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My rule: no index, no sale. If the author didn't care enough to generate an index, what else did they not care enough about? A surprising number of books, esp
by kilo_bravo_3 8y ago
My rule: no index, no sale.
If the author didn't care enough to generate an index, what else did they not care enough about?
A surprising number of books, especially "pop sci" books, don't include an index.
- StavrosK 8y agoWhat percentage of "good" books include an index?
- alephx 8y agoLife is too short to read 99% books.
- marcosdumay 8y agoFor non-fiction, I think I have always unconsciously followed the GP rule, because I don't remember any book, good or bad, that lacked one. Fiction, of course, rarely gets one.
- madcaptenor 8y agoI can't think of any fiction that has an index. Do you have examples?
- madcaptenor 8y agoAnswering my own question: the American Society for Indexers has a list. https://www.asindexing.org/about-indexing/indexes-and-indexers-in-fiction/ https://www.asindexing.org/about-indexing/indexes-and-indexe...
- sramsay 8y agoAre you under the impression that authors create indexes? Because generally, they do not. Specialists do it (because it's way harder than it looks). Some academic publishers might ask the author to pay for that work; bigger publishers might absorb it. But I can't imagine any respectable publisher accepting an index from an author who did it themselves.
- ape4 8y agoSorry your comment contains "surprising", I am not going to read it.
- umvi 8y ago> My rule: no index, no sale. With e-books though, why do you even need an index when you can just search?