Why Hire Index Plus
Index Plus can create a back of the book or periodical index. Benefits of a good index include: making your book easier to use, increasing the chance that a shopper purchases your book instead of a similar title, and adding a marketing element compared to a book without an index. It provides a built-in list of tags people can use when talking about your book on their website or social media.
Professional affiliations include:
- American Society for Indexing, member 2006-present. www.asindexing.org
- Pacific Northwest Chapter of ASI, Secretary 2008-2009 and 2016-2017, Conference Planning Team 2010-2011 and 2014-2017, and Membership Coordinator 2018-present. www.pnwasi.org
- Legal Indexing Special Interest Group of ASI, Officer 2006-2011 and 2016-present. www.legalindexing.org
- American Association of Law Librarians, Government Law Libraries Special Interest Section, and Pacific Northwest Chapter member 2000-present, and Education Committee member 2014-2016. www.allnet.org
- Oregon Bar Association, member 1991-1997, inactive member 1998-present. www.osbar.org
Education and training:
- Certificate of Practical Competency in Indexing from Index West, a Certificate of Participation for the Building Indexes and Taxonomies for Legal Materials workshop by Enid Zafran and Kate Mertes, and completion of the ASI Training in Indexing Course.
- Continuing education includes attending regular meetings with fellow indexers as well as ASI national and chapter meetings.
- Degrees include a JD (law degree) and a BS (psychology). Employment history includes work as an attorney, law librarian, and freelance writer.
Specialty subjects include:
- law and criminal justice
- teaching and education
- children, families, and parenting
- psychology and social sciences
- finance and money management
- business
Why do you need a professional indexer?
- A good index requires objectivity an author lacks. An indexer can see the book from the reader's perspective, and allow the reader to access information in multiple ways.
- An indexer uses professional software that increases indexing speed to meet tight deadlines and to offer various output options.
- An indexer has technical training and practice in indexing.
- Although the author is the expert on the subject, the indexer brings a sense of priority and structure to the work from an outsider's view.
- Read this in the words of someone who tried to do it herself: chronicle story
- Three reasons why scholars should hire an indexer
- Why you need a human, not a computer, for your index: human versus computer
- Electronic searching is just not enough to replace a real index.
- Best Practices for Indexing from the American Society for Indexing: Best Practices from ASI
- Learn more about indexing by taking an online asynchronous class about indexing called Indexing Books as a Career.
- In a Google Era, Indexers are the Unsung Heroes of the Publishing World.
- You can learn a lot about a book from the index. For an example, see this article about the index to Fire and Fury.
A little bit about me:
https://potomacindexing.com/pi-associate-interview-maria-sosnowski
Publications:
“Why My Legal Indexes Will Never Win a Wilson.” IndexersInk, Summer/Fall, 2012.
“The Logic and Language of Patterns.” Keywords, vol. 23, no. 8, August, 2015.
“Can Non-Fiction Authors Create Their Own Indexes?” Reedsy.com blog post, July 14, 2017.
“Unique Characteristics of Legal Indexes.” Keywords, vol. 25, no. 4, Winter, 2017.
Presentations:
“Applying the EIS Criteria to Your Own Work.” Panel member. Pacific Northwest Chapter of the American Society for Indexing, Vancouver, WA. October 3, 2015.
“Bidding and Rates.” Panel member. Pacific Northwest Chapter of the American Society for Indexing, Vancouver, WA. September 14, 2019.