{"id":1213,"date":"2026-05-28T17:00:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T07:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/?p=1213"},"modified":"2026-05-28T17:00:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T07:00:42","slug":"creating-an-index-for-a-technical-book-using-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/?p=1213","title":{"rendered":"Creating an Index for a Technical Book using AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/reefwing_A_technical_book_manuscript_open_on_a_desk_pages_cov_258a0bcf-026d-4cc9-97bb-ba3e7553a28a_2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"574\" src=\"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/reefwing_A_technical_book_manuscript_open_on_a_desk_pages_cov_258a0bcf-026d-4cc9-97bb-ba3e7553a28a_2-1024x574.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1214\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/reefwing_A_technical_book_manuscript_open_on_a_desk_pages_cov_258a0bcf-026d-4cc9-97bb-ba3e7553a28a_2-1024x574.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/reefwing_A_technical_book_manuscript_open_on_a_desk_pages_cov_258a0bcf-026d-4cc9-97bb-ba3e7553a28a_2-300x168.png 300w, https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/reefwing_A_technical_book_manuscript_open_on_a_desk_pages_cov_258a0bcf-026d-4cc9-97bb-ba3e7553a28a_2-768x430.png 768w, https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/reefwing_A_technical_book_manuscript_open_on_a_desk_pages_cov_258a0bcf-026d-4cc9-97bb-ba3e7553a28a_2.png 1456w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"3568\"><em>How I used Claude to build a 5,000-entry index for a 600 page technology book without going crazy. The hard part of indexing is not inserting tags, but you will want to automate the boring mechanical labour.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"58c1\">I have spent the last couple of years writing a book about Embedded AI for No Starch Press (NSP). It has been three times the amount of work that I was expecting. The editing process feels never ending and by the end you will never want to read your book again. It does make for a better book though, and I am now an advocate for having an external editor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"6f08\">One of the more tedious aspects of putting together a book is index tagging. The publisher can index for you, but it will cost around $4 per page and this comes out of your royalties.\u00a0Not many people get rich writing a book, but there is no point throwing away hard earned royalties!\u00a0There are lots of things you have to do manually when creating a book (like writing), but this feels like a task that a\u00a0<em>Large Language Model (LLM)<\/em>\u00a0should be good at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"e867\">NSP expects the finished index to weigh in at 5 to 8 percent of the manuscript word count, so for a 100,000-word book you are building something in the range of 5,000 to 8,000 words. This is a substantial document in its own right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/write-a-catalyst\/creating-an-index-for-a-technical-book-using-ai-724cadd41c08?sk=3e5c199278af1f2a423240391c259a08\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How I used Claude to build a 5,000-entry index for a 600 page technology book without going crazy. The hard part of indexing is not inserting tags, but you will want to automate the boring mechanical labour. I have spent the last couple of years writing a book about Embedded AI for No Starch Press [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,45,6],"tags":[69],"class_list":{"0":"post-1213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ai","7":"category-embedded","8":"category-title-post","9":"tag-embedded-ai","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1215,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions\/1215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}