Galley Proofs & Indexing

I just sent back my proofs and I feel your pain. My publisher doesn't even try to index the book. They just send back the proofs and tell you to have fun.

On the upside, I've developed appreciation for those few books I've read that actually had a decent index.


Now, what they did to my book title, that's a whole 'nother story!

My publisher just asked me if I wanted to index my book myself. How hard is that to do? Short of going through the whole thing and noting pages/topics, are there any tricks to this?

My publishers have always done the indexing. It's been in the contract. I think some of them use a computer indexing program followed up by a human indexer. My impression has been that indexing is a specialty like proof reading that was part of the publisher's responsibility.

Publishers will often ask authors to supply a list of indexing terms, which doesn't mean they are asking the author to actually index the book, but rather provide the with the terms they feel are especially important to be indexed. Indexing is almost more an art than a science, and very difficult to do well. I tried to index a book recently, and was terrible at it. It's also something that is done at the last minute--right before the book goes to press. I would be wary of taking on a project like that if your publisher has a slot at a printer. It should be the publisher's responsibility and it's a huge, tedious, and labor-intensive job, with or without a program.

Ashleen said:

A few days ago, I got my box o' author's copies of my most recent book, and just the other evening finished proofing it. Sigh.

Click to expand...

When you say this, Ashleen, do you mean you received your Advance Reading Copies (ARCs) or the actual final copies? I ask this because one of our novels somehow made it to the ARC stage without us ever getting a shot at correcting the galleys. However, I contacted our editor and she was able to make changes to the manuscript before the book went to press. If there's time, I'd give it a shot... If it was the shelf-ready copies, you have my condolences. Good luck!

Most publishers either have an indexing group on staff, or they farm indexing out to specialists. There's even a professional organization and yearly awards for indexing.

It's not something to be done lightly. In some cases, the publisher requires the indexer to use special software that's compatible with the typesetting/layout software the publisher uses; Framemaker and Quark both have Indexing add-ons.

Indexing in Word is . . . well, like most things in MSWord, it's doable but it's ugly and a TPITA.

Thanks everybody. As I reread my publisher's e-mail, I guess that she is actually just asking me to supply a list of terms as Nomad describes. Anybody remember their Cat's Cradle? There was a character in there (a professional indexer by trade) who claimed to be able to tell a person's sexual orientation by how they did a book index.