We are happy to report that we have a new PI Partner in Jessica Freeman. We’d love to have you get to know her through this blog interview! Your Business PI: How long have you been doing indexing? I’ve been indexing since 2015. I started out indexing as a side hustle and transitioned into indexing […]
Main Headings in Indexes: The First Priority
Yes, please, main headings. Pretty please? This is the index user’s plea, although they may not know how to describe it. What users want is a collection of both more general and more specific topics or names that are significantly discussed in the text. And ideally, most, if not all of these will appear as […]
“Job Prospects” in Book Indexing
Got an interesting question from an indexing student awhile back. Her use of the term job prospects created this response from me that might be useful for lots of beginning indexers, and editors, too. In answer to her query about what the “job prospects” were in indexing, I responded: It depends. Employment Prospects When you say “job […]
The Why of Your Freelance Career
I know most folks in freelance businesses (in publishing or elsewhere) focus on what they have to offer, presenting their services like products on a shelf in the store and advertising the availability and quality of those same services through social media and/or advertising. But before you put those services on the shelf, make sure […]
Team Indexing Projects
Here at PI, we occasionally need working up a proposal for a periodical indexing job. Lots of book indexers also index professional journals, magazines, newspapers, and other periodicals. The publishers count on indexers to do annual indexes as well as longer cumulative indexes for these publications. The big challenge for these indexes is to provide […]
Abstracting vs. Indexing
I have often been reminded by authors, novice indexers, and publishers that there can be some confusion over what an index is actually supposed to do. They want so much detail in the index that it becomes a cumbersome abstract of the document. In other words, they make it so that you don’t really have to leave the […]
