Book indexing is the newest service I offer. But I’m quickly coming to relish the task of crafting a concise yet comprehensive guide to your book. Indexing fits so well with the way my brain works.
To reflect that I’m building my indexing experience in 2024, my pricing right now is very competitive compared with the rate recommended by ANZSI, the Australian peak body for professional indexers.
When I’m creating an index for your book-length project, I’m mapping your key topics, themes and ideas. I drill through your sections and chapters to find the best access points to the information your readers are hunting.
I always imagine myself as your reader.
A great index should be intuitive to use. So I ask myself, “What would the reader expect here?”
Is your reader a student who’s new to your field? Are they a busy practitioner who needs to quickly refresh their knowledge? Are they a colleague looking up their own name or work? (We’ve all done this.)
Here’s where I get iterative. I read and reread your book to decide which clear, active words best connect your ideas to your reader’s expectations. Next I decide how to nest entries thematically, and which words and phrases might work better as cross-references.
I also use my editorial judgment to decide which page locators lead to your most detailed and useful discussions. As a researcher, I know how frustrating it feels when a page only contains a passing reference to the topic I want.
My index aims to give your reader a pop of excitement to read what you have to say.
My indexing process
Working from a searchable PDF of the book’s print-ready layout, I create the index in MS Word to your publisher’s preferred length, whether that’s an overall word count or a particular number of entries.
Consistent style is especially important in book indexing, because it sets up the seamless navigation that makes the index user-friendly.
As in all my editing, I’m meticulous about style choices including abbreviation, alphabetisation, capitalisation, and how to format indented or run-on subentries. And I’ll add lots of comments explaining my decision-making.
Then I send the index to you so you can check it contains all the key terms you want, and get rid of any you don’t think are important. You can add your own comments to the document, or send me a list of requested changes by email.
I’ll do one more pass over the index based on your advice, give it a final proofread, and it’s ready to send to your publisher for typesetting.