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Westchester Publishing Services Sponsoring The Bookseller Conferences

By Guest Blogger – Tyler M. Carey

Westchester Publishing Services continues to grow its presence in the U.K. market, and has a tremendous amount of interest from U.K.-based publishers at this time. I believe one of the reasons why is because we have been attending more industry trade shows and conferences relevant to the U.K. trade and scholarly markets, including London Book Fair in March. The energetic atmosphere along with the positive reception we received while we were there confirmed our belief that we need to be at more conferences and trade shows in the U.K.

I’m excited to announce Westchester Publishing Services is teaming up with The Bookseller – London’s venerable publication for the publishing industry – for two important conferences during the second half of 2017. We are proud to be a sponsor of both The Bookseller Children’s Conference, taking place 26 September, as well as the FutureBook digital publishing conference, being held on 1 December.

The opportunity to be a significant part of these two conferences was one we simply couldn’t pass up.   We are looking forward to meeting many dynamic publishing professionals at both of these conferences, learning more about the editorial and production challenges publishers are encountering, and helping them to identify beneficial solutions.

If you are planning to attend either of these shows, or would be interested in meeting with members of the Westchester team in England during the dates surrounding these shows, we would love to meet with you! Please contact me to schedule an appointment, at: tyler.carey@westchesterpubsvcs.com or call me at: +1 203 658 6581.

Annual supplement focuses on digital solutions for publishers

Westchester recently had the opportunity to participate once again in Publishers Weekly’s Digital Solutions in India annual supplement.  This annual issue helps the publishing industry understand the options available for editorial, composition, and digital services – often from vendors based in India.

As the only U.S. employee-owned company in the market focused exclusively on editorial and production services, Westchester is proud of the work we do in both North America and India. Publishers Weekly’s Digital Solutions in India annual supplement covered many aspects of our business, including leading with our perspectives on recent changes in the print and digital space, writing about new units and offerings at Westchester including our Client Portal , highlighting some of our recent, complex projects , and featuring us in their digital marketplace section.

Westchester’s year of expansion

Westchester has undergone significant growth since our appearance in last year’s Digital Solutions supplement, including expansions in our Scholarly publishing, Domestic Full Service,  and India Direct Full Service businesses, the acquisition of Kinetic Publishing Services,  our move into K-12 publishing services, and the launch of our Client Portal.  Contact Us to learn more about our offerings, and explore the various ways we can help you affordably scale your publications program.

Michael Jon Jensen and Bill Foley in the Westchester Publishing Services booth at AAUP 2017

By Guest Blogger Nicole Tomassi

If it seems like we’ve done a lot of blog posts lately about conferences, you’re right!  Westchester’s schedule is filled with numerous events, particularly from April to June, because we understand the importance of keeping up with developments impacting the publishing community. One of the last meeting dates on Westchester’s calendar before summer begins, was the AAUP 2017 Conference, which took place June 11-13.

A Capital Trip

Bill Foley, Key Accounts Manager, Susan Baker, Director, Editorial Services, and Michael Jon Jensen, Director, Technology traveled to Austin, TX for the Association of  American University Presses Annual Meeting. I asked them to share their insights with me, and all three expressed a significant amount of optimism about the current and future prospects for university presses. This was further affirmed by the presence of AAUP’s newest member, University of Cincinnati Press, the first university press to be launched in several years. PW also noted the positive atmosphere of the conference in this article about the vitality of university presses.

Our team hit the ground running, with Susan and Michael attending the opening banquet, featuring a keynote address given by Dan Rather. According to Susan, Rather commented on some of the serious challenges facing the world and the nation, urging attendees not to be complacent. What followed was a pep talk praising the work of university presses and encouraging those in the room to persevere in their careers. Michael also came away feeling “quite inspired by the thoughtful words”, Dan Rather delivered to the audience at Sunday night’s event.

Choice sessions

AAUP always offers up a variety of interesting topics for attendees to learn about in each day’s sessions, and the trio made sure to be at as many as their schedules allowed.

Bill sat in on the Scholarly Publishing Services and University Press session, where the panelists discussed publishing scholarly works —Ph.D. thesis’s and personal endeavors based on their field of study—as a way to provide publishing opportunities to the university community which would not normally be available. Bill observed this approach is gaining traction at a number of schools, and believes it is a great resource for the new author who wants to get published. Susan attended the session previewing the next edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, which is due out in September. New ways of accessing information create the need to correctly cite electronic sources and open access materials, and Susan also noted there will be interesting, and potentially controversial changes to some long-held grammatical conventions. According to Michael, the sessions capturing his attention covered the state of “artificial intelligence” and its implications, as well as a fascinating session involving “comment” and “annotation” capabilities on public documents, using tools like Hypothes.is and others. Whether for classroom use, or for a public intellectualism, these new options are just beginning to make themselves felt in the scholarly environment, and Michael believes they could well become very important in the years ahead, especially when paired with ORCID and other standards-based authority metric tools.

Kickin’ back, Austin style

In keeping with Tuesday’s closing plenary theme on the importance of happiness in the workplace, Bill, Michael, and Susan made sure to take time for some leisurely activities as well. Michael shared with me, “There were two evenings of making music. We had guitars, a baritone ukulele, a violin, and many voices joining in. Smartphones often provided the lyrics, and sometimes the chords if necessary, for Beatles, Dylan, CCR, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and plenty of others.”  Susan made sure to see Austin’s famous emergence of the million-plus Mexican Free-tailed bats from the Congress Avenue Bridge (a.k.a. Ann W. Richards Bridge) at dusk. In her words, “It was quite literally awesome. The bridge was about a block from the hotel, and the bats started coming out at about 9:45 in the evening. Not only do you see them swarming out, but as they fan out over the river, you can see clouds of them off in the distance as they go off to feed on Austin’s insects.” Bill enjoyed some of Austin’s famous ‘cue, and banished any calories thinking about sticking around by taking part in the 5K morning run organized by AAUP.

With AAUP a wrap, we’re taking the summer off from conferences, but will be hitting the road again this September.  In the meantime, Bill, Susan, Michael, and the rest of our staff will be keeping busy ensuring the projects we are working on for our clients are progressing smoothly.  Be sure to check back here periodically, where I’ll be posting topical content, and head over to our Events page to see where Westchester plans to be next.

-NT

 

 

 

 

Plugging in: Insights from the CSE and SSP 2017 Annual Meetings – by Guest Blogger Tim Cross

As I mentioned in last month’s blog post, spring is a busy time of year for meetings.  I’m a firm believer in the importance of plugging in and recharging, and my recent travels to both coasts for important conferences within the scholarly and scientific communities allowed me to connect with colleagues, peers, and the pulse of current trends in scholarly publishing.

I was in San Diego in late May to attend the Council for Science Editors conference in San Diego, where as co-chair of the Mentorship Committee along with Ken Heideman, I had the privilege of launching the new CSE Mentorship Program. This initiative is designed to help meet the needs of members seeking opportunities for growth and knowledge-sharing in scholarly publishing and editing. Interested individuals are paired with a mentor who will provide guidance through a combination of group activities, webinars, phone calls, and in-person visits over a one-year period. Feedback and recommendations will be gathered from all participants to make further refinements to the program. I look forward to seeing how the mentors and mentees will benefit from their participation in this exciting collaboration.

At the end of May, I traveled to Boston for the Society for Scholarly Publishing conference. While there, I moderated a session with panelists Anna Jester and Michael Jon Jensen about the evolving needs of publishers in the 21st Century, and the role service providers such as Westchester Publishing Services have in striking the proper balance as a partner with our publisher clients. The session was well received and there were thoughtful questions posed by the attendees.

Conference Topics in Common

There were a number of important topics covered at both meetings, from varying perspectives. The most significant highlights for me were:

  • The pervasiveness of piracy and the challenges that libraries and publishers face in fighting piracy, protecting researcher privacy, and streamlining access to content at institutions while balancing concerns for copyright and the potential for data breaches
  • The emergence of open access monographs and other innovations in scholarly book publishing that work toward aligning this channel of publication with research and academic journals
  • The need for agreed-upon standards and cross-industry collaboration between stakeholders in the management of data repositories and publication, metadata, persistent identifiers, and funding and Open Access requirements
  • Ongoing trends in Open Access journals, peer review, publication ethics, revenue models, and other aspects of the scholarly publishing endeavor that continue to be front-and-center issues of importance and interest to attendees

My colleagues and I realize the importance of active engagement with the scholarly community.  By having regular conversations, meetings, and involvement at conferences, a service provider like Westchester Publishing Services is able to better understand the challenges and goals publishers are contending with, allowing us to be a more effective partner in helping them fulfill their mission.

If you attended either the CSE or SSP conference, I’d love to hear from you. Which speeches or sessions did you find the most helpful and informative for you? Drop me an email at: tim.cross@westchesterpubsvcs.com to let me know. Also take a moment to visit our Events page to see the conferences Westchester Publishing Services participates in throughout the year, and if you think there are ones we should be adding to our schedule, contact us!

 

Insights from the Association of American Publishers Content in Context Conference – by Guest Blogger Kevin Gray  

I’ve recently returned from another successful AAP Content in Context conference, where the warm reception we received debuting our Westchester K-12 group was richly rewarding. I appreciated the opportunities to talk with other conference attendees, learning about their needs and identifying ways that Westchester K-12 can make their business run more smoothly.

If you didn’t have a chance to be at the pre-conference forum this year, I’d highly recommend attending next year. The smaller setting allows for interesting explorations into how to stay relevant in today’s market, and how to straddle both digital and print offerings to meet the needs of your consumers. I found Ira Wolfman’s investigation of NY Times’ digital transition layered in nicely with conversations from companies like Capstone and Discovery, who are making similar changes in the K-12 space.

One thing that was clear to me from the conference forums, along with the many conversations which occurred during the back half of the conference, is that regardless of the medium, the educational market demands high quality content designed with an understanding of the needs of the target market. This is an area where Westchester K-12 excels. Our editorial team members, led by Marie Brown, have a proven track record of creating engaging and successful content across the educational marketplace, whether print or digital, student or teacher facing. Marie’s experience in the classroom and her understanding of the realities of the ed-pub development world help her to quickly identify our client’s needs in order to create content that will be rich and rewarding for the student.

Something I was already keenly aware of, and which was further reinforced at the CIC conference, is that high quality content is useless without a way to get it to the market. Westchester’s reputation for delivering flawlessly executed production work, while managing to your overall budget, adds polish to your content.  I welcome the opportunity to continue the discussions we began at AAP CIC, or to start a new dialogue with you about how the Westchester K-12 team can help you deliver better products faster and more effortlessly. Check out our newly redesigned website or contact me directly at: kevin.gray@westchesterk12pubsvcs.com with a convenient time to schedule a meeting.