23 October 2012
By Sandrine Berges
Maybe I'm being lazy here, but...
I've just received the proofs from my book number 2. I have four weeks to go through them and produce an index. One of these weeks is holiday, so that's three.
The proof-reading isn't much of a problem, as I tend to think that any copy editor that got there before me will have caught most of the big mistakes. Also, I'm not a native English speaker, so who am I to criticize their work? A good once over will do.
As to the abstract, I was helpfully reminded that I can have it done for a mere 290 pounds which will be taken off my royalties. My immediate reaction was that I'd be lucky if I ever made that much in royalties, and that if I did, I'd like to have it, thank you very much! But that means I am left with the fairly horrible task of compiling my own index. So I'm looking for short cuts.
So: does anyone know of a good program that will create an index from a long pdf document? It has to work on either Ubuntu or OSX. I know, before you say anything, that computer compiled indexes can be a bit dumb, some things are indexed that oughtn't to be, and there isn't as much detail as one would like. So my main criterion, in looking for an electronic indexer, is that it should be editable. My intention is to create a rough index and then go through it, adding some things and taking away others. That way, I should end up with a reasonable index in not too much time.
If you have ever compiled an index, how did you go about it? And if you haven't but have given it some thought, what would you recommend? What do you look for in an index? What sort of detail are you after? This book is an introduction to Wollstonecraft, written mostly for undergraduates, so probably doesn't need the same kind of index as you would find in a monograph on something for specialists.
I'll be grateful for any comment or suggestion.
Blanka Sengerová29 October 2012 at 04:22 PM
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>> As to the abstract, I was helpfully reminded that I can have it done for a mere 290 pounds which will be taken off my royalties.
I assume you mean index rather than abstract?
I won't be able to help you with indexing software, but I do think that your point about being offered to have it done for £290 raises the question of how much our own time is worth and how much we'd charge for it . I've never worked out how many pounds per hour I get paid but I suspect even then it wouldn't factor in the fact that many scientists/researchers work many hours over their contractual time and/or at weekends.
When it comes to your indexing tasks, how many hours would you reckon it might take (including sourcing software, installing it, learning to work with it, etc.)? And once you factor in the cost of the indexing software, maybe the £290 isn't that unattractive after all (admittedly, the software could be reused in future so it's not quite such a direct comparison). On a related note, can such money be justifiably charged to a research grant when you consider that international conferences can often cost £350-500 in registration alone for one person - I guess the equivalent is the 'pay to publish' model in many of the biological sciences where the cost of publication is simply factored into the grant.
Of course, I am probably just playing devil's advocate and may well be just as frugal myself in your situation (particularly as I suspect that the book may well be a side project not related to your current research and thus funded by your own money?).
Sandrine Berges02 November 2012 at 08:05 AM
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As is often the case, it seemes a lot worse than it is turning out to be. The proof reading was easy: the copy-editor had done a good job, and I didn't find any mistakes (also, a professional proof reader will read it after me, so if I"ve missed anything, they'll pick it up). But that gave me the opportunity to make lists of key words, note a few ideas for linking things in the index. Now all I need to do, I think is type up the list, do some word searches, compare with my notes, and Bob's your uncle. So, no expensive software needed, and, if all goes well, it will all be completed earlier than the deadline.
Simon Smith13 November 2012 at 12:12 AM
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I would put in a strong pleas not to take short cuts when compiling your index, Sandrine. I get so frustrated if a book is poorly indexed. With journal articles I don't mind, because I can search them electronically, but with a printed book the reader relies on the index much more to recall where a key passage they read was, or even to decide whether the book's relevant to them in the first place (and thus whether to buy it!).
I did once have to compile an index myself for a book I edited. It was quite painstaking work, bu worth the effort. My publisher (Routledge as it happens) provided instructions, but I can't lay my hands on them now, otherwise I'd pass them on. As I recall, it wasn't particularly technical and involved going through the manuscript with a highlight pen! I can tell it's something you'd rather avoid, but students will thank you for it if you make the effort!
Sandrine Berges26 November 2012 at 09:09 AM
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Simon: I've done it, and I hope I did it well. I ended it up making notes as I was proof-reading, then compiling a list, and going through the book again with the search function of my pdf reader on my ipad. This is great as it gives you little summaries of the passage, so you don't end up indexing irrelevant stuff. On the other hand, it counts the first page of the front matter as 1, which meant that I had to substract 14 from every entry before I could copy it to my index! Needless to say, I am now very good at substracting 14...