Ideas on Fire is growing, and we’re looking for experienced academic book indexers to join our team.
Indexing is a vital part of the publishing process. It’s often treated as a final step, but in reality, it shapes how readers encounter and navigate a book and how they can use that book to make change in the world.
At Ideas on Fire, indexing is part of a larger editorial ecosystem. Our indexers work alongside developmental editors, copyeditors, and project managers to ensure that each book we work on is not only polished but legible across diverse disciplines and communities. We approach indexing as a collaborative, iterative process that reflects the intellectual and political stakes of the work. You can read more about what makes an Ideas on Fire index unique here.
We are especially interested in indexers who approach the craft with this broader perspective. Our projects span interdisciplinary humanities and social science scholarship, engaging questions of race, gender, sexuality, colonialism, power, and inequality. The indexes Ideas on Fire are known for across the industry reflect those complexities—capturing arguments, framing key concepts, signal boosting marginalized scholars and ideas, and guiding readers through layered conversations rather than flattening them into keywords.
Our model is team-based and remote. Indexers are brought onto projects based on expertise, experience, and availability, and they work within a structured process that includes substantive feedback and revision. Typically, indexing projects involve two rounds of drafts over a defined timeline, allowing room to refine structure, strengthen cross-references, and ensure the index fully reflects the book’s argument and interdisciplinary audiences.
This is a freelance role, and we are looking for indexers with demonstrated experience indexing academic books. Familiarity with interdisciplinary scholarship and with the expectations of scholarly publishing is essential. Just as importantly, we’re looking for people who value collaboration, clear communication, and the shared goal of producing rigorous, accessible scholarship.
Ideas on Fire has spent 17 years supporting authors as they move from draft to publication. Indexing is a key part of that process. It’s where a book becomes navigable, where its ideas are made findable, and where readers are invited into the full scope of its argument.
If that approach resonates with you, we encourage you to learn more and apply.
View the full position details and application instructions here:
https://ideasonfire.net/book-indexer-position/
