Add value to your book
Every nonfiction book should have an index if it’s to be taken seriously. During your book’s page-proof stage, just before it goes to press, we can prepare an index for the book.
An index is a list of words or phrases with pointers (usually page numbers) to where useful material relating to a topic can be found in your book.
We will read through your book and identify the information – facts that are important or useful to the reader – to list in the index. A good index will help the reader easily find information they’re looking for, adding value to the book. Depending on the book’s content, we will create a single index or recommend separate indexes.
We don’t use a computer to index your book, we do it the old-fashioned way (see below). The results are much better.
INDEXING STEPS INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:
- Quickly read the page proofs to get a feel for what will be important to the reader
- Go through the proofs page by page and mark the items to be indexed (entries, sub-entries, locators)
- Prepare index cards with items to be indexed, one item to a card, removing duplicates and noting possible cross-references
- Alphabetize the index cards
- Type the index in a Microsoft Word file (following The Chicago Manual of Style)
- Review and edit entries (move to subentries where appropriate, add cross-references)
- Proofread the index
- Submit the index to the appropriate party