Why Hire Index Plus

Index Plus can create a back of the book or periodical index. Benefits of a good index include: making your book easier to use, increasing the chance that a shopper purchases your book instead of a similar title, and adding a marketing element compared to a book without an index. It provides a built-in list of tags people can use when talking about your book on their website or social media.

Professional affiliations include:

• American Society for Indexing, member 2006-present. www.asindexing.org
• Pacific Northwest Chapter of ASI, Secretary 2008-2009 and 2016-2017, Conference Planning Team 2010-2011 and 2014-2017, and Membership Coordinator 2018-present. www.pnwasi.org
• Legal Indexing Special Interest Group of ASI, Officer 2006-2011 and 2016-present.  www.legalindexing.org
• American Association of Law Librarians, Government Law Libraries Special Interest Section, and Pacific Northwest Chapter member 2000-present, and Education Committee member 2014-2016.  www.allnet.org
• Oregon Bar Association, member 1991-1997, inactive member 1998-present.  www.osbar.org

Education and training:

• Certificate of Practical Competency in Indexing from Index West, a Certificate of Participation for the Building Indexes and Taxonomies for Legal Materials workshop by Enid Zafran and Kate Mertes, and completion of the ASI Training in Indexing Course.
• Continuing education includes attending regular meetings with fellow indexers as well as ASI national and chapter meetings.

• Degrees include a JD (law degree) and a BS (psychology). Employment history includes work as an attorney, law librarian, and freelance writer. 

Specialty subjects include:

•  law and criminal justice
•  teaching and education
•  children, families, and parenting
•  psychology and social sciences
•  finance and money management
•  business
      

I will consider any subject if I feel that I can do a good job with the material.  I've done a variety of topics in addition to those listed.     

Why do you need a professional indexer?

• A good index requires objectivity an author lacks. An indexer can see the book from the reader's perspective, and allow the reader to access information in multiple ways.
• An indexer uses professional software that increases indexing speed to meet tight deadlines and to offer various output options.
• An indexer has technical training and practice in indexing.
• Although the author is the expert on the subject, the indexer brings a sense of priority and structure to the work from an outsider's view.
• Read this in the words of someone who tried to do it herself: chronicle story
• Three reasons why scholars should hire an indexer:
• Why you need a human, not a computer, for your index: human versus computer
• Electronic searching is just not enough to replace a real index.
• Best Practices for Indexing from the American Society for Indexing: Best Practices from ASI
• Learn more about indexing by taking an online asynchronous class about indexing called Indexing Books as a Career. 
• In a Google Era, Indexers are the Unsung Heroes of the Publishing World
• You can learn a lot about a book from the index.  For an example, see this article about the index to Fire and Fury.

A little bit about me:

https://potomacindexing.com/pi-associate-interview-maria-sosnowski