Westchester Publishing Services

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Reformatting existing content

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digital reader contentThe past year and a half has presented its fair share of challenges for publishers, including how to repurpose existing content into the formats that your readers want to access it in.

With the increased interest in backlist titles, Amazon-compatible ePub3 files, and print-on-demand opportunities, publishers are looking at their archives on content and exploring ways to generate more revenue from their backlist. How can you make sure you’re getting the most revenue you can from your backlist titles?

Westchester can help you cost-effectively produce your existing content in the digital formats that are currently supported in the marketplace. Over the past year and a half, US employee-owned Westchester Publishing Services has helped many of the 300 publishers we support to address the many ways they can produce and repurpose their content, including the following tasks:

  • OCR and Keyboarding of physical books that do not exist in a digital format in your archive, so that you can have a clean Word manuscript for typesetting
  • Working with older PDF’s, Quark files, older InDesign files, and more, to generate newer printer files – including printer files for POD needs
  • Generating accessible, Amazon-compatible ePub3 files and fixed-format ePub3 files from backlist assets
  • Creating XML, HTML5, and other digital assets for use in platforms you may be using for content distribution

Talk to us about how we can serve as a release valve, taking tasks like these off the plates of your busy staff, and helping you maximize revenue opportunities with your valuable content.

Nicole Tomassi, Marketing and Conference Manager

Compiled by Nicole Tomassi, Marketing and Conference Manager

This is the fourth annual edition of this blog post, where I ask my colleagues to share with me (and all of you) what books are at the top of their reading pile for the upcoming summer season. They consistently come through with titles across all genres, whether new releases or beloved favorites, and this list is no exception in that regard. Perhaps your next favorite read is within the list below. Scroll down below these selections to find more information about additional titles that you may be interested in.

To purchase any of the titles shown along with thousands of others while also supporting the efforts of local, independent bookstores, click on the cover image to open up the Indiebound website. I also invite you to drop us a note and tell us what book(s) you will be reading this summer.

How it All Blew UpHow It All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi

Publisher: Viking (Penguin Random House imprint)

Why I can’t wait to read this book: When messy interpersonal drama meets adventure (and it’s not my own!) how could I resist? Plus I love the representation in this one, it’s a Muslim family, an LGBTQ+ main character, and Rome, Italy for the setting. There’s nothing predictable in that combination, love this fresh POV.

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Why I can’t wait to read this book: This year, and the last especially, have been one trauma after another for someone who looks like me as history continues to repeat itself. The Hate You Give was a powerful and cathartic tribute to this lived experience. So I am eager to give myself time to read the prequel here. Angie Thomas just has a way with words, a way of making you feel seen.

India BarnesSubmitted by: India Barnes, Project Coordinator, Westchester Education Services

The Ballard of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Publisher: Scholastic

Why I can’t wait to read this book: I loved the original Hunger Games trilogy but President Snow was always a character I wanted to learn more about. What made him the person he became in the trilogy? So with this book, I’ll see if I’ll get some answers.

Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer

Publisher: Little Brown and Company

Why I can’t wait to read this book: I was obsessed with the Twilight series and always wanted to know more about Edward’s past since we only got small glimpses from the books and movies. Now with the story being told from his perspective all that is out in the open to explore.

Submitted by: Kenia Gonzalez, Customer Service Representative

Keep Sharp by Dr. Sanjay GuptaKeep Sharp by Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Publisher: Headline Publishing Group

Why I can’t wait to read this book: This book is about brain health and how we can build a better brain at any age. It is a science-driven guide from a neurosurgeon. He engages with scientists around the world as they discover the secrets to cognitive longevity. Sounds very interesting!

MonaSubmitted by: Mona Tiwary, Director of Publishing Services, Westchester Publishing Services India

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Why I can’t wait to read this book: Recently, I was talking with one of our clients about our non-work volunteer roles in small communities. When I shared that I had recently become a trustee of my local library, she said “Have you read The Library Book?!?” I’m glad I took her advice and added this fantastic bit of literary journalism to my next book order. Using the story of a fire in 1986 in Los Angeles’ Central Library as a backdrop, the New Yorker‘s Susan Orlean writes a paean to libraries and their impact on communities, weaving in personal anecdotes, character studies, and more. I’ve started this and am looking forward to finishing it as the Summer gets underway.

TMCSubmitted by: Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Publisher: Celadon Books

Why I can’t wait to read this book: Summer reading requires a good page-turner, and I’m hopeful this is the one for me. A novelist-turned-professor who is struggling steals a previous (now deceased) student’s sure-thing book plot for a bestseller—massive success results, and then the threatening emails arrive. Who could possibly know that the plot is stolen?

Kim GSubmitted by: Kim Giambattisto, Senior Production Editor

The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn

Publisher: William Morrow, An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

Why I can’t wait to read this book: After receiving a copy of The Woman in the Window last Christmas, I am finally getting around to reading it. I saw the end of the trailer for the new film on Netflix and would like to read the story before seeing the adaptation. It sounds as if it will be a fast-paced psychological thriller with many plot twists. I enjoy reading stories centered around mysterious predicaments that will keep the reader guessing.

Submitted by: Darryl Keck, Layout Specialist

The Federalist Papers by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Edited by Clinton Rossiter

Publisher: Signet Classic

Why I can’t wait to read this book: I am excited to revisit the thoughts behind the founding documents, especially concerning the presidency.

Tim YetzinaSubmitted by: Tim Yetzina, Senior Supervising Editor for Science and Social Studies, Westchester Education Services

Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard by Douglas W. Tallamy

Publisher: Timber Press

Why I can’t wait to read this book: The North American bird population has declined by almost 3 billion since 1970*. Three billion birds. Gone. When I learned this, I vowed to reduce my lawn and replace the useless turf with native plants that provide shelter, nesting, and food for birds, pollinators, and other wildlife. While tuning in to our local public radio station, I heard Professor Tallamy speaking about his newest book. “Nature’s Best Hope shows how homeowners everywhere can turn their yards into conservation corridors that provide wildlife habitats.”

 * Bird population declines by nearly 3 billion

Submitted by: Rosemary Dannin, Project Manager, Westchester Education Services

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

Publisher: Atria Books

Why I can’t wait to read this book: Buzz for this book has been circulating in my writing groups. It combines two of my favorite things—horror and publishing—and the author says Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” was one of the inspirations behind the book’s flavor of horror. I have no doubt it will be a page-turner!

Submitted by: Megan Overman, Senior Supervising Editor for Literacy and SEL, Westchester Education Services

Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan

Publisher: Random House

Why I can’t wait to read this book: A political science professor friend who was a founding team member of University of Dayton’s Human Rights Center recommended this book. He explained that in it, MacMillan deftly probes and reveals how the decisions made during the 1919 Paris peace talks that ended WWI directly set the stage for many of the world’s most enduring and complicated foreign policy challenges, including the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

KevinSubmitted by: Kevin J. Gray, President and Chief Content Officer, Westchester Education Services

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Publisher: Viking

Why I can’t wait to read this book: Ah…summer reading. I have a few books on my radar for this summer. I was intrigued by The Midnight Library by Matt Haig that I believe came out in the fall.  I love the idea of a mystical library with curated books just for you that let you see what that path may have looked like if you took it at some point. It sounds like it’s a twist on A Christmas Carol without the ghosts, but perhaps still with some of the regrets.  A little mystical wishful thinking can be a fun read for the summer.

The Sagas of Icelanders edited by Örnólfur Thorsson

Publisher: Penguin Classics

Why I can’t wait to read this book: Also on my list is a large tome that isn’t meant to be read from cover to cover, The Sagas of Icelanders.  Ancient tales of Vikings! Kings! Explorers!  I received this as a gift and I’m looking forward to transporting to times of old.

A Good Horse Has No Color by Nancy Marie Brown

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Why I can’t wait to read this book: Lastly, also related to Iceland, but more contemporary is A Good Horse Has No Color by Nancy Marie Brown.  Here, she shares her personal journey to Iceland in search of the perfect horse to bring back home.  There’s more to it than that of course – but this sounds like a wonderful book for the summer.

Submitted by: Deb Taylor, Director of Market Research

Here are a few additional resources for new titles you may want to add to your reading list during the next few months:

Publishers Weekly Staff Picks – Summer 2021 and for the children in your life, PW’s selection of the best titles for pre-readers, middle grade, and young adults releasing this summer

Vulture – Summer Books Preview 2021

Chicago Tribune – Best Summer Reads 2021

SheReads – The Best Beach Reads of Summer 2021

ebook in front of open textbooksAmazon has announced that effective June 28, when uploading ePub content for new books or updates to previously published content on their platform, mobi files will no longer be supported.

Scott Keeney, Westchester’s Senior Composition and Digital Production Manager, outlines what Amazon’s changes mean for publishers:

In late 2020, Amazon recommended using ePub format for publishing new titles and updating previously published titles for users who loaded mobi into Kindle Previewer (KP3). Though it did not state it in that message, it was applicable to reflowable ePubs. Over the last several months, when clients have asked, Westchester has been recommending only receiving the ePub. With Amazon disapproving of sideloading to their devices as a means to preview files, the need for a mobi for review purposes had become obsolete. We do have a few clients with their own, independent need and use cases for mobi, and we continue to create and provide the mobi for them.

Amazon has accepted ePub as an input format for at least a decade, and Westchester has always built our clients’ ePubs with Amazon Kindle compliance in mind. While Amazon did allow some variance from Kindle guidelines, by 2014 Westchester’s standard ePub was entirely compliant.

To ensure quality and functionality, Westchester conducts automated validation using EPUBCheck 4.2.5 (all ePubs), and ACE by Daisy, along with using proprietary tools. We also conduct manual spot-checking of content and items including navigation and table of content links. Quality checks are conducted by reviewing in ADE (not an endorsement, ADE simply remains the most common reading system used by our clients to check ePubs). Most titles are also reviewed in Kindle Previewer 3, and titles may be checked in other reading systems as needed. Westchester also includes some content-based items that ACE can’t check for such as properly marking context breaks (aka space breaks or scene breaks) and decorative images/ornaments. We include alt text if supplied or we have internal resources who can create alt text as one of our additional services.

Westchester has continued to evolve our ePub offerings to support market needs over the years, and has been providing Amazon-compatible ePub3 files for quite some time. We also offer a variety of services to ensure your ePub and digital products are fully accessible, including alt-text writing capabilities, tagging content, XML file creation, 508 compliance, and accessible WebPDF files.

Talk with Westchester Publishing Services about how we can help ensure your new ePub content meets accessibility and platform requirements, and ways we can update your previously published content to be in compliance with current standards.

Compiled by Nicole Tomassi, Marketing & Conference Manager

The first three months of 2021 have given us a sense of increased optimism, and we hope the same is true for you and your company. It seems as though we had a number of events to feel good about and while things may be progressing to a different normal more slowly than we want, they are moving forward.

Westchester Words

In March, we launched the Westchester Words podcast, where we conduct brief conversations about subjects that are of interest to those who work in or are passionate about education, ed tech, and publishing. Guests so far have included Cathy Felgar of Princeton University Press, Cev Bryerman of Publishers Weekly, and Brian O’Leary of Book Industry Study Group, and there are more episodes in the works. You can find Westchester Words on your favorite streaming platform; give it a listen and let us know what you think!

River Editorial acquisition

Also announced in March, our Westchester UK division completed the acquisition of River Editorial. What this means for publishers based in the UK, Europe, and other areas outside North America is that you now have a one-stop location for all of your editorial, project management, and composition service requirements for your publications. Full details are available in this release.

Westchester Education Services continues to grow

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 Meet the Team page to learn more about these ladies and the rest of the Westchester Education Services team and how they can help you achieve your company’s content development goals.

Our UK team is growing, too

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.

IPG International Publishing Forum

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.

 

How Westchester Helps Publishers

There are many ways that Westchester Publishing Services supports our clients’ changing editorial and production requirements. You can read here about solutions we have provided for publishers including The MIT Press, Maryland State Bar Association, and Rutgers University Press to resolve some of their editorial, design, and production challenges. Are you a Westchester client with a success story to share? Get in touch with me. Alternately, if you see a solution in these case studies that would help with a workflow issue that’s been causing you headaches, contact us to learn how we can help you.

Other ways we are staying connected

On April 6, Westchester Publishing Services and Publishers Weekly hosted the very successful Publishing Now ’21: Looking Forward webinar. The panelists discussed the changes and impacts the past year has had for their business operations, and what the current state of the industry is. Watch the video and download additional reading materials from the webinar discussion, including the summary paper that Publishers Weekly published in their April 26 edition.

Here are a few other events we will be participating in or hosting:

Book Industry Study Group Annual Meeting – April 23

British Book Awards Announcement Show – May 13

Publishers Weekly US Book Show – May 25-27

State of Education webinar – May 19

Westchester Publishing Services and Westchester Education Services are here to support publishers with all of your workflow requirements. Talk with us about how our editorial, project management, content development, and production solutions can help your business function more smoothly.

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

As we reach the anniversary of the beginning of the Pandemic “Lockdown” back in March 2020, two Washington Post articles caught my attention. One about the hindsight that can now be applied to the tragic impact of the COVID-19 virus on the world, which was far greater than any of us could have anticipated, and another about how conferences and events are trying to adapt to restart in-person industry meetings this year as hope around vaccines and recovery begins to take hold.  It was exactly a year ago that Westchester temporarily closed its Danbury location, hoping to have staff return expediently once it was safe.  A year on, nearly all of us are continuing to work from home, with only select staff going into the office as needed to tend to billing and postal needs.  As vaccine distribution improves, we look forward to more formally reopening our operations in Danbury and Dayton in the States, Stratford upon Avon in the UK, and Noida and Chennai in India.

The pandemic quickly impacted all of us and the ways we engaged with our clients to support them evolved rapidly.  We realized that our history and expertise working distributed, globally, could help many of our clients who were newer to navigating the distributed or “work-from-home” model. Our marketing team quickly brought together clients and industry figures for a webinar to talk through their approaches to the challenges that hit us all immediately. On our website, we set up a Work from Home resources page, curating articles and other useful information to help people adapt to this new way of working.

Many of our clients were experiencing similar challenges within their operations, prompting us to create video content to address those issues, including:

You can find all of these and more video content on the Westchester YouTube channel.

We’re all continuing to consider what’s next for the publishing industry. On April 6th, Westchester will again partner with Publishers Weekly for the industry thought leader webinar, “Publishing Now ’21: Looking Forward”, featuring insights from Dominique Raccah of Sourcebooks, Cathy Felgar from Princeton University Press, Lorraine Shanley of MPI, and Tom Chalmers of Legend Times.  I invite you and your colleagues to join us for this free webinar, and engage with these publishing experts on questions about all aspects of the industry and supply chain that are affecting you.

Westchester remains committed to helping the Publishing Industry with its changing editorial and production needs, and continues to pivot and address individual workflow needs for our clients, to help each client in their areas of greatest need. Stay connected with us through our webinars, video content, and our recently launched Westchester Words podcast, featuring short, impactful conversations on topics specific to the publishing industry. Contact Us to discuss your challenges, and how Westchester can help you.