Self-Publishers’ Stories

As you read these examples, you’ll see what each of these self-publishing authors wanted for their book, their challenges, and how we solved them.

I hope these stories will give you inspiration as well as useful ideas for writing your book. Check back soon for more case studies.

(1) Opening Your Doors To Hollywood by James Perry

James Perry is a Hollywood location scout. James called me when he decided to publish a book about how to get your house, garage, vehicle or other property you own into a movie. James needed an indexer. But more urgently he needed someone to design his book for him. And he had a rush deadline!

James had the contacts to be his own media publicist, so he was already booked on major TV shows like E! and Entertainment Tonight to talk about his book. He had to get his book done! I put James in touch with a couple up in Washington State who typset books. They were able to design and typeset his book, and I was able to index it, in time for James to meet his deadlines for promoting it.

A special feature of James’ book is his inclusion of a glossary. This introduces readers to the lingo of Hollywood movie sets. The inclusion of a glossary boosts the authority and usefulness of his book’s text.

Two interesting facts related to this book are: (1) “Monk,” a TV series starring Tony Shaloub used some of James’ own property in a couple episodes, and (3) Shortly after I created his index, my partner discovered her old VW bus she’d sold online was one of the VW’s used in the Hollywood movie, “Little Miss Sunshine.”

(2) The San Diego Bay Star Fleet: 1925 to the Present Day: A Seventy-Five Year History written and compiled by E.J. Sprague, Jr.

Ed Sprague Jr. is a long-time owner and racing competitor of a special type of sailboat called a Star. Stars are two-person sailboats with very tall masts and sails. The sails, many of which were custom made by the legendary Lowell North, also a Star owner, each sport a star and their boat’s unique ID number.

Stars race all over the globe, they have a World Championship and they are now even part of the Olympics. Ed wanted to memorialize the history of Stars, their owners, and the clubs that hold races, especially his home club in San Diego, California. So Ed had a book he wanted indexed for their seventy-fifth anniversary.

A problem Ed and I worked on together was  what to include and what to leave out. Ed’s compendium on Stars was over 1,000 pages! It was chock full of race reports and race results as well as information about each Star, owner, and crew member. Ed and I came up with a plan that worked for both of us and for Ed’s book budget.

A special feature of this book is that there’s no table of contents in this two-volume book. The index performs all the work of leading readers to all the information they’re looking for. Just about everyone who races in Stars is in this book. But you can quickly pick out the San Diego club members and other frequent winners of races by the number of pages after their names. Because the text goes year by year, you can easily use the index to follow each racer’s career from start to finish.

An interesting fact about this book: I never tired of reading the details of the hundreds of Star races in this two-volume set. And the incredible action shots of these tiny boats racing in all kinds of weather conditions and waters around the world are breathtaking!

(3) Insalata’s Mediterranean Table by Heidi Insalata Krahling

This is the first book I indexed where I worked exclusively with the designer for the book. Laura Parker is a first rate designer, photographer and artist located in the San Francisco Bay area.

I love indexing restaurant cookbooks with their colorful recipe names and intriguing new dishes. You’ll find examples of six different ways to design the index for a cookbook if you click here.

This cookbook is also the story of the whole Insalata family. In their index I wove together their biographies and food philosophy along with their unique recipes.

As one person who saw it said, “This is the first index to a cookbook I’ve ever seen that made me want to taste all the recipes.”