If you read my previous post on genre, I’d understand if you think that this is another post inspired by the When Words Collide writing festival that I attended mid-August. This post, however, was actually inspired by Larry Sweazy’s keynote address at the joint ASI/ISC indexing conference I attended in June.… Read More »Plotter vs. Pantser? The Indexer Edition
It has been a busy year. I had projects waiting for me when I got home from Christmas holidays, and the work hasn’t stopped since. It has been pretty tiring at times too. Working evenings and weekends? Check. Working on two indexes at once? Check. Have projects that take longer… Read More »Surfing the Schedule, and Those Damn Easy Projects
You know those days and weeks when it is one project after the other? The content from one book starts to blend into the content of the next? Occasionally my mind will draw a blank when my wife asks me at the end of the day what I’ve learned from… Read More »Five Things I Learned Last Month from Indexing
I am often asked, “How do you write an index?” This is often followed by, “Do you actually read the whole book?” Yes, actually, I do read the whole book. I need to know and understand the content that I am to direct the reader to. A computer search function… Read More »Metaphors for Writing an Index
I came really close to missing out on the Purple Pen Award for new indexers. I knew that the deadline was approaching, but I was also enjoying a road trip with the woman who is now my wife. On the due date of the competition, we were staying with friends… Read More »My Award Winning Index: Strange Visitors
I got an email this summer from an editor at Pacific Educational Press informing me that the press was being shut down this fall. Pacific Educational Press, or PEP, run out of the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, was a small press, publishing only a few books… Read More »Wither Pacific Educational Press?
Clients occasionally suggest to me that I start early on an indexing project, before the page proofs are finalized, by making a list of the terms that will appear in the index. The reasoning behind this is that when the page proofs are ready, I can search the PDF for these terms… Read More »The Word List Approach to Indexing
Writing an index is usually a solitary activity, but when working in-house for Harbour Publishing I had the opportunity, to 2011, to lead a small team of indexers. The book was The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver, a coffee table book clocking in at nearly 600 pages. Chuck Davis, the renowned… Read More »Team Indexing: The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver