December 10, 2025
Does your book need a book index? Chapter titles and subheadings can tell a reader what to expect from your book. They also give guidance on the book’s organization. If you want people to delve deep and find significant details in your book, however, you must provide a book index. Where chapter titles and headings give a bird’s eye view, a book index points to specific names, ideas, or facts that the reader wants to know more about. A well-made book index is an asset to any nonfiction book.
Indexes are helpful in any nonfiction book. They’re essential for:
The best way to approach your book index is through the eyes and mind of your reader. Define whether your reader is an academic researcher, industry professional, amateur enthusiast, or someone who must study the material for a test. These readers will have different uses for a book index. Before you begin indexing, begin by establishing the scope and depth your book index needs. This prevents under-indexing, which can leave readers frustrated, or over-indexing, which bogs your book down with unnecessary detail.
For instance, a cookbook should include references to specific ingredients as well as recipes by name and the type of cooking it is. A cook looking for the recipe for General Tso’s Chicken will first turn to the table of contents and look for the chapter on chicken recipes. If they don’t find it there, they’ll look under the index for “chicken” or “General Tso.” Your book index should include an entry for each one. This is a straightforward example of a book index as a quick, easy guide to the right page. You don’t need conceptual terms in a book index like this.
An academic, literary analysis of Shakespeare might include chapters that cover key concepts in his art. A reader will want to know about the major themes of his works. Rhyming styles, frequent metaphors, and other stylistic patterns would get their own index entries.
Readers might also want to know about his life and how life events affected his writing. A book index might include entries about the word “birthday” that point to his birth date, ways he celebrated his birthday, and the times birthdays or birth celebrations are mentioned in his work. This index requires more detail and more attention to complex conceptual terms.
It’s clear that one indexing style won’t fit every book. That’s where knowledge of your book’s main themes will help you most. Keep the focus on your key concepts when creating your book index.
Most indexes should include dates, names, and other verifiable facts. As you go through the indexing stage, you’ll need to go through each page carefully to decide what gets indexed.
Include:
Exclude:
A usable, helpful book index goes beyond single-line entries. Your book index should incorporate sub-entries, nested themes, and cross-references. It should point the reader to every helpful mention that will deepen their understanding. A good index will include pointers to “see,” or “see also,” used when topics overlap but need their own separate entry. It will also direct readers from synonyms or alternate terms to those preferred by the book’s author.
Don’t wait until you start writing — or, worse yet, until you’re almost finished with the book — to think about the index. Start while you’re writing the first draft. Some word processing programs allow you to tag words for indexing while you’re composing your first or second draft.
Start by listing a raw inventory of words you want to use as search terms in your book index. You can tag words for those terms while you’re writing.
Word has an automatic index and table of contents generator. It’s easy to use.
You can make an index in Google Docs. It doesn’t have an automatic index generator like Microsoft Word, but it’s still a fast, straightforward process. To do it:
Automated indexing tools make quick work of any document, even one that’s heavy with references, charts, and tables. If you regularly publish nonfiction books, you may want to invest in this type of software. The most used indexing software packages are Cindex, Index Manager, Macrex, and Picardy.
Indexing software is faster than manually tagging a document and is especially helpful for long documents with many references. The software does an excellent job of including charts, graphs, pictorials, and other non-text parts of a book. Some come with add-ons for your word processor that can make the integration faster.
Using software does have some downsides, however.
This is the best choice for those with the budget for it. Professional indexers bring subject expertise, extensive experience, and industry knowledge to the task of creating an index. They uncover connections you may have missed, make your book highly readable, and remove one of the nonfiction writer’s biggest headaches.
To find a qualified indexer, contact the American Society for Indexing (ASI). The society has an Indexer Locator that will help you find an ASI-certified indexer with experience in your subject.
To make the most of working with a professional:
Book indexing can be difficult and tedious, but it’s necessary when writing a nonfiction book. For a simple book, manual tagging will work. If you regularly write nonfiction, consider working with software or hiring an indexing professional. Once your book is ready to go, work with the best printers possible. You’ll find us under P for Publishing Xpress.
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