Know a pro: Indexer
As you know, research, writing, and publishing are hard work. Fortunately, numerous professionals can support you along the way.
Welcome back to my Know a Pro series, where I introduce you to helpful services and professionals who provide them. You know me as a coach and developmental editor, and this series will expand your network with people who provide additional services. Today’s spotlight is indexing. Kimberly Israel is a freelance indexer and owner of Dendrite Indexing. Kimberly kindly agreed to be interviewed about what indexers do and when you might need one. You can find Kimberly at dendriteindexing.com.
“know a pro” card with photo of Kimberly Israel, her services, business name, and URL
What's your academic background and how did you get into indexing?
My background is pretty mixed. I was a double major in physics and psychology, then a few years later got my teaching certification for high school science. That didn’t work out for me, so a few years later I went to grad school for ecology. After about twelve years in that field, I wanted a change. I worked through part of a graduate program in transpersonal psychology, which also wasn’t ultimately for me. Meanwhile, I cold emailed professors while trying to get into academic editing. One of them mentioned indexing, and I thought about it for six months before I decided to really try it.
What kinds of academic writers and projects do you usually work with?
I’m a new indexer, so there’s not really a “usually” for me yet. My first job was a 500-page textbook on environmental psychology, which fit well with my background. It was also a rush job, so it was a bit of a trial by fire! Meanwhile, I’ve done practice indexes for a trade book on motivational psychology and a journalistic book on activist history. Although a lot of indexers have specialties, almost everyone also works in a variety of topics. Some areas require more specialized knowledge, such as legal works or math-heavy subjects with a lot of equations. It’s important for each indexer to know what they’re qualified for, but at the same time, I think a lot of us enjoy the variety.
Tell us more about indexing. How do you explain what it is to your writers? What do you enjoy about it?
My experience has more often involved explaining it to acquaintances, and I usually start with “You know how a nonfiction book often has an index in the back?” A lot of people assume the author creates the index (which does happen sometimes), or they just haven’t thought about it. A good index provides another way for people to engage with the book. It might be someone who needs specific information and doesn’t have time to read the whole text, or it might be someone who’s already read it and wants to revisit a particular bit. My job is to help all kinds of readers quickly find what they need while also clearly representing the author’s point of view.
As for what I enjoy, I love getting to read all kinds of books and see how they fit together. It’s an interesting challenge trying to figure out how to provide clear pointers to the information someone might look for, while also trying to be very concise. For topics that are discussed extensively, a big part of the job is to think of subheadings that help the reader zoom in on the handful of pages they really want. It’s frustrating to have to look through twenty pages when the information you need is only on two or three, so indexers try to save the reader that frustration.
How might a writer know when they are ready for indexing? Or, when in the publishing process does indexing happen?
Indexing is typically one of the last steps in the publishing process. For traditional indexing, the page numbers have to be finalized, which means the text and layout need to be finished. It’s not uncommon, though, for indexers to receive a few chapters at a time, as editing and layout are finalized. The downside of that is that it’s a bit less efficient because it’s harder to see how everything fits together until the whole book is available, but it’s certainly doable and allows for a bit of a head start. There’s also embedded indexing, in which index tags are directly attached to the electronic file. I haven’t done embedded work, and I understand that it’s a bit more fiddly (technical term), but it does mean that if the page numbers change, the index won’t have to be redone.
How should a writer plan for indexing during the process? How far in advance must someone contact you, and when should they expect a project back?
That depends to some extent upon the individual indexer. People who are further along in their careers are more likely to have work lined up months in advance, while someone who’s just starting out might be available to take on a project immediately. Experienced indexers can work through 70 to 100 pages per day, depending on the complexity of the text, though they may still need the same amount of time again for editing and revision. I’m not that fast yet, at least not when I’m working at a sustainable pace. It would be really nice to have a week for every 150 pages or so, in order to allow time to communicate with the author if questions arise. Maybe my answer will change when I’ve developed more speed myself.
Is there a kind of writer or type of project you'd love to work on next?
I’d really like to work on books about ecology, evolution, and what we might call natural history – the appreciation of nature in ways that are fairly accessible for laypeople. But I’m also a generalist at heart, and I’d have almost as much love for working on books about psychology, neurodiversity, religion and spirituality, linguistics, arts and crafts, and any number of other things. Every indexer will have topics they particularly enjoy, but we do our best with each book to be true to the author and useful to the reader.