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	New England Chapter American Society of Indexers Past Events

Spring 2005 Meeting Summary

April 2 , 2005
Carlisle, Massachusetts

Summary by Wendy Catalano

The 2005 annual spring meeting of the New England Chapter of the American Society of Indexers was held on Saturday, April 2, at the Gleason Public Library in Carlisle, MA. Despite torrential spring rains, more than thirty people representing all six New England states enjoyed two presentations, lunch, and networking time.

Indexing Technical Books: Hard

Presented by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos is the owner and sole employee of Windfall Software, a packager and compositor of technical and semi-technical books in the fields of computer science, math, chemistry, physics, biology, and economics. All of the indexes for the books he produces are done by freelancers.

Paul first discussed the packaging business and how it works, with emphasis on the production of technical books. He explained the process of book production and how it is changing as new technologies are introduced, and in particular how the indexing process is affected.

Paul clearly has a firm understanding of indexes and the manner in which they are produced, and he had many tips and suggestions for indexers of technical material, such as: limiting verbosity in subheadings, showing where in the material a concept is introduced, and numbering the paragraphs in each chapter (for example, 1-7 for chapter 1, paragraph 7) and using those numbers as the locators until the pagination is final. He also gave insight into what he, personally, looks for in an index, as well as how to go about finding packagers.

The presentation moved quickly and allowed for plenty of questions from attendees before the next presentation.

How Do You Build Your Business?

Presented by Joan Shapiro

Joan Shapiro is a past chapter president of NEASI and has been an indexer for five years. She produces mainly back-of-the-book indexes for publishers of textbooks and trade books in such subjects as nutrition/culinary arts, law, psychology, history, communications, and children’s books. Joan has a bachelor’s degree in communications and worked as a corporate video producer for more than a decade, managing productions for a large telecommunications research company.

Joan started out by describing her transition into indexing and the considerations one needs to take into account when deciding to become self-employed. She recommended many resources, both in her discussion and the handouts she provided, such as the Small Business Administration, SCORE, and ASI, among others. Some areas touched on apply not only to indexers, but to anyone considering self-employment, such as the advantages and disadvantages of a home office, the value of creating a business plan and a website, and the managing of accounts receivable.

Marketing was a topic of great interest to the attendees, and Joan’s advice in that area included marketing to one’s own interests; and keeping up with advancements in your field by taking classes, if necessary, in order to make yourself more knowledgeable and therefore more valuable. She also made the point that, when starting out, indexers should avoid turning down work from new clients whenever possible, as that client may not call back.
Joan allowed plenty of time to answer questions, which included topics such as rates and adjusting the job to fit the pay rate offered, working on multiple projects at one time, setting up a home office and finding clients, and the true flexibility indexing provides.

Handouts included an outline of the presentation (which included more subjects than she was able to touch on in the time allowed), and a sheet of resources which includes web sites, books, and articles of particular help to indexers and others starting home-based businesses.