About

Background

I have been a full-time freelance book indexer, copy-editor and proofreader since 2001. I am a Fellow of the Society of Indexers (SI) (the highest membership grade, for proof of CPD experience and index quality) and an Accredited Indexer (having passed the SI Training in Indexing distance-learning course; see SI Directory entry). I was Marketing Director on the Executive Board of the Society of Indexers from 2017 to 2020. I am also an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (formerly Society for Editors and Proofreaders, SfEP; see CIEP Directory entry), and an Associate Member of the Society of Authors.

I have an employment background in printing and publishing, a BA (Hons) in English and American Literature (University of East Anglia) and a BSc (Hons) in Psychology (Open University), where my independent research projects included an interview study on stand-up comedians’ views of disparagement humour and an experimental study on the effects of background music on working memory.

In my spare time, I enjoy performing with Manchester Recorder Orchestra and Stockport Ukulele Players, I practise yoga and Pilates regularly, I’m a keen Welsh learner (dysgwraig Gymraeg) and I have a particular fondness for ducks and pubs. I am also now a fledgling cryptic crossword setter (as Pixie). I always enjoy a good comedy book index, on which I am writing an ongoing series of blog posts (see my blog here) and articles for other organisations and publications (see my writings here).

Clients

I have completed over 900 commissions to date for a number of academics, authors and publishers, including books published by:

  • Alzheimer’s Society
  • BFI Publishing (British Film Institute)
  • Bloomsbury Publishing
  • Cambridge University Press (CUP)
  • Faber and Faber
  • Hodder Education
  • I.B.Tauris
  • Jessica Kingsley Publishers
  • Oxford University Press (OUP)
  • Palgrave Macmillan
  • Pearson
  • Penguin Press
  • Profile Books
  • Psychology Press
  • Radcliffe Publishing
  • Routledge/Taylor & Francis
  • UCL Press
  • Unbound
  • Yale University Press

Skills

Indexing: I use SKY Index (Professional Edition) software to produce back-of-the-book standalone indexes supplied as a Word or rtf file. I also have considerable experience of embedded indexing in InDesign and Word format files, using Index-Manager or WordEmbed software to embed the index entries in the text. Embedded indexes can then be converted into active linked indexes for ebooks, which I can produce in InDesign from my own embedded indexes or pre-existing print indexes.

Copy-editing: hard copy or on-screen editing in Word. The copy-edit is traditionally the stage of working on the grammar, spelling and style of an author’s text before the book is typeset (i.e. ‘editing the copy’) and is usually done on the Word manuscript.

Proofreading: hard copy or on-screen PDF mark-up (in Adobe Acrobat or InDesign). The proofread is traditionally the final stage of checking the text after the page proofs have been typeset from the edited copy (i.e. ‘reading the proofs’). On a self-published book, these stages may not be distinct and the text may require a ‘proof-edit’ instead.

Subjects

I primarily work on non-fiction texts in the arts, humanities and social sciences, although I have also enjoyed editing several works of fiction. My main subjects include: American literature, autism, ballet, cinema, comedy, criminology, dance, dementia, drama, economics, English literature, film studies, history, literary studies, media studies, mental health, music, politics, psychology, sociology, theatre and yoga. Within these areas, I particularly enjoy indexing biographies and memoirs.

Fees

I generally charge an overall rate for each job. This is based on the recommended rates of the Society of Indexers (see SI rates) and the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (see CIEP rates).

If you would like to discuss your book project further, please use the Contact page to get in touch for a quotation or connect with me via social media (see the LinkedIn, Mastodon and Twitter icons below).

I truly love my job of working on great books and helping to improve them for the reader. Your book deserves the enhanced clarity of a meticulous copy-edit and the considerable added value of an excellent index. Together we can make your next book even better.