Congratulations, you’re ready to start marketing yourself as an indexer! But who are your potential clients, and how do you reach them? There are a number of ways to make contacts, but we’ll focus on email marketing in this article. Here are some ideas to get you started.
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Take it seriously
Marketing yourself to potential clients is a multi-step process that requires research and strategic-thinking. Taking the time to do it thoughtfully will pay off in the long run. You may need to send many, many emails before you secure that first paying project.
Make a longlist
Begin by compiling a list of “potential” potential clients. A good starting point is the member lists that publishers’ organizations put on their website.
In short, until you’ve landed your first project, think of marketing as your job. It might help to set aside a concrete amount of time you intend to spend on marketing yourself each day, and stick to it as best you can.
Information Today’s Literary Marketplace is a fantastic resource for new indexers: https://www.literarymarketplace.com/lmp/us/index_us.asp You will need to subscribe in order to access detailed publishers’ listings, however, a weekly subscription is quite affordable, at $24.95 USD (about $31 CAD).
Vet potential clients
Now that you’ve got a list of publishers who sound interesting to you, it’s time to narrow that list down. You want to use your time wisely, so don’t waste your time crafting emails to publishers who wouldn’t be a good fit for your indexing skills. Visit each publisher’s website and ask yourself:
- Do they publish non-fiction material?
- What subject areas do they focus on? Are these areas you have subject knowledge in?
- How many books do they publish each year? This is often included in the “about” section of publishers’ websites. Again, use your time wisely—if a press publishes only three or four books per year, it might be best to put them at the bottom of your list for now.
Do they publish hard-copy books, e-books, or both? This is often also included in the “about” section of the website.
You want to send your well-crafted email to the right person. Usually, this means the managing editor or the production coordinator. Contact information can often be found in the “contact us” section of publishers’ websites, and university presses will sometimes even include a “staff” page which is even more helpful.
Information Today’s Literary Marketplace website (mentioned above) often lists publisher contact information as well, although it’s always a good idea to visit the publisher’s website to double-check that the information is up-to-date.
If you’re unable to find a specific person to which to address your email, it’s worth trying the publisher’s general inquiries email address.
Once you start sending out your marketing emails, make sure to list who you’ve already contacted so that you don’t inadvertently contact them again. If a publisher responds to let you know they aren’t looking for indexers, or that they only work with in-house indexers, make sure to cross them off your list.
Keep track of things
Keeping track of who you’ve contacted is also a good way to stay on track and avoid getting discouraged. For instance, if you send 20 emails this week and you receive 4 positive responses (such as “We’d love to add you to our list of indexers”), that tells you that about 1/5 of all the emails you send will be positive. Only a fraction of those will lead to an actual job, however, so you know that you’ll need to send out more emails each week.
Don’t get discouraged if you’re not getting responses! Keep going until you’ve done all you can do.
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