Madge Wallace is a professional freelance indexer. She creates indexes found at the back of nonfiction books. When an index is done according to generally accepted indexing standards, it performs flawlessly. The reader finds what he is looking for and doesn't give the index a second thought.

On the other hand, if the index is poorly done, the reader becomes frustrated and will likely move on to the next book. Worse yet, a nonfiction book published without an index may not be taken seriously by the publishing industry.

Indexing is a skill Madge acquired after many years of writing freelance for newspapers and magazines, as well as authoring four published books. Her award-winning novel, Paying the Price, the story of a real estate deal in Hawaii that goes terribly bad, was published in 2005. Her Hawaii Real Estate Exam Book is in its 9th edition and has been used by students all over the world to pass the Hawaii real estate exam.

As an indexer Madge puts herself in the mind of the potential reader and anticipates his needs. Indexing involves such things as

• gathering together scattered information on the same subject
• breaking down large ranges of information into manageable subtopics
• cross referencing related topics
• double posting topics that might be accessed in several different ways
• distinguishing between passing references and substantive discussions

Madge has a degree in mathematics, and is a graduate of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Basic Indexing Course, a tried and true standard for indexers. She is currently vice-chair of the American Society of Indexers — Rocky Mountain chapter. She welcomes books on topics ranging from textbooks to computer manuals, cookbooks to real estate, social studies to biographies, and self-help to Hawaiiana. All subjects will be considered.

In addition to creating indexes, she also edits and evaluates indexes created by authors for their own books. This valuable service helps authors to achieve a professional-looking index on their own terms. For more on authors as indexers, see her article, "Author as Indexer: the Good, the Bad and the Possible." Also see: Good Indexes Sell Books.

Madge welcomes your questions on indexing. All work is done efficiently via email to your specifications. Don't forget: a good index sells books!

Good Indexes Sell Books!
by Madge Wallace

Put yourself in the mind of a librarian or professor searching through the year's new crop of nonfiction books, deciding what to purchase for the library or the college. The pile of suspects is overwhelming, there's no time to read each book, and decisions must be made.

The cover of each book is noticed, the table of contents gets a once-over, the professionalism of the printing and binding of the volume all weigh in.

But the index – ah, the index – that's where the subject matter of the book is revealed in detail. Think of it like a full-body x-ray or a CAT scan: an abbreviated, in-depth view of every important topic and subtopic, along with locators guiding you to the actual pages for quick, deeper inspections of critical areas.

Secure in the knowledge that your book contains exactly what he or she is looking for, the librarian or professor checks that book on the order form, and you've made a sale, maybe lots of sales. The other books on the list, with incomplete or (dare we say it) missing indexes, never make it past the first perusal.

Indexes do sell books! But beware: all indexes are not the same. A good index contains all the important topics, subtopics and cross references in a meaningful order.

According to Nancy Mulvaney in Indexing Books, "a good index retains the author's terminology, while anticipating the language of readers that may differ from that of the author, and anticipates the expectations of different readers. In other words, an index does not exist independently of its audience."

A good index is also an indication that a book is meant to be taken seriously by reviewers. In an NPR radio interview San Diego Tribune book reviewer and books editor Arthur Salm once said, "A nonfiction book without an index has no heft. I pay it no attention."

For a book that is meant to be read front-to-back in its entirety, such as a book of spiritual inspiration, an index is probably unnecessary. But if the book is planned as a reference volume where a reader will look for pertinent sections of information instead of reading the entire book, a good index is critical. In between some books will be read from cover-to-cover first, and then used as a reference, in which case an index is still essential.

I first learned about indexing as a profession at CIPA College 2002. At the time I had just finished my first novel and was exploring publishing options. I met a freelance indexer who told me about her profession with great enthusiasm. I filed the information away as a possible retirement career. Then in November of last year I was laid off my job as a new home salesperson in Colorado Springs. Three years earlier than planned, I decide it was time to get on with being "retired."

Indexing appeared to be the perfect blending of my literary interests and my personality. I'd spent the past 20 years as Realtor, while writing freelance for newspapers and magazines, as well as my own fiction and nonfiction endeavors.

On the other side of my brain, I was a mathematics major in college. Algebra and geometry were like doing puzzles, my favorite homework. Indexing gives me the same feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction.

"Book indexing is something you will either enjoy or detest; there is little middle ground," Mulvaney also says. "You will have a knack for it or you won't. I do not believe indexing can be taught... a very important aspect of this work comes down to the individual indexer's judgment and communicative abilities... Like other types of writing, it is a mixture of art and craft, judgment and selection."

As I dove into the Basic Indexing course offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, I was quite intimidated by those remarks. The course has a very high dropout rate, and I quickly discovered why. The craft of indexing is highly structured, with much to learn, yet requires a great deal of creativity when taking a 400 page book and distilling it into a five to ten page index.

In How to Make Money from Home, Peter Farrell says, "Indexing work is not recommended to those who lack an orderly mind and a capacity for taking pains. A good index is a minor work of art but it is also the product of clear thought and meticulous care."

Happily I discovered I did have the necessary brain wiring and desire, and passed with high marks. I love the process of organizing other writers' brilliance.

Most indexers these days work freelance as independent contractors, hired either by publishers or authors. A publisher recently told me, "Oh, we just twist our editors arms and make them do the index as part of their job." When I explained how much there is to be considered when indexing, and how important a good index is to a book's salability, she became my first client. And her editors call me a hero for ridding them of this (in their words) "nasty chore."

A good index means more sales. After doing everything else right, don't leave your index to chance.

Author as Indexer: the Good, the Bad and the Possible
By Madge Wallace

It's standard procedure these days for a publisher to require an author to obtain the index for his nonfiction book. The author has two choices: created the index himself or hire a professional indexer.

Why would an author opt to do the job himself? Money, perhaps. Sometimes a publisher will pay half the cost, but it's still money out of the author's pocket. But why would an author take the time and trouble to write a great book and then leave the all-important index to an amateur just to avoid one last expense? As my mother used to say, "penny wise and pound foolish."

More likely, I suspect, is the perception that because an author knows his subject best, he is most qualified to created the index. Like many intriguing things in life, there's more to be considered. Sometimes detailed knowledge of the subject matter is a detriment to the creation of a useful and efficient index. As with editing, he's often too close to his words to see the bigger picture.

A publisher recently asked me to evaluate an index for a book on a rare childhood disease. The index was prepared by the author, a physician, who expressed his doubts as to how well he had constructed the index. The publisher also had doubts, but couldn't put a finger on the problems. Neither of them had ever studied the art of indexing.

The book was a hefty tome, almost 450 pages, written for parents of children with the disease, as well as physicians who are encountering the disease for the first time in their practice. The book was not meant to be read from cover to cover, but rather to be used as a reference. As such, a good index was critical.

I took the volume home and got to work. With no more than a glance, I spotted numerous items that were dead giveaways of an amateur indexer. The commonly accepted practices of indexing exist for a reason: they make an index easy for a reader to use. Entries need to make sense and not waste a reader's time. In short, an index's sole purpose is making information easily accessible. This requires an indexer to set aside the author's point of view and get into the mind of the reader.

First I looked at the index from the parents' point of view. When a child is diagnosed with a mysterious, disabling disease, the parents want instant information on the immediate aspects of their child's disease. As the disease progresses, other topics become important, and again parents wants immediate access to those points. The index needed to be precise, well organized, and written in anticipation of the parents' needs.

Numerous topics in this book's index had strings of up to 20 undifferentiated locators. That means 20 scattered page numbers on which a particular topic was found. Which page would a reader turn to first? Where is the main discussion of the topic? How many pages would he flip through before finding the specific reference for which he is looking? Are some of them merely passing references that clutter the index without offering any substantial information and thus should be eliminated? The remaining main entries needed to be broken down into subentries.

So instead of

prednisone, 27, 79, 85-86, 103-104, 153, 157, 234, 271, 273, 276, 301, 313, 315, 342,
346, 366-367, 369, 371, 429

We might have

prednisone
benefits, 27
dietary considerations, 79
dosage, 85-86
etc.

As a frantic parent, the first things I'd have wanted to know were, what causes the disease, how is it treated, and what are my child's chances for recovery. Oddly, terms such as, "symptoms," "diagnosis," "treatment," "therapy," "prognosis," and "home care" were either not included or set as subentries under technical terms where I would never have stumbled upon them. Information on these topics was in the book, but I had to do a lot of searching to find it. This is a classic example of the author being too close to his subject. He may have been the world's expert on the disease, and he discussed the topics of interest to parents thoroughly, but he didn't realize that parents would use the index differently from his fellow physicians. A professional indexer, trained to create an index of maximum use to every potential reader, brings a fresh set of eyes to the project.

The sections written for physicians contained fountains of medical terminology and technical explanations which a busy doctor would need to access quickly. The index needed to anticipate his needs, too. There were almost three columns of drugs listed under "medications," but few of them were double posted under their own names as main headings. Where perhaps a parent might have looked under "medications," how much more useful for a physician, already familiar with the names of the medications, to be able to find what he was looking for directly.

So while there were commonly-phrased topics such as "allergies," "dental care," and "diet," there were also scientific terms like, "nasendoscopy," "acanthosis nigricans," and "Mi-2 autoantibodies." In gathering terms and structuring the index, both readers' approaches had to be considered.

I found many odd inconsistencies in the index; many topics that were overanalyzed, confusing and wasteful; nonsensical cross references (Outcomes. See outcomes) and double posted entries with different pages references (they should have been the same). These are just a few of the things a professional indexer would have corrected immediately, or not have done in the first place.

In addition to having technical skills, an indexer works at a substantive level: deciding what to terms include in the index, phrasing them succinctly, connecting related topics, and deciding on the appropriate depth of the index. Are the terms selected in accordance with author emphasis? Are they selected and defined in accordance with content? These decisions are made with varying degrees of educated subjectivity, and they must be well thought out.

Are authors ever acceptable as indexers of their own work? Of course, if they take the trouble to learn the art. Several authors have even won coveted awards in respected literary competitions for their own indexes. More often, however, an author's index is substandard and therefore less helpful to the reader. Aside from lacking technical knowledge, he may be heartily sick of the book after the umpteenth revision and find himself unwilling or unable to face the intensity of this final task, thereby producing a hasty and incomplete result .

Worse yet, he may begin willingly but find the ultimately task so overwhelming that he is unable to complete it, and the book is published with no index at all. Sometimes an index by an author is so poorly done that the publisher refuses to use it, and again the book goes to press without an index.

With a poor index, or none at all, a nonfiction book is often overlooked, discarded or not taken seriously by readers, librarians, professors, and book reviewers, resulting in loss of sales. After all the effort that goes into the writing, how unfortunate that would be. Perhaps even worse, it goes to press with an index that embarrasses both author and publisher.

All of this being said, an author who wishes to index his own book, and has the energy to do so, should be encouraged. He may find he has a natural aptitude for the work. I would only hope that he educate himself as an indexer before beginning. There are several courses available by distance learning, and some excellent books on the topic.

In the case of the book on the childhood disease, the author and the publisher were right to acknowledge those inner voices telling them the index didn't measure up. Hopefully, they will hire a professional for the second printing.

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Madge Wallace is a CIPA Star Author for her novel, Paying the Price, the story of a real estate deal on Maui that goes terribly bad, threatening to derail the lives of everyone involved. The novel won the Hawaii Book Publishers Association's Reader's Choice Award in 2006. She is also the author of Hawaii Real Estate Exam Book, currently in its 9th edition. She lives in Colorado Springs and speaks to Realtor groups on "Realtors in Fiction: Not a Pretty Picture."