How to index a book

Posted on December 3rd, 2008 at 7:27 am by admin

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Congratulations on getting your book accepted by a publisher!

But now you’ve been asked to index the book.

My advice — Hire a professional indexer. An index costs a bit of money, but what’s your time worth? Indexers use specialized software that speeds up the process. They also have years of experience and know how to organize ideas.You don’t.

So it will take you at least twice as long to do the same thing. If you earn about the same money as an indexer ($40-50/hour), then it’s more cost-effective to hire out.

However, if you are heart-set on doing it yourself, this is a four-part blog series on how make a decent index using MS Word. Budget about 3 days for a modest-length book (100-150 pages), more for longer books.

Let’s start with basic concepts:

1. Indexes sort ideas and information, not words.

Beginner indexers just look for individual words and base the index around them.

This makes a really stupid index. Trust me on this. People think in ideas and information, not in words. You need to index the concepts. Words are concepts only when they are key terms, and only when they are important to the book.

Tip: Study your table of contents, and make a list of the key concepts in your book. You should be able to think of 2-5 key concepts for each chapter. Add some sub-concepts. Do this before you start indexing to help your brain focus on ideas instead of words.

Tip: Find a library book on a similar topic. Read through the index. Note which entries have a lot of sub-entries. These are the important concepts for that book. Make a list of any entries that will be the same for your book.

2. Indexes use cross references to avoid duplication.

In one chapter, you may have talked about physical conflict, in another, violence, and in another, fighting. But these are all the same concept.

Choose one term to index. For the others, list them with a cross reference.

Violence. See Physical conflict.

3. Indexers need to think like the target audience.

Is this book written for college students? Researchers? Engineers?

You need to index words and ideas where they are most likely to look for them. Don’t make the mistake of indexing for yourself. That won’t work. You already know what’s in the book.

If it’s a self-help medical book for parents, index the term rash, rather than skin irritation. No frantic parent is going to look up skin irritation at 3:00 a.m. They’re going to look up rash. If they don’t find it, they will give up, pronounce the book a waste of money, and call Grandma.

Indexes are supposed to be helpful. As you index, ask yourself: If I was a freaked-out parent, what would I look this concept up under?

4. Indexers don’t index every word.

Remember: you index ideas and information, not words. Just because a word appears on a page doesn’t mean it needs to be indexed for that page.

Don’t index terms mentioned in passing, those used as examples, or those grouped together with many other equally unimportant terms.

Be selective. You can’t index every word in the book. What ideas and information will your readers be looking for? Keep that in mind to help you screen out non-index-worthy terms.

Now that you have a rough plan of the broad ideas that will go in your index, you are ready to start indexing.

How to index a book – Part 2