As well as writing puzzles, I am also an editor and indexer (cos, let's face it, writing puzzles is no damn way to earn an income!).
As an indexing exercise, I recently finished writing an index for the book Quirkology, by Richard Wiseman. An interesting book that suffers from the lack of an index. It's beyond me why authors of non-fiction pass up indexes for their books ... Anyway, that's a rant for another time.
You are welcome to download the PDF of the index for free, and print it out. Then you can refer to it when reading your copy of the book!
There are two versions of the file:
A4 Quirkology Index
This index is a straight forward layout, on A4 (will resize to US Letter easily), and you can print it either single or double-sided as you prefer. Staple them together.
Booklet Quirkology Index
This file has been designed to make a little booklet that can be slotted into the back of your copy of Quirkology. To use this file, you need to be able to print double-sided, and to trim pages to the size of your copy of the book (using a ruler and blade, paper guillotine etc).
The pages are laid out in imposition, so they may look in a funny order, but once the pages are folded in half, and the booklet is put together, trust me, it will work out.
You may need to flip every second page by 180º to get the printing to work correctly, it depends on how your printer does double-sided printing.
After printing, fold the pages in half, place them together in the correct order (you'll be able to tell from the alphabetical order), and trim them to size (there are trim marks on the pages to guide you). Then simply plonk it into the back of your copy of Quirkology, and you're set to go!
Ooooh, I loved that book, and am impressed that you were commissioned to create its index! Thanks for sharing ;-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Karin! I wasn't commissioned to write the index, it's a self-directed indexing project — I just did it as a 'freebie' for Pan Macmillan - all helps to get my name out there as an indexer.
DeleteSo the book currently doesn't include this index, but by providing it here as a PDF that people can download, they can remedy the lack of an index in the existing book. And maybe Pan Macmillan will decide to include it in new print runs or editions, who knows (I've sent them the files).