Nonfiction books need good indexes. When I’m reading, I’m continually going to the index, scanning for something I know I read but cannot remember where. That’s where the index for Tupelo Man, my first book, comes in.

The publisher gives you a choice between doing it yourself and hiring a pro (yes, there are professional indexers) to do it—although I would have to pay the indexer. I chose to do it myself to save money and because, I figured, no one cares as much about my index as I do.

Indexing is both tedious and fascinating. It’s clearly a chore tracking down page numbers, devising sub-entries for the longer main entries, and double-checking everything. The fascinating part, though, is choosing the main terms themselves. Some, like the names of people in the book, are no-brainers. But for others, it’s a matter of trying to imagine what words readers looking for something might look under. Is it the “Depression” or the “Great Depression”? Is it something vague like “newspaper technology” or something specific like “offset printing”? Or is both?

You can use “See” and “See also,” for some of this, but I find it discouraging when I look up an entry like “Scouts” and find “See Boy Scouts of America” which sends me back near the beginning of the index.

I submitted the Tupelo Man index at the end of March. And I’ve got to admit: I’m glad it’s done.