by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer
Long time readers of the Westchester Publishing Services blog will know that prior to the pandemic, traveling into the market to meet with our clients and prospective partners was a key means of getting to know clients and their work, better understanding competitive gaps we needed to address, and also exploring new services that the market needed to help solve it workflow challenges. This blog was often filled with post-conference updates from the likes of the London Book Fair, BEA, Frankfurt, ASU+GSV, and more.
Over the course of the past year and a half, Westchester’s sales and marketing efforts have pivoted to better engage with our clients and partners via Zoom meetings with individual clients, webinars that were focused on meaningful content instead of commercials about our capabilities, and segmented email marketing messages to share updates on our efforts to continue expanding services to address the market’s rapidly evolving needs. Those needs pivoted during the lockdown and then further changed due to the ongoing pandemic’s impact on our industry’s staff, products, and supply chain.
Westchester still has all of its over 400 global staff working remotely, and at this point we have no plans to reopen our US-based offices in a “hybrid working model” capacity anytime before the beginning of 2022. We’ve successfully served our clients and grown our business quite a bit using a distributed working model, and can continue to do so as long as the situation requires.
But, on a recent warm, sunny New York City afternoon, I found myself sitting in Bryant Park, sipping a cup of coffee prior to my first in-person dinner meeting in over 18 months. A number of US-based members of London’s Stationers’ Company gathered for dinner to catch up and talk about the impacts of the supply chain and other factors on our industry. PW will be co-hosting a webinar on this subject with us in just a few days. [Updated 10/18 – You can now view the webinar on our YouTube Channel.]
Since that dinner, I’ve had the great fortune to head out into the field with Bill Foley, our longstanding Key Accounts Manager, and Deb Taylor, who recently joined us in the newly formed role of Director of Business Development and Marketing. Bill, Deb, and I have started scheduling more field-based lunches and dinners to meet with publishers to learn more about what has changed in their organizations since the pandemic began, and how Westchester can best address their workflow needs. Topics like expanding our publishing technology solutions, providing standalone copyediting and permissions services, and more have been discussed already.
And we’re keen to pick up those lines of dialogue with you, whether it’s in person or via a Zoom or phone call. What things are impacting your publishing program? How can vendors like Westchester best help you navigate your editorial and production processes, taking as much burden off your team’s shoulders while they’re navigating all the manufacturing and supply chain factors that are taking up a lot of attention right now? In other words, how can Westchester help you? Contact us to schedule a meeting or call to explore things further.
In March, we launched the 
Our team of subject matter experts has increased to support the evolving needs of our clients. We have recently welcomed Amanda Robb, Senior Supervising Editor for Math, and Debbie Allen, Senior Supervising Editor for CTE. Additionally, Meg Overman was promoted to Senior Supervising Editor for SEL and Literacy, and Sam Tucker is our Senior Editor for Culturally Responsive Education. Visit our 
The Westchester Education Services team in the UK has also increased, to meet the expanding needs of education publishers and ed-tech companies serving the UK, EMEA and Asia Pacific markets. In January, Rebecca Durose-Croft was appointed Content Director and Curriculum Specialist, and in March, Marquita Celestine joined Westchester Education Services UK as Business Development Manager. Rebecca brings a wealth of experience from Editorial and Project Management roles at publishers including Oxford University Press, Pearson Education, Cambridge University Press, and Marshall Cavendish, while Marquita was most recently affiliated with Hodder Education and DK.
March was a very busy month for Westchester UK. In addition to the acquisition of River Editorial, we participated in the IPG (Independent Publishers Guild) inaugural International Publishing Forum, which in the absence of international fairs including London and Frankfurt, served to bring together publishers, retailers, industry experts and suppliers to participate in an international forum of meetings. We will also be exhibiting at IPG’s Virtual Spring Conference next month and look forward to connecting with you there.
There are many ways that Westchester Publishing Services supports our clients’ changing editorial and production requirements. You can 
On April 6, Westchester Publishing Services and Publishers Weekly hosted the very successful 
Words are the primary means by which our clients communicate with their customers, so we are always looking at various media that we can use to connect with them, as well as our colleagues throughout the publishing industry. During the pandemic, the absence of in-person events combined with an urgent need for timely, relevant content grew, motivating us to host more webinars of our own and to partner with others in the industry to speak with their audiences about topics that were of interest to them.
Publishing friends, I’m very fortunate to be one of the (growing number of) American members of The Stationers’ Company. The Company acts as the livery guild for the publishing, media, and journalism industries in the City of London, but has had a global reach for many years. The industry knowledge and networking opportunities for those of us in these industries are beyond valuable. If you’re curious about the Company – or just really into fonts – the below event about typography and branding may be for you. This free event is open to all – feel free to sign up below.