right people. Everyone else you can fairly safely ignore. I say fairly safely because even someone not directly connected to indexing might be able to refer you to work, so by all means make it widely known that you are open for business. That knowledge might just percolate and eventually turn into a job. But for more immediate results, find the gatekeepers. In a publishing house, this will probably be the managing or production editor. If you are not sure who is responsible for hiring indexers, ask. Finding the people who need indexers will take some time and research, and it is well worth the effort. When you do make your pitch, you do not want to waste your time or theirs talking to the wrong person. 

Once you have identified who to contact, these are a few points to consider as you plan your marketing strategy.

  • Choose a marketing method. There are many ways to approach a potential client. I think if done rightly, there are no wrong ways. As mentioned, the main factors are, is it a way that you are comfortable with, and will it effectively reach the client. Personally, I prefer to make contact by email or to network at conferences and other events. I have also tried cold-calling, and once I arranged to meet a managing editor for coffee and tour their office, which I would definitely do again if I moved to a new city and wanted to meet the local publishers. I once heard a presentation from an indexer who conducted an extensive and successful snail mail campaign, and I’ve talked to an indexer who found work on business books through Google ads. Pick two or three ways that you are comfortable with and given them a try. If the first try does not succeed, try again. People will not always reply, so try several times to see if a method is effective or not. If a method is not effective, try something else. The point of choosing a method is to provide focus. It is not to lock you into a method forever. 
  • Show that you understand your potential client’s needs. I think it can be easy to assume that a publisher and an indexer are an obvious match. It can be tiresome to personalize forty emails. But while parts of that email can be the same across all forty, it is still important to show that you know something about the books or the needs of that particular client. Show that this is not just another email that you are dashing off, but that you have put thought into this effort to connect.
  • Talk about yourself with specific details. The flip side about being knowledgable about the client is being specific about your own abilities and accomplishments. If you haven’t yet landed your first project, then mention your training and any academic or employment experience which would be relevant to the books at hand. You can also mention indexes that you have written for practice or as a volunteer. If you have been hired for a few projects, then mention those, including the publishers. If you have a testimonial, put that in. You do not want to send a bland, generic message. Let the client know that you are a real person with experience and knowledge of the industry and the task. 
  • Pay attention to local and new publishers. I wonder if this is an area that some indexers overlook, because it seems like local or new publishers can’t possibly provide enough work. That is most likely true, but local publishers can still be a great starting point. You can use projects from smaller clients to show larger clients what you are capable of. And, I think it can sometimes be easier to get work from local clients. One managing editor told me that she prefers to hire local, even though she knows that with the internet, there is no rational basis for that preference. With someone local, you can also meet them in person, which, if you make a good impression, could be much more effective than an email or phone call. As for a new publisher, becoming their first freelance indexer could help ensure a steady stream of work into the future. So keep your eyes and ears open for changes in the publishing scene so you can respond quickly to new opportunities. 
  • Don’t despise the small clients. This relates to what I wrote last week about having a diverse client base. A small or medium sized publisher will not be able to provide full-time work, but a handful of small publishers might. So don’t be afraid to market to smaller potential clients. It is not a waste of time. 

By this point, I don’t blame you if you are wondering if we are done yet. There is a lot to consider. But take a deep breathe—I am almost done.  Just a few more big-picture points to consider.

  • Think long term. You may meet the perfect managing editor who can send you work, but they don’t need you yet. Indexing is just one part of the book production process, and maybe when you make contact, they don’t have any books at that stage. Or perhaps they already work with other indexers, and the editor is willing to give you a try but you have to wait until the other indexers are not available. It can sometimes take months or even years for a contact to actually send you work. To give an extreme example, I was recently hired, for the first time, by someone I first met at a networking event four or five years ago. She still remembered me, and when someone else recently recommended me to her, she decided that it was finally time to get in contact with a job. Thankfully the next longest span for me between first contact and a project was about a year, and with most other clients it was a matter of within a few months. But still, marketing may not yield immediate results. So do not be discouraged if work is slow to come. Keep trying, follow-up, and the work will eventually come. 
  • Remember that marketing is a numbers game. The more people you contact, the better the odds that at least some of them will reply with work. If you contact ten publishers, expect that maybe one or two will get back to you. If you factor in time, maybe a couple more will eventually respond as well. It can be discouraging to put in all that work to only receive silence. This is fairly common, unfortunately. So within your chosen market, and having done your research to identify the gatekeepers and how you can meet their needs, reach out to as many potential clients as you can.
  • Network. Like marketing, this is another of those dreaded words for freelancers, especially if you are an introvert and part of your motivation for freelancing is because you want to work at home by yourself. What does it mean to network? Like marketing, it is about making connections with the people who need you or who can refer you onwards. I don’t enjoy getting together with strangers either, but a lot of it is, honestly, just showing up and saying hello. Surprisingly, this is now one of my preferred methods. Networking does get easier with practice, especially if you can return to the same event two or three times. The first time may be awkward, but by the second or third visit, people will start to recognize you, and you them. 

Okay, you can breathe again. Thank you for staying with me to the end. 

Marketing is intimidating, but with a focused plan it is possible. You can gain clients and launch your freelance career. Be persistent, be strategic, and the work will eventually come.

The Freelance Career Launch Series is a set of posts about how to start your freelance career. The focus will be on indexing, because that is what I do, but the principles are universal.