Westchester Publishing Services

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Travels* with Tyler, PubWest 2022 (*Via Zoom)

Conferences

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

I had the great fortune to participate virtually on a panel at PubWest 2022 with Rachel Noorda (Director of Book Publishing, Portland State University) and Suzanne Norman (Publishing Program, Simon Fraser University) entitled “Getting your Book into Readers’ Hands”. One of the Intensives at this year’s PubWest conference, we met with a small group of publishers to discuss the industry trends affecting book availability, supply chain, purchasing practices, equity in content, inclusive marketing, and the challenges publishers and readers have getting access to content.  Rachel Noorda deserves applause for the effort she invested in hosting and facilitating this panel in-person at the conference while Suzanne and I joined in via Zoom.

The overview Rachel and Suzanne provided on the above topics helped the attendees understand the impacts of global factors on launching new titles, keeping books in print, considerations for Print on Demand, and also how to consider accessibility in your books.  As we discussed with the attendees, over 20% of the world’s population has a print disability, and some numbers suggest at least 5-10% of the population has dyslexia.  Best practices with fonts, colors, and alt text were covered during our session, and we showed how to crack open an ebook you’ve released and check it using Ace by DAISY and Thorium.

Westchester will be covering supply chain concerns in our next webinar that we’re co-hosting with Publishers Weekly, Publishing Now ’22: Driving Business Forward, on Tuesday, March 22. I hope you can join us for that! My colleagues and I at Westchester would also welcome the chance to speak with you about your thoughts around accessibility and your content.  If you want to spend some time reviewing an ebook or two from your list to talk about best practices, the team at Westchester would be happy to have a brief Zoom.  Contact us to schedule some time to talk about your editorial, production, and digital needs.

compiled by Nicole Tomassi, Marketing & Conference Manager

During the past year, Westchester has been fortunate to support a growing number of publishers with a wide variety of project requirements, from manuscript editing to digital file conversion updates and everything in between.

Read on to learn about several of the ways we have stayed connected throughout 2021, keeping our publishing industry colleagues informed and able to respond effectively to ensure content continues to reach your readers wherever they are and in the formats that they desire.

Westchester UK acquires River Editorial
In March, we announced the acquisition of River Editorial by Westchester Publishing Services UK. This provided an additional array of customizable and cost-effective project management capabilities for our publisher clients based in the United Kingdom and Europe.

 

The Westchester Words podcast launches
Westchester Words podcast logoAlso happening in March was the debut of the Westchester Words podcast. To date, we have produced more than two dozen episodes covering topics of interest to the fields of education, ed tech, and publishing. All of our episodes are available to stream on your favorite platform or you can find them at our websites, where we have posted additional content that some of our guests have been kind enough to share.
Is there a topic you think we should cover in the year ahead? Get in touch and let us know!

 

Westchester’s Webinars Continue

Image of webinar panelistsWestchester hosted several webinars throughout the year to explore topics that were important to our colleagues in the publishing industry and offer helpful strategies for navigating around the challenges many businesses have been faced with during these interesting times. Presentations included our annual Publishing Now event in April 2021 in partnership with Publishers Weekly, The State of K-12 Education in May, the Publishing Industry Supply Chain Challenges webinar in October, and our webinar in partnership with Supadü about How to Make 2022 Your Best Year for Book Sales, at the end of November. Visit our YouTube channel to catch any of the webinars you may have missed, and be sure to subscribe while you’re there so you can be notified about the new webinars we will be conducting in 2022!

Stationers Shortlist 2021
It is an honor to be nominated
In May, we were delighted to receive news that Westchester Education Services had been shortlisted by The Stationers’ Company in the service development category for our Culturally Responsive Education Rubric Review process. While we didn’t ultimately win in the category, to receive this recognition from our industry peers in the UK’s livery company that has represented the needs and interests of publishing and media professionals for more than six centuries was extremely meaningful.

 

Benetech GCA Vendor logo
Westchester Receives Benetech Accreditation

During the summer, Westchester Publishing Services completed the accreditation process to become a Benetech Certified Accessible Vendor. This certification provides assurance for publishers that we have demonstrated the level of proficiency required to produce ePub content with a full range of accessibility features to support the needs of all readers, including those with physical impairments and learning differences.

An Initial Return to In-Person Events
Over the course of the summer and fall, with vaccinations and safety measures in place, we had the opportunity to attend conferences in-person for the first time in more than eighteen months. Westchester Education Services was in California for the ASU-GSV Summit, and the Westchester UK team sponsored and attended the IPG International Publishers Association Awards, and the IPG Autumn Conference. We also conducted business meetings in person where all participants felt comfortable doing so. It was a welcome change to be in the same location with our current or prospective clients to share how we could work together.

 

A Star Watch Honoree in our Midst
We were delighted to learn this October that Westchester Education Services’ Samantha Tucker had received a nomination for Publishers Weekly‘s 2021 Star Watch Awards. Sam was recognized for the Culturally Responsive Education review service she leads with a diverse editorial review team who come from a wide array of backgrounds and lived experiences. Educational publishers can utilize the CRE review to ensure their current learning materials are inclusive and free of any bias, as well as incorporate recommendations into the development process for new education content they are creating.

 

Welcoming new members to the Westchester team

Throughout the year we have welcomed several new people to the Westchester teams, including Amanda Robb and Sandra Colmenares at Westchester Education Services, Rebecca Durose-Croft and Marquita Celestine for Westchester Education UK, and Deb Taylor and Hugh Shiebler at Westchester Publishing Services. We’re thrilled to have all of these talented professionals as part of the team to support our growing client base on their projects.

Our Intentions for 2022

In the coming year, we are making plans to remain connected with publishers in a variety of ways. We continue to monitor guidelines and regional data to ensure the in-person meetings we participate in will be handled appropriately, and we hope to have the opportunity to see you at an industry event when conditions safely allow for it. A few events that we are currently making plans to attend include BETT, PubWest, and the Association of University Presses annual meeting. We will also continue to conduct webinars in 2022 about topics that are top of mind for you. Follow our LinkedIn pages to stay up to date, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and follow our Westchester Words podcast to see and hear our content.

Westchester proudly supports nearly 400 publishers in all sectors of the publishing industry with their editorial, production, digital conversion, design, and content development requirements. Read and download our case studies about the efficient and cost-effective solutions we have provided your peer publishers, and talk with us about how we can develop customized workflow options that can help you expand capacity, condense timelines, and minimize budget creep for your publications.

 

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

virtual conferenceUniversity Presses have been key partners of Westchester Publishing Services for decades, and were a primary impetus for us to launch our Domestic Full Service operation in Danbury, Connecticut, our India Direct Full Service operation in Noida, India, and our UK operation in Stratford upon Avon.  From Cambridge, Massachusetts to London, England to the campuses of small state universities and large research, land grant private universities, Westchester works with each partner to identify the right editorial and production options to support our partners with books and journals ranging from simple monographs to complex, 4-color textbooks.

Usually, this time of year, I’d be just wrapping up my Spring travels to England for the London Book Fair and ALPSP’s biennial UP Redux conferences, where the university presses we support gather globally to discuss the state of the industry, efforts to improving diversity at presses and within the voices represented in their lists, considerations for printing and distribution, and more.

With the pandemic impacting travel and business, many of our partner organizations are innovating and re-purposing content that had been intended for presentation at conferences as virtual meetings or webinars.  Last week, ALPSP debuted the first in a series of free webinars to substitute for the canceled UP Redux conference, with the first session focused on Open Access, titled “Monographs, open access and public policy: UKRI OA consultation 2020.”  Speakers included: Sarah Faulder (Chief Executive, Publishers’ Licensing Services), Richard Fisher (Vice Chair, Yale University Press), and Helen Snaith (Senior Policy Advisor, Research England).  A recording of the session is provided here, and key topics included the current state of the UK open access policy, trends around open access at university presses and in scholarly publishing, and the general state of affairs for university presses at this time.  I highly recommend checking out the above recording and the pending Q&A info that will be posted at the same link soon.  Upcoming webinars will cover balancing a press’ mission and money, as well as more topics on open access following the UK’s review period of its open access policies.

AUP also wisely chose to move its annual conference to a virtual model.  Keep your eyes on this page for news about the format of the virtual event to be held in June.  We’ll miss the chance to visit our friends and colleagues in person in Seattle, but are confident the program will be as engaging as the typical AUP annual conference.

Other organizations have been putting together compelling virtual meetings, including recent sessions from the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, Copyright Clearance Center about how publishers and content organizations are looking beyond the current crisis to new opportunities around their content, Digital Book World’s “DBW.fm” session tomorrow about the “three-headed monster” of audiobooks, podcasts, and voice assistants, and other industry groups’ state of the union types of sessions about how the pandemic is impacting segments of our industry from printing to distribution and more.

Westchester will also soon be launching a new video about our Client Portal – and how it can help you manage your Westchester projects while you work from home.  We also have webinars planned for the next two months about the topics our clients are raising not just about our services but about the industry in general.  Stay tuned!

What virtual meetings have you found useful?  How are you considering the impact of the pandemic on the university press space?  Contact us to talk about trends you’re seeing, and any thoughts you have on how our industry is evolving.  My colleagues and I look forward to hearing from you.

Nicole Tomassi, Marketing & Conference Manager

We are only four months into the year, but it’s clear that 2020 will be profoundly transformative. The coronavirus pandemic has had far-reaching impacts on the way our clients and colleagues conduct business that was unimaginable a few months ago. Westchester’s global workforce has transitioned to a distributed model in order to fully support our clients’ needs as they respond to rapidly evolving changes within the supply chain.

Below are several ways that we have worked with our clients and the industry, prior to and during the crisis.

Publishing transitions to working from home

In mid-March, recognizing the seismic relocation every company was experiencing at nearly the same time, we hosted a webinar that gathered together several publishing industry professionals to share their insights and useful ideas about ways publishers could help their staff – some who had never before worked from home – transition to a distributed workforce. You can watch the video presentation or download the slide deck and a printout of all the questions that were answered during and after the webinar. We have also curated a resources page with links to a variety of informational and educational content for you and your family.

Westchester K-12 gets a new name

In early January, we shared the exciting news that Westchester K-12 Publishing Services had changed its name to Westchester Education Services. This new name is a more accurate reflection of the expanded range of product development areas that our team is able to provide support in for educational publishers and ed tech companies. Along with the updated name comes a new and improved website.

BETT 2020

Tim Davies, Kevin J. Gray, and Walter J. Henderson, Jr., at the WES BETT BoothLater in January, Westchester Education Services attended the BETT Show which took place at London’s ExCeL Convention Centre. Our team members from the US and UK enjoyed having the opportunity to meet with education publishers and ed tech companies from across the globe and share information with them about the various ways we could help them conceptualize and bring their projects to market. Kevin Gray, President and Chief Content Officer, prepared this blog post of conference highlights.

West Margin Press

West Margin Press logoMint Editions is a recently launched imprint that is part of Ingram’s West Margin Press, and one of the newest client publishers Westchester has begun working with. As we do with all of our more than 200+ clients, we listened to the needs the Mint Editions team expressed and worked with them to customize an effective production approach that met their requirements. As West Margin’s publishing director Jennifer Newens shared, “It has been a wonderful experience working with Westchester on our book production needs for these titles!” Let us know how we can help you with the editorial and production phases of your publication process.

Denise Hart appointed at Westchester Education Services UK

In early March, we announced the appointment of Denise Hart as Operations and Project Lead at Westchester Education Services UK. Denise has extensive experience and expertise in UK educational publishing, having previously been Content and Operations Director at Rising Stars / Hodder Education; latterly advising UK educational publishers in her role as an independent Publishing Operations Consultant. Working with Tim Davies, Westchester’s UK Managing Director, Denise will be supporting Westchester Education Services UK in its continued growth in both the UK and international educational and ELT publishing sectors, as well as its work with EdTech companies worldwide. Contact Tim to arrange a convenient time to discuss your product objectives and how we can help.

Westchester Education Services DEI Mission

Nilofer and Jalen at UD Career Fair Winter 2020Nilofer Ali, Westchester Education’s Resources Manager has been very busy during the past few months. February brought the announcement of a partnership with Dayton Young Black Professionals, intended to increase awareness of career paths for publishing in the Greater Dayton area. Shortly after that, Nilofer and Jalen Turner, a University of Dayton student who also interns with Westchester, participated in the campus Career and Internship Fair to bring attention to the opportunities in educational publishing. If you haven’t visited our website recently, I encourage you to see the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion section and review the resources that Nilofer has compiled with the intention to foster a dialogue within the educational publishing industry about this important topic.

Westchester Supports UK Book Trade Awards

Further expanding its extensive sponsorship programme, Westchester Education Services UK announced its sponsorship of a key category in both of the two most prestigious 2020 UK book trade awards programmes:

  • The Independent Publishers’ Guild Award for ‘Education Publisher of the Year’.
  • The British Book Award for ‘Academic, Professional, and Education Publisher of the Year’

Keeping you informed with relevant content

We host webinars periodically, including our next one on April 28 that will be moderated by Walter J. Henderson, Jr., Senior Supervising Editor of ELT at Westchester Education Services, about supporting the needs of ELT students while they are out of school. Complete this 1 minute survey to tell us what topics you would like Westchester to provide more information on.

 

All of us at Westchester hope you, your family, and your colleagues will continue to be safe and in good health. As a business that has worked alongside publishers on their evolving publication needs for more than fifty years, we remain ready to help our industry partners. Our entire team is available to help our customers — along with anyone else in the industry with editorial, production, or other tasks related to your publishing program or online content. We invite you to give us a call, send an email, visit our website, or follow us on LinkedIn to remain connected during these unprecedented times.

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

Usually, these “Travels with Tyler” blog posts on the Westchester Publishing Services and Westchester Education Services websites are post-conference or post-road-trip recaps of topics that are coming up in my offsite discussions with customers, partners, and industry figures.  For the past several years, I’ve been fortunate enough to attend London Book Fair and share a bit about the events, topics, and key needs that our clients and partners were sharing at one of the world’s most active publishing events in past blog posts.

This year, as you’ve likely seen, The London Book Fair was canceled. (Links: Publishers Weekly, The Bookseller, Publishing Perspectives, The Guardian) This is unfortunate on a lot of levels, due to the amount of rights work that is transacted at the Fair each year as well as the networking and business traded in other aspects of our industry.

For Westchester, the London Book Fair has been a key piece of our marketing strategy from year to year allowing us to engage with publishers about our content development, editorial, and production capabilities on a larger scale than the rest of the year, and also to meet and work with partners like Dropbox on initiatives together.  It’s also served as a venue for us to mark milestones like the launch of Westchester Education Services in 2017 (originally Westchester K-12) and our 50th anniversary, last year.

With the absence of the London Book Fair, this year, and with the increasing concern companies have about the risks of the Coronavirus for their employees and their families, we are seeing our clients begin to engage using different channels to substitute for travel, for the time being.  Many of the London Book Fair meetings in our calendars have been replaced with scheduled calls or Zoom video conferences, already.

Use the Contact Us button below to schedule a brief call with Westchester’s experts on educational, academic, trade, think tank, and professional content. While some of this year’s conferences or companies’ travel plans may be impacted in the short term, we want to talk with you and meet – or virtually meet – to discuss your 2020 publications and how we can best help. Our management and staff – spread across three continents – are committed to helping all publishers have the best possible experience creating and producing their content.