Why So Long?

A question people ask me from time to time is, How can a book require so much work, after acceptance? At the moment, I am working on one of two indexes with a typesetter (two pages in draft pictured here). My computer says there are more than 1,500 entries. All need to be representative of the book, optimally ordered, and correctly formatted. This is several weeks of work. Beyond this, however, there are many other elements and aspects of the book: the cover, endorsements, foreword, preface, diagrams, text boxes, footnotes, contents, text, glossary, bibliography, index of names -- many of which are double- and triple-checked in the process, and all of which cover both content and style. OBSERVATION: While I have worked diligently on the current index, striving for perfection, I would not be surprised if I made 100 mistakes I didn't see.