Westchester Publishing Services

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NCTE 2017

Conferences

Observations from the 2017 National Council of Teachers of English Conference

By Tim Cross, Business Development Manager

Jimmy Santiago Baca giving the keynote address at NCTE 2017 Conference

Tyler Carey and I enjoyed attending the NCTE conference in St. Louis, MO last week. The shuttle buses from the airport were packed with English teachers from around the country, making you feel like the conference had taken over St. Louis. Indeed wherever you went, there were teachers talking about their experiences and pedagogy in the Starbucks and hotel lobbies throughout Downtown. Being in such an active and enthusiastic group of 7,000+ professionals that are all so passionate about their vocation was inspiring. To understand how NCTE works with educators to improve the learning of English language arts at all education levels, here’s a link to their website.

Especially inspiring was the keynote from famous poet and educator Jimmy Santiago Baca. Baca discussed his history as an orphan in New Mexico who was inspired by a teacher who told him he could write poetry, when he was having many challenges in the systems he grew up in. Baca encouraged the teachers to think of ways to better engage their students in ways that mattered to them – teaching them about poetry that bore a cultural relevance rather than sticking to a curriculum that may not be accessible. “You are more than dragon slayers,” he told the teachers, “you are dream makers.” After reading a poem he had written especially for the teachers, he took questions from the audience and in response to some similar questions, he told teachers to make their classrooms reflect their own individuality so that students felt they had someone real they could engage with and learn from. One teacher asked him how he made time to write, what with having five kids, two dogs, and a day-to-day life like we all do.  Baca said, “Take yourself serious but have a lot of fun…Dive into life,” continuing on to say that there will always be the things that happen in our day to day life that are a distraction from our plans and are part of living. While many of us have heard the ‘write when you can’ advice from authors before, Baca made that advice seem more possible and achievable. If you’re interested in learning more about  Baca’s remarkable story, visit his website:

The conference was packed with sessions in many tracks, making the general trend of sessions difficult to pinpoint. The overall energy at the conference reflected educators and publishers who are ready to explore new avenues and already setting the path for all of us. From innovative digital products to print products that reflect refinements and new approaches to teaching literacy, one felt ready to arm the students of today with the ideas of tomorrow.  My colleagues at Westchester K-12 Publishing Services and I are proud to be a part of that effort, supporting our clients through content development, editorial services, production, and more, helping our clients create innovative and effective products for ELA, Math, Social Studies, and Science education.  Contact Us to discuss your program and explore ways we can help you.

Westchester was proud to sponsor The Bookseller’s Children’s Conference which took place at the Barbican Centre in London, on 26 September. CEO Dennis Pistone and I attended and staffed our stand at the conference, which attracted over 350 children’s publishing figures.

The state of the publishing industry itself was a major focus of the opening sessions. Staff from The Bookseller shared stats about the growth of juvenile trade and picture books as compared to the industry as a whole, pointing to the overall health of children’s publishing — and its role as a revenue generator for publishers that release titles in different genres and markets. Much time was spent on the disproportionate percentage of sales that the J.K. Rowlings and David Walliamses of the world generate within this space, influencing numbers in the UK.  Publishing staff from DK, Chicken House, Hachette, Carlton Publishing, Penguin Random House, Lantana Publishing, Little Tiger Group, and other publishers and vendors shared their insights on aspects of the industry from marketing to digital to reaching young readers, and more. More details about the speakers and their backgrounds can be found here.

From a professional standpoint, the sessions on the industry were very helpful for me.  Personally, as a reader and bookstore aficionado, I was fascinated with the presentations by booksellers including Tamara Macfarlane from Tales on Moon Lane, Phil Henderson from supermarket chain ASDA, and Daphne Lao Tonge from book box Illumicrate. Each talked about different approaches for selling books into the children’s markets, from author events to displays to monthly delivery boxes. Many of these speakers also reinforced the need for engaging with children via literacy programs and charities to help ensure educational opportunities for those who may be disadvantaged.

Dennis and I had a busy schedule while in the UK, where we had the opportunity to meet with a long list of publishers who serve many different markets, and talk with them about their needs. Our offerings that include US-based, UK-based, and India-based employee and freelance resources for tasks like pre-edits, project management, copyediting, design, composition, and digital services resonated strongly, with some publishers taking steps to move different types of projects to us. We know many of our clients and prospects in the UK prefer to work directly with our or other vendor’s India-based operations, however we were pleasantly surprised to see the high level of interest expressed in the work we do from the States for project management, customer service, copyediting, design, composition page checks, proofreading, and more.

Westchester will be back in the UK for the FutureBook Conference held on 1 December at 155 Bishopsgate, London.  The conference program is now live, and speakers are continually being added. With a roster which includes people from the worlds of traditional publishing, audiobooks, and EdTech firms among others, it promises to be a very informative day.

I hope you’ll be able to join us at FutureBook to hear the insights of panelists on the future of our industry and technology, as well as meet us at our stand. Not able to attend? No problem, you can Contact Us to schedule a meeting in the days before or after the conference.  We look forward to exploring ways we can help you trim your costs, condense your schedules, and ensure the quality of your print and digital publications.

 

Conference Observations  and Highlights

by Kevin J. Gray, Director, Westchester K-12 Publishing Services

Westchester K-12 Publishing Services EdNET Sponsor Table

 

I’ve recently returned from the EdNET 2017 Conference, held in Scottsdale, Arizona. The weather outside was hot, but the atmosphere on the conference floor was welcoming. We connected with others in the educational publishing sector, engaging in mutually productive conversations that often uncovered unique and interesting opportunities to provide content development and production services to new partners.

For those who haven’t been before, EdNET is a great space for professional development not only because it fosters an environment for networking, but also provides a forum for influential speakers from throughout the education sector. I had the opportunity to sit in on a few of these sessions, and here are some key observations I’d like to share with you:

  • ESSA, the Every Student Succeeds Act which replaced No Child Left Behind in December of 2015, is continuing to radically change the education landscape by giving back to states power to make educational decisions. As the states roll out their plans, expect to see a renewed emphasis on developing materials for science, social studies, and others outside the reading and math core.
  • Student success depends on clean and clear student user experiences, both in print and technology. When defining new products, start with the end user and ask yourself, who are they and how do they need to interact with this product in order to be successful?
  • Adaptive learning continues to push boundaries and provide students with customized learning experiences, but with it comes the challenges of data collection (how much is too much?) and content development (developing multiple channels of content disrupts traditional linear editorial processes).

Just prior to EdNET 2017, we announced our collaboration with FableVision Studios (read about it here). It was gratifying to have our peers at the conference visualize the exciting possibilities that will result from two long-established companies, set in different parts of the publishing universe, working together to deliver the complete spectrum of content needs to the K-12 market.

We have already cultivated a number of new relationships with publishers across the market continuum as a result of being at the conference. While it was Westchester K-12 Publishing Services’ first time at EdNET as both sponsor and participant, I’m confident we will return again next year.

What did you find to be the most interesting takeaways from the EdNET Conference? Drop me an email at: kevin.gray@westchesterk12pubsvcs.com, or share your observations in the comments section below.

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.

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