Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing

EP 330 - Book Indexing with Stephen Ullstrom

Oct 26, 2023

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Mark interviews writer and indexer Stephen Ullstrom about book indexing and his recent release BOOK INDEXING: A Step-by-Step Guide.

Prior to the main content, Mark shares a personal update about a skeleton and license plate theft, as well as word about this episode's sponsor, the Patrons of the Stark Reflections Podcast.

In their conversation, Mark and Stephen talk about:

Stephen's long-time interest in writing
How his role working at UBC Press when he was attending university was his first exposure to indexing
Using freelancing doing indexing to help support his writing, but how that freelancing kind of took over much of his career
Still being interested in fiction, but how writing a book about indexing was a good full book-length project to complete
Stephen's book: BOOK INDEXING: A Step-by-Step Guide
His goal to make indexing simple and practical and more entry-level
Why authors should care about indexing
How indexing can become somewhat of a marketing tool
The way an index can bring more value to a book
The pros and cons of a keyword search (as opposed to an index, where the human filtering on what's relevant is being done for you)
How an index can be much more granular than even a layered/multi-leveled table of contents
The way an index works within an eBook
What an embedded index is
Cases where a fiction author might want to use indexing
Considerations on whether or not it's best to do your own index or to hire that work out to a professional indexer
The average length of time it would take Stephen to index a 200 page book (about 20 hours)
The typical price range an author can expect to pay for having a book indexed (For example a trade book that's about 200 pages could cost about $800 to $900 CAD - about $4.00 CAD per page. A scholary book is usually about $6.00 to $6.50 to $7.00 CAD per page)
The steps to go through when creating an index
Stephen's use of the indexing software called Cindex
Remembering that, ultimately, your index is for the READER
How to hire Stephen if you're interested in leveraging his indexing services\
A common misperception authors often have about indexing
And more

After the interview, Mark reflects on the value of indexing as it pertains to some of his non-fiction and even fiction titles.

Links of Interest:

Stephen Ullstrom is an award-winning professional indexer. He believes that the world is a better place with well-written indexes, and is passionate about helping authors, publishers, and the index-curious understand how indexing works.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0