I’ve noticed that book indexing can be a challenging mental task, and it’s easy to underestimate how much productive time one can spend on it. We usually schedule a couple of weeks to get an indexing project done, but a lot of that is just juggling multiple deadlines. So, how long does it really take […]
Indexing Multi-Author Works
Indexing multi-author works can be a real challenge. Vocabulary control, adjusting to different writing styles, and structural decisions are all concerns. The most important thing when working on a multi-author work, whether a book of essays or a collection of previously published articles, is to make sure you have a single decision maker. This can […]
Book Indexing for Authors: Part 4
Double-posting vs. Cross-references This last section should round out our four-part look at getting a quality index done for your book (see below for a link to the whole series). Posting different versions of your indexable term or using cross-references to other related terms is very much like the hyperlinking function used to link topics […]
Book Indexing for Authors: Part 3
To Sub or not to Sub…. Time to concentrate on building your index structure. 🙂 Main headings are your primary access points for your readers. If you just give priority to that, you’ll be headed in the right direction. There are situations, however, where it would be useful to provide a more detailed breakdown, but […]
Book Indexing for Authors: Part 2
Welcome to Part 2 of our little overview of the book indexing process. If you missed part 1, check it out here. Especially if you are an author tasked to create an index for your nonfiction book, this little set of posts may be useful to smooth out the process. Of course, we’d love to […]
Tips for Indexing New Editions
We often index second — or third, or thirteenth — editions for clients, which means we often address a tricky part of indexing: the update. Sounds simple; you just change the page numbers, right? Not really. The text is a revised edition, not a reprint, which means the content has changed. It’s been moved around, […]
