Category Archives: 2015

Academic Book Week 2015

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A celebration of the diversity, innovation and influence of academic books to be held 9 – 16 November. http://acbookweek.com/

This is a chance of anyone interested in the future of academic book publishing in the UK and beyond to learn about and influence the potential development of arts and humanities books. As an indexer I sometimes have to wonder if there will be a future for traditional, human-made, indexes. However, opening up academic books to a wider audience and making them more usable for a wider range of readers has to be a key concern of authors and publishers. The index is a key feature that can enable this in both paper and digital formats, and is something that can be best done by a person who knows the subject area and can anticipate the needs of the audience. The Society of Indexers has some information on this subject, start here.

There are a number of events planned for the week – see http://acbookweek.com/events/. I hope that indexers will be able to make their voices heard in the contexts of the project and of the events of book week. I hope to see you there!

 

#SuperThursday – publishing’s big launch day

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Today marks the start of the feeding frenzy that is the UK Christmas book market. According to BBC News, exactly 503 new titles will be launched today. Given that 30% of book sales are apparently related to Christmas giving and receiving (and buying for oneself I hope), the seasonal peak is important to publishers, authors, and, of course, indexers.

To give a physical presence to the sales campaigns you may see Books Are My Bag events in your high-street book shop, if you’re lucky enough to still have one. The cloth bags are becoming very collectable, and more useful since the 5p charge for plastic bags was introduced in England.

While e-books have taken a chunk out of the physical book market, the majority of e-book sales have been in fiction. Readers of non-fiction often prefer an actual book for many reasons, perhaps because the pictures are actually better in print than on-screen. But also because e-books are struggling with the ability to format and present an index in a sensible way for readers and free-text search doesn’t always get to what the reader wants to find.

Many indexers will have been busy over the summer months, getting indexes ready for the big launch day today. Often unsung and unmentioned in the books they have worked on, but an important part of the process that will end on Christmas day when the presents are finally unwrapped. Perhaps they’ll keep an eye on the book sale charts to see how their books are doing.

Chicken tonight?

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Many people lead busy lives and we’re all being encouraged to cook from scratch at home these days for health and financial reasons. So cookery books can be a good resource for inspiration and instructions. However, as the author of the tweet above pointed out, finding recipes can be difficult if the book has a poor index. The book in question has a very skimpy index, pretty much just a list of the recipe names. Lookinside shows what I mean http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bird-Hand-Chicken-Recipes-Every/dp/178472002X.

A typical recipe might generate between 2 and 6 entries for the index, so what else could a good index include apart from the recipe name? The first recipe listed in the index is ‘baked chicken with tarragon and mustard’, so entries could be made for both tarragon and mustard because other recipes might include them. The type of chicken used is ‘joints’, so there’s another to distinguish from the recipes that use a whole chicken, drumsticks, breasts or thighs. It might be relevant to index the ‘baked’ dishes, as others might be ‘stove-top’ or ‘grilled’.

After a bit of work on the other recipes other links might become apparent, perhaps including ethnic origins, so ‘Spanish’ might list ‘Casa Lucio’s chicken with garlic’, and ‘Mar i Muntanya’, as only a human indexer will associate the Madrid restaurant with Spain and spot that a Catalan dish comes from Spain.

There are many other links a good index can make that will help users make the best of a cookery book. A good index makes all the difference in a cookery book and a poor one can be criticised and loose sales. Sometimes too much time is spent on the design and layout and not enough on the human users of the book. Don’t let that happen to your cookery book.

#sisfep15 copy-editing, proofreading and indexing

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The later stages of book production can involve three stages: copy-editing, proofreading and indexing. Each requires separate training and expertise. While some people offer all three, it’s not a great idea to have the same person providing all three for the same publication. A few words about each can clarify the roles.

To quote from the SfEP website:

Copy-editing takes the raw material (the ‘copy’: anything from a novel to a web page) and makes it ready for publication as a book, article, website, broadcast, menu, flyer, game or even a tee-shirt. The aim of copy-editing is to ensure that whatever appears in public is accurate, easy to follow, fit for purpose and free of error, omission, inconsistency and repetition. This process picks up embarrassing mistakes, ambiguities and anomalies, alerts the client to possible legal problems and analyses the document structure for the typesetter/designer.

After material has been copy-edited, the publisher sends it to a designer or typesetter. Their work is then displayed or printed, and that is the proof – proof that it is ready for publication. Proofreading is the quality check and tidy up. Proofreading is now often ‘blind’ – the proof is read on its own merits, without seeing the edited version.A proofreader looks for consistency in usage and presentation, and accuracy in text, images and layout, but cannot be responsible for the author’s or copy-editor’s work.

And on indexers:

A professional indexer compiles an ‘analytical’ index – not just a list of keywords. There are no quick fixes for the kind of intellectual analysis required in order to produce the most efficient ‘finding’ and ‘navigation’ tool for a printed or electronic publication. An indexer considers the terms the readers are likely to use and relates them to the language chosen by the author. An indexer analyses the meaning and significance of the entire content in detail, and identifies tangible concepts from the woolliest of descriptions.

So three stages, each doing different things with the text to make it as good as it can be, given the commercial and other constraints.

The first SfEP/SI joint conference was an excellent opportunity for our large community of copy-editors, indexers and proofreaders to develop their professional knowledge, network and socialise, alongside international delegates from both societies. The Storify gives a glimpse here #sisfep15.

Memoirs of fading times

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Over the summer I’ve had the privilege of indexing two books by men who took part in World War II, and viewed their participation as a necessary interlude in their careers, not defining moments because they went on to forge careers in areas unrelated to the military. They were, perhaps, lucky to live at a time when the post-war period made opportunities for those who could seize them.

Nigel Buxton was travel writer for the Sunday Telegraph and a wine writer, and more recently appeared as BaaadDad in the Channel 4 comedy series The Adam and Joe Show. He tells of his wartime experiences and of how he came to work in Fleet Street and blog. This material has been gathered for a book that includes some of his favourite essays from the Sunday Telegraph. Nigel died at the end of November 2015 and the book makes a fitting tribute to his life.

Robert Harling was editor of House & Garden among many other things. He shared wartime experiences with Ian Fleming and became his friend, sharing holidays and meals with Ian on many occasions. Robson press published Ian Fleming: A personal memoir in October to coincide with the new Bond film Spectre. The book gives a unique perspective on an enduringly popular author and his personal life. However, as Ian Jack, writing in the Guardian, shows, Harling wasn’t entirely honest about his own life.

Both should be on the Christmas list of anyone interested in the post-war period in Britain.

World War One in Colour

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I’ve recently completed the index for Subterranean Sappers by Iain McHenry, to be published in July by Uniform Press. Over on Facebook there’s a page by PhotograFix which shows the colourised front jacket illustration. My sensible head says it’s all smoke and mirrors and computer trickery, but I think it works really well to bring the distant past just that little bit closer. Bringing the faces of long gone soldiers out into the sunshine makes them a bit more human and real. The sappers spent years, in the semi-dark, tunnelling silently to make mines, packing them with explosives and blowing them up; or digging dugouts so soldiers could sleep safely at night. Their story certainly deserves to have some light shed on it.