‘Soon’ is a four-letter word

Some books seem to take forever to publish. (It’s not for nothing that this long series of posts on book production was initiated by the question ‘Why is my book late, and why does it take so long to publish?’) Even the most eager customer can start to lose heart as the long months of waiting turn into years (though rarely into decades). And it can be worse for authors.

But all is forgiven when, finally, the publisher answers with some relief, ‘It’s nearly finished, it’s being indexed’. Suddenly, everyone has a spring in their step, the juice of keen anticipation on their lips.

Indexes have that effect; the end of that interminably long production process is indeed near. ‘Soon’ is a four-letter word – but a nice one.

Indexing is an important milestone in the process of publishing a book but, as we shall see, its duration is just a brief moment in the overall book project. Brief it may be but nonetheless – as can be seen in the list that follows – the issues relating to indexing are neither small nor unimportant.

• Why index?
• Who should do the indexing?
• When to start on the index?
• Mapping your study
• Indexing methods
• Index length
• What to index
• Structuring your index
• Formatting your index
• Last things

Let’s look at these in turn.

(Post #1 of the Indexing section of a lengthy series on the book production process, the first post of which is here.)

About these ads