If you plan to include an index in your manuscript, please read the following article carefully and inform your Project Manager which of the options presented herein you will choose when submitting your manuscript.
It should firstly be noted that indexing is a time-consuming process, one which can incur extra charges if you have a large number of index entries and want the designer to generate the page numbers for you.
The first step is for you to generate the list of terms to include in the index. Do not add the page numbers yet, as these will all change when we create your initial interior draft. As the author, no one knows your manuscript better than you do, so you are probably the best person to take on this challenge—it will just take a little time and patience. Add the index without page numbers to the end of your manuscript before submitting it for design.
Next, once you have generated your list of terms, and you are ready to submit your manuscript for design, you must decide on one of the two approaches below:
- Option A: Purchase extra design time for your designer to tag every index entry manually in the text, which creates an automatically updating index. Note: if one word appears 10 times in the book, that counts as 10 entries, as the designer must tag each instance individually.
- Cost calculation for Option A: extra design time by assessment, total amount dependent on the number of other complexities in your manuscript.
- For example, if your manuscript has hundreds of index entries and numerous quotes, footnotes, images and tables throughout, this will require several hours of extra design time. On the other hand, if you have just a few dozen index entries and very few other complexities, you may not need to purchase any extra design time at all.
- Option B: Find the page numbers for each index term yourself. You must first wait until you are ready to approve your interior design draft, which means you have finished making revisions and are confident the page numbers will not change. Then, <ctrl-F> to "Find" each word in the PDF draft, and manually add the page numbers to the list of index terms in a word document. When finished, submit this document to your Project Manager, and your designer will add the index to your final draft for approval.
- Cost calculation of option B: Mostly your time, plus the potential for an extra revision round charge.
Please note that Tellwell does not currently offer a full indexing service. It is up to the author to generate the list of indexing terms themselves, a major reason being that indexing requires an intimate knowledge of the manuscript, and the amount of time it would take a professional to gain this knowledge would make the service prohibitively expensive for most authors. Indexing is also not within the scope of an editor's role, though upon request they may be able to provide some feedback on the relevance of your list of terms to be indexed.
In conclusion, it is worth a careful examination of whether the value of adding an index to your book is truly worth the time, effort and potential extra costs involved. Considering the reader's perspective, you might ask: "Will including an index really enhance their experience and deepen their understanding of my book?"
As always, if you have further questions, please email support@tellwell.ca
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