Optimal Indexing

American Society for Indexing held a Virtual Special Event, Indexing Life Hacks, on Tuesday, December 5, 2023. Four sessions were presented virtually via Zoom. In the second session, Project Tracking Like a Pro, Marilyn Augst described the organizational system she uses to keep track of projects, clients, and payments. She gave insight on organizing information on clients, projects, and statistics. Tracking when projects are coming in, planning how you need to allocate your time, and scheduling time for administrative work improves efficiency.

She suggested creating directories and folders on your computer and email. Each publisher should have a directory with the current books, notes, and project summaries. She recommended putting the indexing specifications in the notes file for each publisher. For Style Sheets, she saves one of the index files as a template in CINDEX. She said she keeps a Chapter Work Plan, in addition to a Summary Sheet and a Time Sheet.

She tracks how much time she spends on markup and entry in an Access database. She said she is able to figure out her overhead, as well as her hourly rate, to determine which publishers end up paying better. She strongly urged keeping backup files and saving a new file every few chapters. She suggested using a template for the invoice and sending it the day after you submit the index. She keeps a list of all invoices in Excel. Being able to track clients and projects in an organized and efficient manner enables you to do more indexing, she said.

I will focus on the next session of the ASI Virtual Event: Indexing Life Hacks in the following blog posting. For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com.