Good Indexes Sell Books!
By Madge Walls

What happens when a librarian or professor is searching through the year’s new crop of reference books, deciding what to purchase for the library or the college?

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 as a full-book 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.

Convinced that your book, by way of the index, 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 grouped according to readers’ needs.

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. 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 nonfiction book that is 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 Colorado Independent Publishers Association (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 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 selling homes, 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, geometry and calculus were like doing puzzles, my favorite homework. Indexing gives me the same intense 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 indexing course offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, I was quite intimidated by Mulvaney’s 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. It requires an orderly mind that cares about the smallest details.

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 once 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 is a minor work of art, and transparent to the user. If it works, a user gives it no thought at all. If it is confusing or lacking in detail, however, you might hear the tearing of hair and a big thump when the book is cast aside in frustration.

After doing everything else right, don’t leave your index to chance. As Steve Weinberg of the Baltimore Sun once said, “I would never buy a book that purports to fall into the category of serious nonfiction if it lacks an index.”

Madge Walls is a 2005 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 also won the Hawaii Book Publishers Association’s Reader’s Choice Award in 2006. Paying the Price was published by SPAN member Sue Hamilton of Dialogue Publishing. Madge is also the author of Hawaii Real Estate Exam Book, currently in its 9th edition. She lives in Colorado Springs and speaks on “Realtors in Fiction: Not a Pretty Picture.” Information on her business, All Sky Indexing, may be found at http://allskyindexing.com . Madge welcomes your questions on indexing at madge@allskyindexing.com .