Westchester Publishing Services

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BISG Annual Meeting 2024

Conferences

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

On Friday, April 12th, the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) once again graciously hosted their annual meeting in-person at New York City’s Harvard Club — as well as via an online stream for attendees not able to join for the day.  BISG is one of the premier US trade associations in the publishing industry, whose work is carried out through a small staff along with the volunteer efforts of professionals from every segment of publishing. I’m active on the Workflow Committee for BISG and I, along with Nicole Tomassi, Westchester’s Marketing & Conference Manager, joined a number of our colleagues from that esteemed group at a table for the day’s events.

Presentation slide with four circles labeled Inclusion, Research, Standards, and Education, connected by arrows

Versa Press’ Matt Kennell got the day started by introducing a panel consisting of outgoing BISG board director and CEO of IBPA Andrea Fleck-Nisbet, James Miller of Barnes & Noble, and Joshua Tallent from Firebrand Technologies. The panel examined the approach of embracing a Virtuous Circle of Inclusion → Research → Standards → and Education, a theme which echoed across the day’s panels. The discussion touched upon the past Trends publication from BISG, the dozens of webinars and events that are supported each year via BISG’s staff of 2 full-time employees, and the efforts of volunteers on their committees, as well as how BISG continues to work closely with companies throughout the industry to curate virtual and in-person events exploring topics ranging from sustainability to metadata to workflow to rights to subject codes, and more. Lastly, the panel zeroed in on the primary goals for BISG to achieve during the next three years, including:

1. Transforming supply chain communication
2. BISG at 50 (which happens in 2026)
3. Resource development
4. Membership growth
5. Membership retention

The balance of the day saw sessions including:
  • “The Case for Royalty Statement Standards”, moderated by Kris Kliemann from Kliemann and Company, outlining the need for standards on royalty statements in the industry. Panelists included Jennifer Weltz (President, Association of American Literary Agents; President, Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency Inc.), Lucina Schell (International Rights Manager at University of Chicago Press), and Donna Laing (VP of Royalties and Rights Data Management at Scholastic). For those of us not involved in rights, this was a fantastic education on the challenges with administering rights and royalties with so many segments of the industry reporting back on sales and returns in different formats and with different expectations.
  • Ken Brooks (Amplify Education) moderated the session, “Moving Out of the Tower of Babel: Improving Efficiencies Across the Supply Chain”, featuring speakers Claire Holloway (Manager of Publisher Relations, OCLC), Alan DuBose (Senior VP of Planning & Data Analytics, Books-A-Million), and Jessica Wells (Penguin Random House). The supply chain is a topic a bit more ubiquitous than rights across the industry as we each have a role to play in it regardless of our vocation, and the exploration of issues related to forecasting, leveraging actionable data within different systems in our tech stacks, and identifying shared pain points put this topic into a shared frame of reference for all involved that spurred further discussions at the reception following the meeting. With the absence of one point of data in the US, as Booknet Canada supports within the Canadian market, there are ongoing challenges we’ll be working through with the help of organizations like BISG.  An example query that a unified data set could help answer for market research and planning was “How many copies of The Great Gatsby were sold across all publishers after it went public domain?” Having access to that type of unified data would help publishers make better decisions on whether to expand or adjust plans for certain titles in their public domain editions lists, for instance.  Everyone walked away from this session with a list to think about specific to their portion of a book’s life cycle.
  • Connie Harbison (Baker & Taylor) conducted a “How Standards for Product Metadata Reflect Shifts in Culture” panel discussion with Geraldine Zephirin (Barnes & Noble), Michael Olenick (Clarivate), and Gina Wachtel (Penguin Random House) that looked at the need for standards, and leveraging BISAC Codes more effectively, as well as mapping them to Thema for international markets. The prior interim speech, “Metadata in Action: Understanding Industry Trends” by David Walter of Circana helped illustrate the picture of why clear, consistent metadata is important for helping ensure discoverability and industry tracking that benefits us all.  The panel’s emphasis on the practical – including hygiene tasks for clearing out outdated BISAC codes from your ONIX feed and metadata – made what can be an arcane topic accessible for those of us in the room who may not have a favorite BISAC code (as each panelist shared they did!).
Man speaking from podium at lower left hand corner of picture, with a large presentation screen behind him showing 2023 US Print Book sales figures
David Walter (Circana) discusses 2023 Supercategory Print Sales during BISG 2024 Annual Meeting
After lunch, three awards were presented including The Sally Dedecker Award for Lifetime Service to Phil Ollila of the Ingram Content Group, who was introduced by BISG and Stationers’ Company member Lorraine Shanley, and the BISG Industry Innovator Award presented to Scribd, who was represented by Andrew Weinstein.
Author Walter Mosley addresses the BISG Annual meeting from the podium on the stage in New York City's Harvard Club
Walter Mosley accepting the 2024 Industry Champion Award during the BISG Annual Meeting on April 12, 2024

The 2024 Industry Champion Award was presented to Walter Mosley by Michael Pietsch, CEO of Hachette Book Group and Mosley’s former editor. Mosley received the award not only in recognition for his body of work, but for his founding of the Publishing Certificate Program at City College of New York (CCNY), his alma mater. His efforts in developing an educational program to create awareness of the opportunities in the publishing industry for people of underrepresented backgrounds was the primary topic in his introduction and in his own speech. To Mosley’s credit, he challenged the room to do more than give him an accolade and move on, but to instead follow his example of driving change in the industry by hiring people from different backgrounds and improving the diversity within the companies involved in publishing books, ensuring all voices and audiences are being seen, heard, and properly represented.

Executive Director Brian O’Leary’s closing session – Book Publishing Next: Changes We Want to See in the Industry – marked the first time Brian has given a keynote during his BISG tenure and provided a capstone to the day by walking through how all of the topics introduced earlier (rights, supply chain, subject codes, metadata, inclusion, and more) were the inspiration for the 3 year plan that had been introduced at the start of the day by the board. Brian highlighted how more growth can be achieved through better management of rights opportunities, managing costs, and being more consumer focused. Brian’s consultative approach to the info gathered through surveys and committee meetings leading up to the event hearkened back to a comment Phil Ollila had made earlier in the day, “People like to be engaged, not managed.” By encouraging ongoing engagement with the audience and the volunteers that comprise the bulk of BISG’s momentum, Brian underscored how the industry plays a vital role in making improvements for the continued benefit of everyone within publishing, rather than a one-way keynote closing the day’s sessions.

The below image cannot be emphasized enough – the volunteers drawn from all walks of the industry drive the content and mission of BISG, making meaningful events like the annual meeting itself and the ongoing webinars throughout the year possible.

Man standing at a podium with a presentation screen behind him showing squares with words including metadata, workflow, rights, supply chain and subject codes
Brian O’Leary, Executive Director of BISG, delivers closing keynote for the 2024 Annual Meeting
Presentation slide outlining future possibilities for publishing industry in North America
What Does the Future Hold – BISG 2024 Annual Meeting

In closing, what does the future hold? Well, Brian shared a few ideas but in the theme of the day’s session, why not join BISG, attend a committee meeting to contribute your voice to the discussion and help steer publishing’s future? More about BISG membership, which is open to companies and individuals, is available here.

Contact Us at Westchester to talk about highlights from the day, and ways we’re helping BISG member orgs and our hundreds of publisher clients around the world with their workflow challenges.

 

headshot of Tyler Careyby Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

For the past few years, getting together at the end of the year to celebrate as we typically did pre-pandemic was challenging for a lot of folks for obvious reasons. Even last year, as I attempted to put together a small focus group meeting in mid-December for one of the markets we serve, I found that the 2021 Omicron surge was still front of mind for a lot of New Yorkers and we had a lot of last minute cancellations. All of this was completely understandable for everyone’s own decisions about their situation and the safety of themselves and their loved ones.

So, it was a refreshing, welcome opportunity to attend a packed house event hosted by the New York Book Forum on December 13, gathering together publishers, manufacturers, vendors, and other publishing thought leaders for some end of year conviviality in midtown Manhattan. I had the opportunity to reconnect with customers and vendors I had not seen in person since before the pandemic, and the old habit of trading business cards was even back for some of us.

I have to give the leadership of the New York Book Forum a lot of credit for filling the void from the former BIGNY, which in many ways was its precursor organization. The need for regional networking organizations for the publishing industry is even more important now due to the ways the industry has changed over the past few years in response to supply chain issues, increasing costs at all stages of a book’s life cycle, and emerging topics like the potential use cases for artificial intelligence in publishing workflows. The Book Forum’s regular events give a voice to publishers and vendors to share their experiences and practices, and I highly recommend checking out their event calendar for 2024 to find ways to participate in person — or virtually, if you’re not regularly in the New York area.

I would be remiss in not highlighting one of the most engaging conversations I had during the evening. The holiday event served as an opportunity for me to catch up in person with the Book Industry Study Group’s Brian O’Leary and Brooke Horn, as well as Linda Secondari of Studiolo Secondari, who played a big role in rebranding and launching BISG’s new website. BISG serves a different role from NYBF for our industry, as a formal trade association that explores topics of interest to our industry which affect segments like workflow, supply chain, and rights. BISG’s upcoming events are also worth exploring, as their committees regularly put out papers and webinars to help provide analysis and best practices that are practical and applicable to publishers of all types. Westchester is very active in the BISG workflow committee, and exploring having stakeholders join other committees to help us learn more and participate in discussions around different aspects of our clients’ work.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you likely received an email from us thanking you for your interest in 2023 and sharing that we have once again made an annual gift to the Connecticut Food Bank, which is part of the national organization Feeding America. US employee-owned Westchester continues to champion the cause of helping local communities combat food insecurity, and encourages you to join us by supporting a food pantry or charity in your community.

From me and all of the team at Westchester’s offices in the US, UK, and India, we wish you the happiest of holidays. When you’re back in January, let us know what we can do to help you in the new year by using the Contact Us link at the bottom of this page.

Discussing the Westchester Publishing Services Client Portal

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

This week’s Dropbox Work in Progress conference in New York City was exciting whether you are a Dropbox power user or not. Topics covered included the new normal of what workplaces and productivity look like, supporting clients and staff with the right tools to get work done as well as communicate more effectively, and — threaded through pretty much every session and panel — the impact of AI on work itself. I was fortunate enough to participate in two back to back editions of a panel called “Scaling Success: the role of automation and collaboration in business growth.” More on what I shared there about our Client Portal, but let’s talk about what the overarching message of the day was, first.

Image of Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox standing on a stage in front of a screen with the words Global Pandemic and Economic Uncertainty on the left and the words Flexible work and AI revolution on the right.
Drew Houston keynote speech, Dropbox Work in Progress Conference, October 10, 2023

The keynote by Dropbox CEO Drew Houston sets the table for a discussion all companies should have on an ongoing basis about how work is handled in a post-pandemic world, how we are supporting our team members, and how new tools — including AI — can be used to add to productivity when used with the right level of trust and responsibility.

Houston’s keynote is a must watch, and set the tone for the day. To cherry pick another highlight, I would also point to comments by one of the later panelists — John Horton, Associate Professor at MIT Sloan School of Management — who emphasized how AI benefits us most when paired with human beings to apply their judgment and selectively apply what AI can output, rather than just use AI output and guidance without consideration. That is right in line with how the best companies are using AI as a tool, rather than replacing proven expertise. Westchester, for instance, will never just dump a manuscript into an engine for copyediting – that negates the expertise we bring to every project. But, just like how our indexers using indexing software to create lists of terms, or we use NLP to create lists of keywords for marketing, it’s worth looking at what tools can help our editors, typesetters, sales people, and more with using their skills effectively.

Image of man standing on a stage in front of a screen displaying learning points
Drew Houston, Dropbox Work in Progress Conference, October 10, 2023

Lest it be thought that the day’s content was just a one-time event-driven theme, it’s clear to see that Dropbox’s approach to making work easier – not just designing a strong file sharing and productivity platform – is baked into everything Dropbox does and communicates, right now. An op-ed in this week’s Independent (UK) by Dropbox’s Andy Wilson elaborates on the company’s approach to work – with an emphasis on finding ways to help users find info they need and avoid the constant distractions of email messages, Slack notifications, and other attention grabbers that, according to data cited in the article, eat up a typical 131 hours of each employee’s work time each year. You may remember Andy from our Work from Home webinar in March 2020, where he – in the thick of the initial pandemic lockdown – spoke about productivity and tools – and continues to share insights and solutions to this day. Andy will be co-presenting with me and Westchester’s COO, Deb Taylor, at the upcoming Digital Book World in January in NYC on just this, once again!

Picture of two women and a man seated on stage with a banner reading Perspectives behind their chairs.
Debbie McClure, Tyler Carey, and Darci Kendall. Photo provided by Dropbox

I was excited to join Debbie McClure, Dropbox’s Global Head of Sales, and Darci Kendall, Founder of Hodde Bros Beverage Co, on the two back-to-back sessions for our panel called “Scaling success: the role of automation and collaboration in business growth.” Debbie moderated the panel asking us questions about our businesses, our tech stack, the opportunities with AI (which I talked about in a recent blog post), and how we grow our businesses – and make our client experience better – by using different tools. Darci provided a lot of great examples of how she uses different channels to engage with her clients, and how she has grown from a small start up ten years ago into a top brand for the beverage and events industries. If your firm is a start up looking to grow, I really encourage you to look up the story of Hodde Bros Beverage Co and learn more.

So, why is Westchester’s story relevant enough to this topic that I was asked to come speak in these sessions at the event? Well, here’s an overview of what I shared during the panel, in narrative form.

Not long after Westchester became an employee-owned company in 2014, Westchester’s managers began highlighting areas where we could focus on a better client experience, as well as ways to grow our company. Our client experience at the time was in some ways fragmented, client by client. On one-hand, this was a bespoke solution for our clients — each client’s own workflow was tailored to, and supported as essentially its own unit here. But that worked well, for both us and our clients, when we had only forty clients to support, and most of those clients had one major line of work with us. But, as we started doing more work across organizations, we found that maybe one department liked to send us files via FTP en masse for typesetting and ePub conversion, and another department was essentially a smaller operation within the same firm that sent individual projects via WeTransfer for editorial and typesetting – and had wholly different style guidelines, schedules, and expectations. And as we moved into new markets back then — like the work we do for think tanks, legal publishers, trade associations, and more — we found that different types of clients had different needs and expectations for file transfer, schedules, communications, project involvement, and services.

To scale, Westchester needed a partner. After vetting many platforms, we selected Dropbox as our partner for file exchange and storage (to start). Clients could still send and receive files via FTP, WeTransfer, Box, Google Drive, what have you, but by setting up a number of processes on our end that talked to those different systems and pulled files into a central cloud-based Dropbox environment, we created efficiencies for us and for our clients.

And wow, did things grow from there! Dropbox was highly consultative, and our team identified use cases with the Dropbox API that let us build a custom project management system using our development team, and sitting on top of a trusted brand by using the Dropbox API for automations and process management, which expedited file transfer and made for a robust client experience. You’ve heard me talk about this in past blog posts, but this was the launch of our Client Portal. The Client Portal allows for easy transfer of files to Westchester via whatever means are best for you — but optimized for easy drop-off using Dropbox, even if you don’t have an enterprise account. No longer did clients have to log into a server, download assets, pass them to an author, gather those files back, upload them again… Steps like that became more automated and lightning fast.

Throughout each project, our clients can see the status of assets at each phase, download assets using downloadable links, and track the project schedule against milestones. None of these features, reports, or options for exchange replace the human interaction and customer care that Westchester is known for — we are just providing added transparency and options for engaging with your project’s assets. This has made for a great experience for our clients and has helped us scale our company as we have added more services and clients, growing from the forty-odd we had in the US back in 2014 to nearly 600 clients around the globe, today.

Beyond the Client Portal, Dropbox opened up its platform to us so that we could use more of their tools, including Dropbox Paper (which we use for many things including tracking client documentation, collaborating on marketing pieces, and planning projects), Dropbox Sign (which we use for contracts and onboarding clients within certain units of our company), DocSend (which we use for maintaining a library of marketing collateral for our sales and marketing teams to engage with clients and prospects about meaningful, relevant case studies), Dropbox Capture (which helps with internal training and other use cases for sharing content with narration), and more. Dropbox has been a phenomenal partner, and we rely on their platform, products, experience, consultation, innovation, and highly regarded security as a key element of not just our tech stack, but also how we support our staff and our clients.

While I’m excited about our above use cases that I shared on the panel — as well as further discussions we had about AI, marketing, and client engagement — that’s not the end of the story. We continue to have very detailed workflow conversations with dozens of accounts each week – both existing partners looking to address new products or challenges, as well as exploratory discussions with new, potential clients. Our editorial, production, and digital services are a cornerstone to the workflows for our nearly 600 clients around the world for a reason, and the blend of people skills and technology we are known for is key to their success. If you are a publisher, the chances are very good that we have had to solve any of the editorial or production challenges that you are currently facing. Contact Us to discuss your needs, and explore ways that US employee-owned Westchester Publishing Services can help.

by Hugh Shiebler, Director, Client Solutions

Hugh ShieblerAs Alvin Toffler wrote over fifty years ago, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” The ever-quickening pace of change – and the necessity of adapting to that change – was a main theme of the New Directions in Scholarly Publishing Seminar, held October 4-5, 2023 and hosted by the Society for Scholarly Publishing. I attended both days of this year’s seminar, titled “Navigating the Shifting Sands: Managing Disruptions in Scholarly Communications.” The timeliness and depth of the presentations was matched by the quality of the questions asked, resulting in a lively dialogue.

picture of Society of Scholarly Publishing conference attendees sitting at tables in a conference room, looking at pulldown screens containing information about a session topic.Discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) threaded through most of the presentations. Sessions such as “New Directions in Research Integrity: Values to Value in Research Publishing” and “Authorship in the Age of AI” emphasized embracing new technologies as tools without compromising one’s values or losing touch with the human elements that make scholarly publishing what it is. Dr. Rebecca Brendel, the Director of the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, delivered the keynote address, “New Directions in Research Integrity: Values to Value in Research and Publishing.” Dr. Brendel reminded all of us that integrity in research depends upon the integrity of individual researchers, administrators, and publishers. And, that core values such as honesty and transparency will be even more critical as AI continues to pervade the research and publication processes. Following the keynote address, Simone Taylor, the Publisher of the American Psychiatric Association, moderated a discussion with Dr. Brendel.

You may have seen our recent blog post on AI or my colleague’s appearance on a recent podcast discussing our view on how to integrate it into publishing workflows. We’re excited about the potential to continue expanding our offerings and ways we can help publishers.

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

headshot of Tyler Carey2023 has been another busy year here at US employee-owned Westchester Publishing Services, as we continue to expand our stateside and offshore operations to further support our clients’ editorial and production needs. In addition to our standard editorial and production work, we are supporting numerous clients who are expressing increased interest in scanning backlist titles, print-on-demand file requirements, accessible ePubs, developmental editing, permissions, and author support tasks.  Across our global operations based in the US, UK, and India, we now support approximately 600 clients around the world. We appreciate the feedback from these partners that has helped us better understand how we can work with publishers and content providers to resolve their problems and deliver quality publications to their readers. 

To best support both client growth and the additional services we are providing, we announced two promotions earlier this Summer.  Deb Taylor has been promoted to our Chief Operations Officer, and Christober Masilamani has been promoted to our Managing Director for our Chennai, India production operation.  More information about their new roles can be found in this press release.  Let me know if a discussion with Deb or Christober about incorporating your needs into our plans and direction would be helpful. You can Contact Us anytime to schedule a discussion with your sales point of contact and our leadership team. 

We enjoy having an ongoing dialogue with the market about topics impacting our industry. Here are a few discussions that may be of interest to you: 

  • Last month, I spoke on the Publisher Nation podcast with Digital Book World’s Bradley Metrock – and industry thought leaders Lorraine Shanley (Market Partners International) and Andrea Chambers (NYU Masters in Publishing) – about how publishers are exploring AI within their workflows. You can watch the YouTube feed of our discussion. 
  • On October 10th, I will be presenting on the “Amplifying Impact” panel at Dropbox’s Work in Progress conference in New York City. I’ll be speaking about how we partnered with Dropbox to build out our Client Portal, and how both of our organizations continue to explore ways publishers and media organizations can leverage tools and technology to make their work more efficient.  You can sign up for this one-day event on Dropbox’s site. I’ll also share a blog post afterwards with info about the day’s content and any best practices that may be worth tracking. 
  • Most exciting of all, our next Publishing Now webinar – launched in partnership with Publishers Weekly – is coming up on Thursday, October 26th.  Speakers include Marina Padakis Lowry from Union Square & Co., Diem Bloom from Johns Hopkins University Press, and Bill Rojack from Midland Paper and Two Sides North America. Our panelists will be exploring the ways books are being produced in our new normal, including topics related to AI, workflow, and working with partners. You can sign up here. 

If there are any areas where you have questions, contact us to schedule a brief Zoom. We always like to help, even if that means connecting you with our partners who may be better able to support those needs that are outside our area of expertise. I would welcome the chance to hear from you, and learn more about what you’re exploring with your 2024 publications program.