Deborah.

I don't know of many abstractors in my area that rely on abstracting as an exclusive form of income. The volume of work is unpredictable as is  the loyalty of clients. There also seems to be trend currently to impose reduced rates on abstractors. In this area most abstractors combine abstracting with other related areas of work (i.e, notary witness signings, appraising, real estate sales, home inspections or surveying)

If your state permits notary witness closings, you may want to consider this while trying to build your abstracting business. Right now there seems to be a greater volume of closings in my area than abstracting. The work is simpler than abstracting and it pays more than the usual current owner abstract that is ordered. You do have to be careful of what signing services you accept work from. Some have a reputation for slow pay or no pay. If you monitor Notary Rotary or Gomobilenotary, you can usually get a good feel for who is or is not reliable. You can also request that your turn around time for payment be included in the confirmation of order the signing service sends you, and it then becomes and expressly enforceable term of the contract. If the signing service gives you a hard time about including it in the confirmation (and some will), you can pass on the deal because you would probably have a hard time collecting from them anyway. I generally prefer to deal with title companies than signing services for this reason. The title companies also seem to pay better because you have eliminated the middle man (signing service) when dealing directly.