All
contents © 2008
by Lori Ann Curley
Indexing Articles
What? An Index?
What
the Customer Wants: Indexing
What?
An Index?
(Originally published in
Games
Quarterly Magazine #3, October 2004,
then reprinted in
The Lady Gamer,
January 2005.)
Want to increase sales of your products? Want to garner better reviews
of your products? Want to increase customer satisfaction of your
products?
Include a usable index.
The reviews on
RPG.net
frequently say the same thing:
As always, an index would have been
nice, but there isn't one. A book without an index is almost a crime
against nature. 1
What? An index? Don't make me laugh. 2
Imagine the all-too-frequent occurrence: a player
is sitting around the table, playing a favorite game. The GM presents
the monster. The player's character knows of an action that can counter
the monster and tries to find the pertinent information in the book.
The player looks in the back of the publication, only to find the book
isn't indexed. The game comes to a complete halt while the player finds
the information. How long will this game remain the player's favorite?
"Can't a computer program create an index?" you ask. No, a computer
program can create a
concordance-a
list of words that appear in the
publication, and the computer can even list where these words appear in
the publication. A concordance, however, is not an index. Only a
trained professional can create a usable index; a computer cannot think
like a trained professional. The computer cannot take the word 'rogue'
and think to make a cross-
reference:
thief, see rogue. The word thief may not even show
up in the
book, but that's where a player character might look for it.
I know the arguments against a professional indexer: it's too
expensive; we don't have time in the production schedule; it's the
author's responsibility. Go back to the beginning of this article and
read the quotes from real reviews of real products, then read this
quote from Sue Weinlein Cook, editor for
Malhavoc Press:
I think my own recent
experience might be typical of how the industry looks at indexing:
people think they can do it -- they sure don't want to pay someone else
do it -- until they try. Then either they discover (like I did) that it
would have been well worth the money to have a pro do it, or they come
up with a half-assed index they made using some dumb program, and
they're perfectly happy with it (but the fans tear it apart).
The best solution to the indexing problem is to
hire an editor who will also index the book. If you cannot find a
trained or experienced indexer, then look to the excellent indexing
guidelines offered by
Steve Jackson
Games (no longer available online).
The benefits of a good index are best described by another RPG.net
review.
Structurally, it's also solid. It's
well organized, with a complete index, and with explanatory sidebars
and tables at the right places; and with a good main index in the back,
and a great character traits index at the end of the character creation
rules. All around, this is a clean, solid, useful book, which reads
well for a first-timer trying to learn the rules, and also reads well
as a reference for an experienced player. It's a very, very solid
effort, and SJG deserves to be very proud of it. 3
Which review would you prefer to receive? Which
review will garner more sales?
1:
Mark L. Chance reviewing "Mutants & Masterminds Annual #1" by Green
Ronin Publishing
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10524.phtml
2: Wood Ingham reviewing
The Bygone Bestiary by White Wolf Games
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10496.phtml
3: Mark Chu-Carroll
reviewing GURPS Fourth Edition by Steve Jackson Games
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10646.phtml
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What the Customer Wants:
Indexing
(Originally published in
Games
Quarterly Catalog
#57 Winter 2006,
then reprinted in
The Lady Gamer,
May 2006.)
After I wrote my first article for
Games
Quarterly Magazine [“What? An Index?”, Issue #3
4], a friend and fellow gamer sent me an
e-mail, “Just to say, nice piece on indexing RPG books in Games
Quarterly. Now do you think you could persuade [game company] to put
indexes in their books...?”
I won’t tell you which gaming company it is, but what if it’s your
company? My friend went on to write, “To be honest, until
recently the last book I bought from them was [game name] from five
years ago. That did not have an index. I have a copy of their
recent RPG, but I do not expect it to have an index either. I
will point that out in the review, but to what I believe will be little
avail.”
Can you really afford for your customers to wait five years between
buying products? Will they even give you a second chance in this
tight economy? Do not give consumers a reason not to buy your
products. Give ‘em what they want: a usable index.
Even if you cannot include the index in the printed book, you can
include one on your website. I just wrote the index for Kobolds
Ate My Baby, Super Deluxx Edition (9th Level Games and Dork Storm Press)
5. The book is only
48 pages, so a paper index wasn’t a viable option. The online
index not only utilized the most accurate final pagination of the book,
but also didn’t interfere with the printing schedule.
If you have the time in your production schedule, and the space in your
product, I highly recommend including an index. Earlier in the
year, I wrote the index for Monte Cook Presents: Iron Heroes
(Malhavoc Press)
6; and Jannica
Thales, a reviewer at RPG.net,
said, “Layout is good as is the index and table of contents.”
7
That’s the kind of review you want for your product because it will
encourage gamers to buy.
4:
http://www.delazan.com/GQM3article.pdf
(see above)
5:
http://www.koboldsatemybaby.com
6:
http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?iron-lore
7:
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11672.phtml
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