Westchester Publishing Services

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IPG Summer Summit 2025

Conferences

On Wednesday, May 21, Westchester Publishing Services sponsored the IPG Summer Summit virtual event. The day featured several sessions covering tariffs, metadata, marketing, and accessibility. A full day, indeed!

Westchester’s Chief Revenue Officer Tyler Carey moderated the panel on accessibility, which featured panelists Julie Willis (Editorial Director and Systems Lead from Westchester, speaking on behalf of an absent client), Eileen Reilly (Digital Production Manager at Princeton University Press), and Michael Johnson (Vice President of Content from Benetech).

The IPG will be sharing the slides and video shortly, and we’ll update this blog post with those assets once they are available. But in the interim, here are the key topics that were covered:

  • The EAA deadline is approaching fast – June 28, 2025!
  • Julie and Eileen talked about the steps that two IPG-member presses are taking to prepare, including:
    • Evaluating all of the titles in your backlist in your ONIX feed and sales data, with a consideration towards remediation costs in mind. Titles that have high sales volume are being remediated first, but documenting decisions and future plans by title is also important. If a title is challenged for inaccessibility, being able to provide documentation regarding the accessibility plan for that title is a strategy that some publishers are taking to minimise risk.
    • Setting up author guidelines for the creation of alt text – like these ones on Princeton University Press’ site – is a key step to bringing accessibility into the process early on a frontlist title, and giving authors agency to write or influence the alt text of their content. Julie talked about the importance of this – especially on academic titles that go through peer review – as the author holds responsibility for the content in many cases.
    • Joining PAAG, DAISY, and Benetech’s GCA program, so that you have access to up-to-date information on accessibility practices and legislation.
  • Michael shared Benetech’s approach to accessibility, and answered questions on topics including:
    • Alt text – Michael shared guidance on the different needs for different use cases for an image. An image of the Eiffel Tower in a cookbook on crêpes might be decorative, and could be labelled as such. In a travel guide for Paris the same image might merit a description of the Eiffel Tower for a reader having the text read aloud to them. For a book on engineering, the same image might bear an alt text entry about its construction from iron instead of steel, augmenting what is in the text through a description of the Eiffel Tower’s structure itself.
    • Language shift tagging – this topic has been coming up more and more often for publishers exploring the requirements for WCAG AA standards, as they try to get ahead of the baseline level A standards inferred to be required for the EAA. Michael talked to how casual use terms and place names do not need to be tagged, but passages and alternating dialogue in different languages, as examples, should be tagged.
  • Lastly, best practices to really understand and embrace accessibility were discussed, including the recommendation to download Thorium or another accessible reading software, so that you can have your EPUB files read aloud to you to better understand the end user’s experience. Between this process and auditing ACE by DAISY reports on your titles, you will be better equipped to have quality accessible EPUB files that don’t just meet standards but also address the needs of end users.

Stay tuned for more accessibility information from Westchester, and please do visit our online repository of accessibility information, including this white paper.

Observations from the London Book Fair 2025

Six business professionals standing in the Westchester Publishing Services booth during the London Book Fair 2025.
Pictured from l to r: Dennis Pistone, Deb Taylor, Julie Willis, Rebecca Durose-Croft, Christober Masilamani, and Tyler M. Carey

Authors and AI were ruling the world at this year’s London Book Fair. Westchester assembled members of our team from our US, UK, and India locations – our largest team yet – to visit with our clients at the Fair, including Deb Taylor (President), Dennis Pistone (Chairman), Rebecca Durose-Croft (Managing Director, Westchester UK), Christober Masilamani (Managing Director, India), Julie Willis (Editorial Director), and myself. Visit the Meet Our Team page to learn more.

With over 40 meetings spread across the three days of the Fair, it was the ideal venue to meet with so many of our clients, partners, and prospects, to discuss the things that are affecting their businesses and their publications programs. Below is a brief overview, in the hopes that there are a few topics you will find merit some further discussion. If you’re interested in speaking with us about any of the items below or other concerns related to your publications program, we’d love to hear from you!

Rights

o The Rights Hall upstairs at Olympia was doing a brisk business, with authors meeting with publishers to sell rights to their publications, global rights, and an increasing focus on media rights for streaming platforms and studios.
o Authors seemed to be in more of a power position than in recent years, with the rise of self-publishing – like IngramSpark’s platform, which Westchester supports via editorial and production offerings – serving as proof of concept for more publishers than this model had done in the past.

Technology

o AI of course was inescapable. Most manufacturing vendors had some sort of service or widget to enable AI to create efficiency for themselves or their clients. That said, over the course of our dozens of meetings it was evident there remains apprehensiveness from publishers about generative AI getting a hold of their content before it is released to market or scraping it to train models.

o Westchester continues to be thoughtful about how we approach AI, requiring a request and consent from a client before any AI tools would be used for any portions of their workflow, whether it be for generating keywords and metadata, over time the ability to craft alt text using AI, or other requirements. We would like to better understand your organization’s plans regarding AI, and any policies we should keep in mind while exploring any tools to support your needs. If you have a couple of minutes, please share your thoughts, using this short, confidential survey.

o Of all the AI platforms on offer at the Fair, the one that seems to continue to generate the most buzz is shimmr.ai, a platform for online advertising leveraging AI. Their stand party, and discussions throughout the Fair, pointed to their platform as one that is gaining momentum.

o The Fair also served as an opportunity for us to connect in person with thought leaders whom we respect and trust, including George Walkley of Outside Context (sample article on his thoughts on AI) who is leading training for the industry on use cases for AI and providing education via his relationship with the Independent Publishers Guild, and Stable Book Group President and PerfectBound.io CEO Keith Riegert, whom you may know from past Westchester and PW webinar content. Keith regularly speaks on AI, and provides some very practical advice for publishers in this post on the perfectbound.io site.

Document holder containing information about creating accessible reading materials.Accessibility

o Whether publishers are in trade, academic, education, the policy group space, or any other area of publishing, the topic of the European Accessibility Act, and its late June enforcement date reigned supreme throughout many of our discussions. As a DAISY partner and Benetech GCA-certified vendor, we found ourselves in the position of helping many of our clients and prospects evaluate specific action plans for moving forward with remediating their backlist and adjusting their frontlist workflows to better involve authors in the creation or approval of alt text. Our white paper, recently released in partnership with consultant Laura Brady and Typeflow CEO Keith Snyder, provides some further advice to consider on this topic, and you can learn more about accessibility on our resources page.

Capacity

o Many of our clients rely on Westchester as a trusted, strategic partner, tapping into our more than 55 years of operational knowledge serving publishers of all sizes and content offerings. We consult with them as they navigate the best way to grow their lists, increase speed to market, and mitigate risk factors impacting our industries. Few publishers are having those existential leaps about wholly outsourcing their lists these days, which speaks to how well many publishers are staffing to their core business.

Publishers often come to us seeking help with defining workflows where we can take on tasks beyond what an in-house team has the bandwidth to handle. If your in-house production editors or production staff – whose responsibilities may also include paying freelancer invoices, brokering print runs, ensuring files are shipped to warehouses, etc. – can work on XX titles per year, how many books could you publish? With added support from a vendor like Westchester would you be able to complete 20 more books a year? 50? 100? This question was at the core of the conversations we had across market sectors during the Fair – and something we would welcome exploring with you.

Please Contact Us to arrange a conversation about any of the above topics that have relevance for you, or ways Westchester can help you get your books to market more quickly and with the quality your readers deserve.

by Tyler M. Carey

The past several weeks have seen myself, Hugh Shiebler (Director, Client Solutions), and Julie Willis (Editorial Director, Westchester Publishing Services UK) visiting conferences and events that provided guidance and direction on the global book and journal industries.

Bearded man standing next to a conference table at IPG Autumn Conference with a roller banner to the side of the table.Julie and I represented Westchester Publishing Services at the Independent Publishers’ Guild (UK) IPG Autumn Conference in London on Tuesday the 17th of September. The Autumn Conference is an annual must-attend show for Westchester, allowing us to meet with our clients and business partners in the UK trade, academic, and educational publishing spaces, as well as see our partners from Ingram and other businesses for which we support mutual clients. (Learn more about our ePub conversion work on behalf of Ingram Publisher Services clients, and our work on behalf of IngramSpark authors) The topics of accessibility and AI were top of mind for many of the attendees at IPG, as was the topic of the EUDR (more about that in the BMI section below) and changes in the distribution space. Simon Mellins was one of the draws on the topic of accessibility, covering the impact of the EAA and navigating best practices on creating accessible epubs right from the start (‘born accessible’ as some call the practice), and managing the backlist. Westchester continues to collate industry best practices on navigating the EAA on our microsite about ePub accessibility.

Woman with shoulder length blonde hair and bearded, bespectacled man standing next to each other, wearing formal evening attire.Following this, Julie and I represented Westchester at the Stationers’ Company’s Autumn Livery Dinner, where we had the opportunity to meet with a number of our publishing clients and talk with members of the communications industries in software, journalism, and other overlapping industries. We’re an active participant in Stationers’ Company events, due to the way they bring together a number of these different threads of businesses supporting content, and their deep history, tying back to when the Company was the inventor of the concept of Copyright in the UK.

Shakespeare Folio opened to two handwritten pages.The archivist of the Company was gracious enough to show me and another American member some treasures from the Company’s archives the morning after the event, including this page from their copyright register (volume Liber D) — with this page showing the registration for Shakespeare’s First Folio on November 8, 1623.

Screen reading Book Manufacturing Mastered on a wall next to a man speaking from a podium to a seated audience. The Book Manufacturers Institute conference — Book Manufacturing Mastered — was held in Boston on October 1, and brought together a blend of printers, paper suppliers, manufacturers, publishers, and vendors. The focus of topics was less on the editorial and production matters of accessibility and AI that seemed to be the main threads at IPG and SSP (see below), but instead focused on the impact of an East Coast Longshoreman’s strike and the fragility of the supply chain, as well as the EUDR’s regulations about tracking the source of paper and pulp used in printing to prevent deforestation. Panels including MIDLAND’s Bill Rojack (a former panelist on a Westchester Publishing Services webinar), Jim Milliot (editor emeritus of Publishers Weekly), and BMI’s Matt Baehr (also formerly on a Westchester Publishing Services webinar) talked through these topics, as well as the overarching topics of expanding staffing and improving communications with clients within the segments of the industry most directly represented at the conference. Within days of the conference, the strike wrapped up and the impact of EUDR on business processes had been granted more time through a one year delay.

Title screen for SSP Regional Meeting in Washington, DC October 1, 2024While I was in Boston, Hugh Shiebler attended Society for Scholarly Publishing’s “New Directions in Scholarly Publishing” conference, held in Washington, DC, addressing the interests of the academic publishing and journal publishing industries. A number of the discussion threads, both in formal panels as well as in sidebar conversations with clients and at roundtables, directly overlapped with ways Westchester plays a role in helping our clients navigate their editorial and production needs. The impact of Wiley ceasing development on eXtyles opened up dialogue about alternative methods for handling citations in academic content – an editorial task that can be cumbersome for staff and freelancer editors if not handled systemically. Westchester’s capabilities in this area served as a basis for a lot of discussion with publishers about ways they can avoid the impact of this risk in the space. Other topics that seemed to resonate throughout the two day conference were the risks and opportunities with AI, and the shortage of peer reviewers – as well as alternate models for publication and peer review.

Westchester continues to expand our capabilities to support the changing needs of publishers across markets, including adding to our editorial and production capabilities, exploring alternative uses for publishing technology to help create efficiencies for both us and our clients, and improving our own efficiency in creating accessible ePub files to help solve the budgetary risk of converting large backlists to comply with the European Accessibility Act. Increasingly, we’re helping our 600+ publishing partners with content development, illustration, design, specific editorial and production tasks that are slowing down their staff in-house, as well as wider packaging needs like handling books from copyediting through to final files during peaks of the year. Contact us today to discuss any of the trends referenced in the above conference summaries, as well as your own particular challenges that are either driving up your costs or slowing down your workflow. Let’s talk soon about how Westchester can help you get your books to market on time and under budget.

Westchester Publishing Services participated and was an exhibitor during the Association of University Presses Conference which took place in Montreal, June 10-14, 2024. This was the first in-person annual meeting since 2022 and turnout was respectably strong. Here are some of the insights shared by Bill Foley and Hugh Shiebler, who were in attendance.

Man wearing light button down shirt and brown trousers stands behind an exhibit table covered with a dark blue tablecloth and topped with neatly organized notebooks, papers, and pens.There were many topics covered during the conference session and in discussions among attendees in the exhibit hall and elsewhere. While everyone’s conference experience is different, these two themes seemed to continually feature in the conversations we were having with clients and fellow attendees:

Accessibility – with the European Accessibility Act coming into force about a year from now, this is understandably a very hot topic. Publishers have a relatively small window of time to figure out the best way to balance the needs of the EAA and prioritize the titles within their backlist that need to be updated to adhere with the guidelines. As a Benetech-certified vendor, we have been having a lot of conversations with publishers about how to adapt their workflow to make frontlist “born-accessible” and ways they can effectively manage converting backlist content to meet accessibility requirements. Along these lines, you may be interested in the webinar, “Path to eBook Accessibility” on July 10, hosted by Ingram Content Group, with the panel including Michael Johnson from Benetech, Richard Orme of DAISY, Cathy Felgar from Princeton University Press, and Westchester’s Tyler M. Carey.

AI – This vowel combination is dominating conversations everywhere you turn and not surprisingly, it received a considerable amount of attention at the conference. While there are some proponents who are excited about the potential it offers, the general sentiment about artificial intelligence among people within the AUP community is highly skeptical. Understandably, with the proliferation of fake books being sold on sites like Amazon, there are practical concerns about the ability for AI to ingest copyrighted materials without attribution, consent, or compensation, risking reputational and financial harm for authors and publishers. AI is evolving at a very rapid pace and discussion about where to draw the boundaries from ethical, legal, or financial standpoints will continue for the foreseeable future. In April the Stationers’ Company, with support from Westchester hosted the webinar “Artificial Intelligence and Its Impact on Rights and Intellectual Property” which explored some of the complex challenges the publishing industry is encountering.

While these situations get sorted out, Westchester will continue to be here to support university press and academic publishers as they shepherd their content through the publication lifecycle. When assessing your next season’s list of new titles, backlist materials, or content acquired content from another entity, let us know how we can guide you through your editorial, production, design, or digital conversion challenges. We’re here to help, so Contact Us to talk about how we can make this a less cumbersome process for your press.

Travels with Tyler, New York City

man in a pink blazer and a blue shirt in checkerboard pattern standing in an auditorium before a stage with a screen reading US Book Show, containing several company logos
US Book Show at New York University Kimmel Center, Wednesday, May 22, 2024.

Publishers Weekly put on one of the most compelling NYC-based publishing trade shows in years on Wednesday, May 22nd at New York University’s Kimmel Center. Blending the best of the in-person tradeshow aspects of Book Expo (on a more manageable scale) with quality sessions akin to those one would see at Book Industry Study Group’s Annual Meeting, the US Book Show made for a productive day for over 800 publishing professionals from trade and academic publishers, as well as providers like agents, epub platforms, educational programs like Agate Publishing Academy, and Perfectbound’s platform for connecting printers and publishers.

The opening CEO roundtable – featuring Jonathan Karp (CEO, Simon & Schuster), Aman Kochar (CEO, Baker & Taylor), Mary McAveney (CEO, Abrams), and Peter Warwick (CEO, Scholastic), was moderated by Lucia Rahilly, the Global Editorial Director at McKinsey & Company. The discussion ranged from the opportunity for growth in the audiobooks space, the need to protect librarians and libraries, considerations about AI, and the overall state of the industry. Deep coverage of this and other sessions is available in this article from Publishers Weekly, this further article from Publishers Weekly, and in the May 23 issue of Publishers Lunch (subscriptions may be required to access article content).

Other key sessions included Clare O’Rourke’s session covering how to manage P&L’s on trade publications, Steve Potash from Overdrive talking about harnessing influencers to drive book sales, sessions geared towards learning more about the agency side of the business, and a compelling panel consisting of Dawn Davis (Publisher, 37 Ink), Sally Kim (Publisher, Little, Brown), Todd Shuster (Co-CEO of Aevitas Creative), and Dominique Raccah (CEO, Sourcebooks) talking about leadership and building a career in publishing.

One of the sessions that perhaps drew the most attention was Ulysses Press and Perfectbound’s Keith Riegert presenting about AI. Keith’s practical walk through of a number of tools available to publishers, and the pros and cons of AI was one of the most discussed sessions of the day. And if you missed it – well, Keith generously shared his slides. It’s worth spending 20-30 minutes going through the slides showing how to navigate different platforms (far more than just ChatGPT) to consider ways to be more efficient with everything from contract boilerplate to more exciting tasks.

The above resources we linked to should give a good insight as to the value of the day – and a number of the takeaways in case you weren’t able to attend. As always, Contact Us if there are any topics above that resonate that you would like to explore in greater detail. The team at US employee-owned Westchester Publishing Services are always here to help you.