Month: October 2021

Book index cost

Blog – How much does it cost to index a book?

hesham
  1. If you have finished writing your non-fiction book content, you will mainly start finalizing the book by preparing some other important sections. One of those sections that every book should have is the index section.



  2. You’re probably wondering if you should employ an indexer or do it yourself when creating a book index. For some authors, the cost of indexing a book is the most important element influencing their selection. If the writer’s budget allows, he may opt to employ an indexer; otherwise, he may have to do it himself.

  3. In most cases, indexers charge around $3.0 and $6.00 per page. The level of complexity of the book subject determines this variation in pricing. It would be far easier to index a book about ‘cooking and recipes’ than it would be to index a book about ‘Data Analysis for Corporate Finance’. One of the primary factors influencing indexing price is this.

  4. When deciding the book index estimate, some sections in the book shouldn’t be indexed. Blank pages, Acknowledgements, Table of Contents, Bibliography are examples of such sections.

  5. The indexer should grab 3 to 10 index entries per each page of the book.

  6. Consider the following scenario: If you have a 300-page book with 250 indexable pages (after excluding the Acknowledgements, Bibliography, and other non-indexable sections), indexing such a book may cost between $750 and $1500. The index for this book should have 750 to 2500 index entries.

  7. We have noticed the wide need for a professional book indexing service with suitable pricing, that’s why we have established a book indexing department, and fortunately we don’t charge per page to index books. We charge per number of words in the book. As an author, that pricing strategy is ideal for you. Consider a 300-page book that costs $300 to index using our ‘charge by amount of words’ strategy, rather than $1000 using the ‘charge by page count’ strategy.

Hopefully this discourse has given you some insight on estimates to index a book, as well as what you may anticipate to pay.  
If you’d like to get a quote for preparing your book index, please contact us, and we will tell you exactly how much would it cost, and the required timeframe to deliver the index attached to your book.