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Michelle Guiliano Freelance Indexer

Crafting exceptional book indexes since 2014

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On my desk

Just-enough and deep-dive indexes

18 March 2026

On my desk

Just-enough and deep-dive indexes

A repagination project came and went a month ago—this was the fourth time I’ve indexed the new edition of this book. Each time, I tinker with the structure of the index.

I had inherited this project in 2016 when it was in its sixth edition. Back then, I was a relatively new indexer, with only a couple years of experience. The editor requested the same length and depth of indexing my predecessor had provided. The index was very detailed, but was this what the reader needed—a college student in an introductory course? That student needs to dip into the index, then quickly flick to the necessary pages.

It’s true that a dense index like this can be a researcher’s delight. They revel in finding a detailed, comprehensive index with cross-pollination and conceptual analysis.

But a student—when they confront a heading that takes up an entire page—their frustration is almost palpable. In a huge index, it can be bewildering, not to mention difficult to find their place. They might ask themselves, “Am I still at the letter B? Where did this entry begin? And when does it end?”

Here’s my question: will the student continue to wade through the dense index? Or will they abandon the index entirely, instead opting to return to the chapter and use the thumb-through-the-pages method?

A dense index and a “just-enough” index each have their places.

Personally, as an indexer, I would rather serve the student of a survey course a “just-enough” index—show them what they need to know and nothing extra. Inside the book, the sidebars, bold words, figures, and end-of-the-chapter questions are excellent signposts for me to curate the most important information in the index.

Now, ten years later, the index for this survey course has evolved—not as much as I would like but as much as the publisher would allow. In the end, I think the changes are enough to encourage the students to use the book (and index!), not slam it shut in frustration.

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In my queue

A change of pace

18 March 2026

In my queue

A change of pace

Usually, the first quarter of my year is dominated by a recurring large indexing project, a reference book from an educational series for ophthalmologists. Talk about a dense index! Yes, this is the kind of index where every mention is included because the book is meant to be THE tome on the specific parts of the eye, like the retina or the iris. I’ve been doing these books for years.

This January was the first year that I opted out. My youngest was in Japan, and I held out the vague hope that I would be traveling there to see her. I need to commit to this project almost a year in advance, and I didn’t want this project on my calendar to influence any travel decisions.

As it turns out, a trip to Japan did not happen. The weeks that were typically filled by the eye book loomed large. Luckily, other books popped up: several alternative health books, a treatise on biotechnology, a memoir, and—can you guess what I’m going to say next? Yes—more textbooks—all the way into March!

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On my mind

Index locations

18 March 2026

On my mind

Index locations

Indexes are a map to a book’s contents. Typically, they’re located in the back of the book—at the very end. To access the index, the reader goes to the end of the book and thumbs backward a couple of pages until—voila!—there’s the telltale sign of the index: a column (or two or even three!) followed by numbers. For example, I’m currently reading Cal Newport’s book A World Without Email. To access the index, I open the back cover. I turn two pages and then I’m at the end of the index. The only text between the back cover and the index is the “About the Author” page. This makes accessing the index—and therefore direct entry into the book’s content—easy and predictable.

Let me repeat: open the back cover, turn back a couple of pages, and there’s the end of the index!

However, exceptions to this convention do exist. Two other books that I have dived into over the past couple of weeks had their indexes in different-than-expected places.

In Effortless by Greg McKeown, the index is in the back of the book—kind of.  Paging from the back cover, I flipped through twelve pages dedicated to an excerpt of another McKewon book (Essentialism). Continuing to page backwards, I find a blank page, the “About the Author” page, a blank page, the “About the Type” page, another blank page, a promotion of McKeown’s podcast, and finally, five blank pages. Phew! I just paged through twenty-three pages to get to the last page of the index!

At first, I didn’t think there was an index at all!

Tim Ferriss’s book The Four-Hour Work Week was laid out like this, too.

I personally don’t like this set-up because I find it disorienting. Yes, the index is located towards the back of the book, but not at the end of the book. I wonder if other would-be indexer users feel the same.

Now you may think I’m a purist or stodgy. Take your pick. But first, let me tell you about the other book I was thumbing through the other day.

I picked up Julia Cameron’s latest book, The Daily Artist’s Way, to find some guidance to ground myself before working (link to newsletter). The book is laid out beginning with the table of contents followed by a 2-page introduction that details the creative journey, then a short chapter describing the four “artist” tools recommended by Cameron. Between that chapter and the 366 entries of meditations for creative living, the editors placed the Topic Index.

Did I think this was a bad idea? Shouldn’t an index be at the back of the book?

The short answer to this question: yes. The nuanced answer is that it depends.

But in this case, I actually like this set-up. (Do you still think I’m stodgy or a purist?)

I found it refreshing. The table of contents lets the reader the reader know where it’s located.  And coming straight after “The Four Basic Tools” (in brief) chapter, the index is in just the right place! It actually functions as a separate table of contents for the meditations! Yet, it’s not laid out in numerical order, listing each meditation by name. Rather, the indexer created a two-column layout like most indexes, organizing the meditations alphabetically by theme. This approach suits the premise of the book—finding ways to be more creative. Also, the numbers in the “Topic Index” do not refer to page numbers but rather to the number of the mediation—another creative twist!

Why does one placement work for me (Cameron’s book) when the other doesn’t (McKeown’s)?

The index is hard to find in McKeown’s book because it’s sandwiched between pages of text arranged in paragraphs. The index is technically located in the general area where it should be, but it’s not accessible because it’s located too far from the end. It’s also easy to think that Effortless doesn’t include an index at all because preceding the “About the Author” page, one finds text in paragraph form rather than columns of text with numbers. If a reader scans through to look for a familiar index layout, they may completely miss it.

With Cameron’s book, the placement is refreshing—creative even. It fits with the book’s message. The title of the index (“Topic Index”) and the use of the meditation numbers rather than the page numbers indicates that—yes—the aberrations were intentional deviations from book-style norms. In other words, the style, title, and location of the index set it apart from an ordinary index, just as the book itself is different from an ordinary book.

The relocation of the index in McKeown’s book, on the other hand, felt like a mistake. The excerpt of his other book, Essentialism, is essentially (ha!) an advertisement—an advertisement that takes up prime real estate at the end of the book. This feels like a mistake because instead of the reader effortlessly (pun intended) diving back into the book in their hand by using an index, there’s friction. The reader’s attention, instead, is directed toward a different book.

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In my ears

Austin Kleon’s mixtapes

18 March 2026

In my ears

Austin Kleon’s mixtapes

In a recent letter on Substack for This Is Indexing, I wrote about the pleasure of listening to record albums after discovering my teenage collection. Another blast from the past is the mixtape. Austin Kleon is bringing the mixtape back into my life with his version, by taping over cassettes purchased for 99 cents or less from his local record store, complete with redoing the sleeve with his own artwork. I’m making my way through his collection on Spotify. I started with his recent, About Time, then I went on to the “tapes” from 2025.

I listen to classical music while I index because anything with words distracts me.  Although—as an aside—I’m tempted to train myself to listen to music with words to improve my neurocognitive efficiency. In his book Effortless, Greg McKeown promotes training one’s attention to improve one’s ability to process what’s important while ignoring what isn’t. He uses the example of the NBA basketball player, Stephen Curry, successfully dribbling a basketball while juggling tennis balls to improve his basketball skills. Maybe learning to index while listening to songs with lyrics can take my indexing skills to a new level. I’ll let you know how that experiment goes. It sounds like a perfect March project.

Now, back to the mixtapes. Kleon’s song choices (all with words!) are perfect accompaniment to my index editing which requires less analysis and deep reading. They’re excellent soundtracks for this work, and what’s great is that they create surprise because they’re curated by someone other than me. I may know what to expect as I edit my index, but I don’t know what song is coming up next. And you know what? Kleon has a knack for making mixtapes. We have similar tastes in music, and he has a way of seamlessly blending the sound and his chosen theme. His curations harken back to a time when we all appreciated a well put-together album because we listened to them on vinyl, with the songs in the order the bands and artists intended. In the same way, Kleon’s collections of songs are tied together thematically and, like a good album, the selections flow into one another, at times imperceptibly blending into each other except for the briefest pause. His mixtapes provide inspiration for editing indexes because I’m looking for the same type of cohesion and flow in my work.

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