Article
August 1, 2016
0 comment
by Stephen

Surfing the Schedule, and Those Damn Easy Projects

pexels-photo

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 to finish that anticipated? Check. Have books arrive either earlier or later than scheduled? Check again.

Book publishing is definitely dynamic. Each book has its own production schedule. Each production schedule involves multiple editors, proofreaders, designers, and even, sometimes, an indexer, not to mention the author. Each editor/proofreader/designer/indexer is themselves most likely working on multiple projects at once, or at least has the next project lined up for when the current one is finished. The system is ripe for schedule slippage, for deadlines overlapping, for projects banging into the next, you eyeing the calendar and the clock trying like hell to put this baby to bed so that you can get on to the next project, with its own increasingly looming deadline.

It gets chaotic. With multiple schedules piling up, I feel like I am surfing, trying to stay ahead of the wave, reach the shore in one smooth movement, before heading back out to sea to catch the next wave. What can happen instead, though, is that I lose my balance, the wave knocks me off my board, I get buffeted around in the surf for a while before I can surface and breathe again. At that point either the next wave has already passed me by or it is right on top of me.

So, schedules. They are important.

I have been learning this anew these last seven months, the busiest winter and spring I’ve had so far as a freelancer. But it is important to note, however, that there are two types of schedules at play. The first, which I have already mentioned, is the production schedule that each book is on. This I have very little control over. If the schedule doesn’t suit me, I can ask my client if the schedule can be changed. Sometimes the client is able to accommodate me and sometimes they can’t, at which point either I change my schedule or another freelancer gets the project.

The second schedule, which I do have more control over, is my personal daily/weekly/monthly work schedule. This kind of schedule is important too, if I am going to efficiently and effectively complete the indexing and proofreading projects that I have accepted. It has been this type of schedule that I’ve been learning that I really need to tighten up.

Specifically, here, I want to write about scheduling in what I call the easy books. If you work in publishing, you probably know the type. For me they are usually trade books, sometimes coffee table style, heavily illustrated. The subject matter is often engaging, and written in a fairly light manner. It usually isn’t long, maybe 200-250 pages, and the index won’t be long either.

I really enjoy these books. I enjoy many of the dense, academic books I get to index too, but after a dense book these short, trade books are just so fun and refreshing in comparison. They can be a good pick-me-up after slogging through a heavy 400 page tome.

I figure I can usually index the easy books in 10-15 hours, sometimes less. Surely I can find time for 10-15 hours over the course of a couple of weeks, right?

That is what I thought too until I started to notice a pattern over these last few months. When schedules got really tight, I found that I was focusing on the most difficult indexes first, because those where the deadlines I was most scared of. I wasn’t putting the time I needed into the easy books until the last minute, usually, at which point it was a mad scramble to finish the index. The “fun” indexes weren’t so funny anymore. They became a source of stress, feeling like I had taken on more work than I should have.

Was it really too much work, though, or was it a scheduling problem? A month ago I had another of these easy indexes to complete, and I decided to focus on my schedule. I still had a larger, more complex scholarly book to index as well, which I knew was going to take the bulk of my time and attention. But instead of spending all of my time on the scholarly book, I decided to take the first hour of work every morning and devote it to the easy book. It wasn’t much, an hour. I indexed maybe 20-30 pages in that time. But as I discovered, it was enough.

I chose to index the easy book in the morning so that I wouldn’t be tempted in the late afternoon or evening to push it off because I was tired from the hard book. Because I wasn’t indexing at the last minute I actually got to enjoy the easy book, which was a large part of why I had accepted it in the first place. I still had the whole rest of the day to work on the more difficult book. When it came time to edit the easier index, I still scheduled a full day to do that as I find it easier to edit in one long go than to break it up with another project, but scheduling one day is a whole lot easier than trying to squeeze in multiple days at the last minute. In the end, both the easy index and the more difficult index were finished on time and fairly stress-free. Success!

Is there anything else about my personal work schedule that I can change? Probably. I’ll take another look and perhaps write about this again. I think that work is more enjoyable and productive in a relatively stress-free environment, and schedules are certainly part of that equation.

In the meantime, what scheduling tips do you have for managing tight deadlines and multiple projects? I would love to hear.

Article
May 14, 2016
0 comment
by Stephen

Five Things I Learned Last Month from Indexing

pexels-photo-38136You 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 my indexing and proofreading work. My mind is so bloated with information that I don’t know where to begin.

That is crunch time in publishing. Just seems to be part of the business.

But I do actually learn from the projects I work on, even if I sometimes need to decompress a bit before I can remember and articulate. I recently thought it would be a fun exercise to write down five things I learned from my last few projects. So, in no particular order, here are five things I have learned from books I’ve indexed and am indexing in the last month or so.

  1. Reading studies is an actual discipline in the social sciences.
  2. Ancient Tamil poetry is amazingly gorgeous, complex, and dark. I feel like I could get lost in the worlds those poems depict.
  3. The grand narrative of the Japanese-American experience is much more rigid than I realized. If your family settled in Hawai’i and California, experienced internment, and tried to be a model minority (at the risk of oversimplifying it), you are part of the Japanese-American narrative. If your personal experience is different, chances are literature on and recognition of your experience is sparse. I wonder how this compares to Japanese-Canadian, or Chinese-American/Canadian, narratives.
  4. Saying the phrase, “death and dying,” in that order, is strange, when you think about it, since dying is the process that occurs before death. Still, I have to think a moment before I can say, “dying and death.” Something about the ordering of the syllables?
  5. Trees communicate! Through smells, electrical signals, and root and fungal networks. Sure, we are doing a pretty good job of disrupting their communication through our managed, lumber-based forestry practices, but if we let them grow old and wild enough, trees communicate! Makes me question again my summers working as a tree planter.

What interesting things have you learned recently from your work?

Article
April 23, 2016
2 comments
by Stephen

Metaphors for Writing an Index

construction-work-carpenter-toolsI 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 may be able to pick out words and phrases, but only I, as the reader, can figure out (hopefully) what the text means.

But leaving aside the question of how an index is written, I’ve been thinking recently about the experience of writing an index. What kind of metaphors are used to describe an index and the indexing process? Though an index is a concrete object (or as concrete as a digital object can be, if the index is in digital form), the idea of an index and the creation of an index can seem pretty abstract.

Many indexers compare an index to a map. This makes sense in that both an index and a map are supposed to help you find what you want, or where you are going. Both try to identify and highlight the information that is most relevant for its audience, making the information more readily comprehensible. The indexer, then, becomes a mapmaker, and writing an index mapmaking.

When I first started indexing I thought of it as piecing together a puzzle. This soon evolved to piecing together a 3D puzzle. There was something about the layering of information in an index, through subheadings, nested entries, double-posts, cross-references, and learning how to deal with the metatopic that, in my mind, added dimensionality to the index. The puzzle part was figuring out how all the different components and pieces of information fit together in a coherent, searchable format.

More recently, I’ve been thinking about indexing in terms of building a house. The initial reading through the text and creating entries is like the unearthing of the building materials, and arranging these materials in the place where I think they should go. But until I get to the end of the book, I don’t know yet what all of my building materials will be, nor do I have a firm blueprint. Once I start editing the index, I can finalize the construction of my index/house. I can decide that yes, this is where this 2 x 4 is supposed to be, and hammer it into place. Or, maybe I realize it needs to be adjusted or moved, and I can do that and then hammer it in. It is immensely satisfying hammering a board into place.

What kind of metaphors do you use to describe indexing or indexes?

 

Article
November 28, 2015
0 comment
by Stephen

My Award Winning Index: Strange Visitors

9781442605688I 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 who live on a large lake, boat access only, electricity from solar panels and a generator, and patchy internet.

The PDF of the book I needed to upload for the competition was big. The internet, as I mentioned, was slow and unreliable. I couldn’t tell from my email program if the files had sent or not. I restarted the process a few times. I might have successfully sent those files a couple of times without realizing it.

Had I been at home with reliable internet, instead of in the wilderness with my dear love, would I have been more on top of submitting to the competition? I hope so. Sending the files certainly wouldn’t have been so nerve-wracking. I was still confident, though, in my chances for winning that I pressed on with the submission.

And the end result of all that time spent huddled over my laptop on that lovely summer day in southeastern British Columbia, not to mention the hours spent writing that particular index?

I won the award.

It was 2014, my second year as a freelancer and my fourth as an indexer. I won the inaugural Purple Pen Award for best new indexer, given by the Institute of Certified Indexers. My winning index was for Strange Visitors: Documents in the History of Indigenous and Settler Relations in Canada from 1876, edited by Keith D. Smith, and published by the University of Toronto Press in 2014.

Why was I so confident that I might win? There were three reasons.

  1. I figured that a prize-winning index should be unique in some way, which meant that the book indexed should be unique. You want to stand out, right? The book I won for, Strange Visitors, was a collection of primary documents spanning a hundred years and covering over a dozen subjects within Indigenous and settler relations in Canada. It wasn’t your typical monograph or anthology. When I received this book I sensed that this was an index I could experiment and apply new techniques and skills to.
  2. But to show off skills, you must first, of course, acquire them. I wrote the index for Strange Visitors shortly after attending the annual conference held by the Indexing Society of Canada. I left that conference with a list of new ideas and techniques that I wanted to put into practice. Thankfully I soon received just the projects to do that with.
  3. At this point I was also realizing my own progress as an indexer. I could see that I was learning and implementing new techniques. I was indexing more challenging books and my clients seemed happy with the results. I could look back at early indexes I had written and critique them. So, while still recognizing that I wasn’t yet an indexing vet, I wasn’t a complete rookie either. Just possibly my recent work was good enough to win an award.

In the end, the judges, of course, had their own criteria (which can be found here) by which they judged the submissions. Perhaps they would have been just as happy with another index of mine from that time period.

I am thankful, though, for the recognition given to me by the judges. It tells me that I am on the right track with my indexing, and I am excited to keep learning and improving. I am also thankful to the University of Toronto Press for asking me to index Strange Visitors. They publish beautifully written and designed books, and I am proud to work with them.

Article
November 15, 2015
0 comment
by Stephen

Wither Pacific Educational Press?

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 each year, but still a client that had been with me since I began freelancing. Thanks to a connection and reference from my former supervisor at Harbour Publishing to a PEP editor, I received my first freelance contract within a month of leaving Harbour.

That first project was tough. It was an updated edition of an anthology on teaching social studies to elementary students.  Chapters had been added, deleted, rearranged, and revised. I was not familiar with the subject matter, and this was my first time facing a revised edition. The editor suggested I take the index of the previous edition and update it.

Now, any indexer who has been around for a while knows that “updating” an index for a text with this many changes is “indexing hell,” as I heard it so delicately described recently. T0 be fair, I don’t think the editor realized what she was asking. I was still naive enough, however, afraid of the topic, and afraid of offending my first ever client, that I agreed to the editor’s proposal.

Sure enough, indexing that book was hell, but I got through it. More importantly, I learned from it. I learned from the previous index I was working from how to approach this sort of text. I gained confidence that I could tackle a project this different. I felt great when the editor contacted me a few months later with another project.

Since that first project three years ago I’ve indexed five more books for PEP.  Two have been high school textbooks, on fashion and nutrition and health. The others have been on dyslexia (which was also neat in that it was typeset to be more accessible to people with dyslexia), a book on teaching Shakespeare to elementary students (I wish my teachers did that when I was a kid), and finally, this spring, a book on Imaginative Ecological Education.

It was a shock to hear this summer that PEP was closing down. I have enjoyed their books. As I’ve built my business it has been encouraging that the editors at PEP have repeatedly asked me to work on their titles. As my first client, I do have a soft spot for them. Reflecting on the news of their closure, I decided that I did want to write some sort of farewell.

Looking again on their website, however, I see that PEP is not quite as gone as I thought. PEP is now an imprint at UBC Press. Will I work again on their titles? I don’t know. I have worked for UBC Press as well, but UBC Press is a much larger press, with a diverse publishing program, and it is impossible to predict what they might ask me to work on.

So perhaps this is still a farewell. Thank you, PEP, for allowing me to work with you these last three years. I wish you all the best in your new home. Hopefully I will cross paths again with your titles.

Article
July 4, 2015
0 comment
by Stephen

The Word List Approach to Indexing

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 and quickly and easily fill in the page numbers. This is similar to when I hear people say that ebooks don’t need indexes, because the search function is sufficient.

This approach works for a limited number of books, such as certain reference or other fact-based books where the goal of the index is to point the reader to the facts. Name and title indexes could also be constructed using this method. Beyond this narrow range of projects, however, I think that the word list approach to indexing misses the point of what a good index seeks to accomplish.

Yes, searchable terms, if relevant to the reader, should be indexed, but a book is often so much more than its facts or names. A good biography or history will have a narrative. A good scholarly work will have an argument. A good cookbook index will have categories such as breakfast, lunch, and dessert, or spicy, savoury, and sweet, that may not be immediately obvious in the text but still relevant and helpful to the reader. These are the types of entries that cannot easily be found using the search function. If the index is truly a map, a reflection of the text, these entries need to be present.

I also question the assumption that starting with a word list gets the job done faster. In my work, I try to read the text and create the index entries at the same time. I am reading more slowly for comprehension as opposed to just reading for the key words, but overall I find that this is faster than reading once to make a word list or to mark up proofs, and then a second time (even if just using the search function), to input the entries. Of course, some books are more difficult to understand and require re-reading sections two or three times, and when I edit the index I do go back and check entries for accuracy–the one pass approach doesn’t always work as planned–but in my experience it is more efficient. Add in subheadings and the thematic and conceptual dimension of the index, being able to see the context while reading is far more helpful than using a search function.

Article
June 26, 2015
0 comment
by Stephen

Team Indexing: The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver

1550175335Writing 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 local Vancouver historian, had been unable to finish the project before he died, and Harbour took on the challenge of pulling together a large team–over forty people–to finish the work.

By the time I was assigned to the index, two other people had already been hired to create a word list of all of the terms to be included in the index. My job, and that of my co-indexers, was to search the PDF proofs for those terms and fill in the page numbers. Normally I wouldn’t suggest this approach because there is a lot, such as concepts and references, that the search function doesn’t pick up, but in this case, as the book consists of short bits of trivia and sidebars, it worked alright.

As the lead indexer, I assigned chunks of this word list to my fellow indexers (there were three of us at this point), and we set about searching for these terms. The final Word document containing the index was over a hundred pages long. As completed sections came in, I would assign a new section and check the work that I had received for consistency and accuracy. When all of the terms had been searched, I proofread the entire index, checking spelling, alphabetization, and the correct ordering of locators, as we weren’t using dedicated indexing software which automates the formatting.

If I had the chance to do this again, I would make sure that we all had dedicated software. Creating the index in Word isn’t as slow, I assume, as using actual index cards, but it is still a lot of extra work. Instead of making a word list, I would have also discussed with my co-indexers, prior to starting, our strategy for what to index and how, and then divided the book by chapter among us. As sections came in I would have still checked for accuracy and consistency, but then let the software handle the formatting when adding these sections to the master copy.

Still, having such a hands-on approach to writing an index was an excellent opportunity to be grounded in the small details that ultimately make an index work.  It was a great apprenticeship, and I’m proud of the work. It was also neat to contribute some of the captions, sidebars, and text as well.