Westchester Publishing Services

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Introducing the Westchester Words Podcast

Services

Nicole Tomassi, Marketing & Conference Manager

Nicole TomassiWords 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.

Like you, we have been navigating through so many changes during the past year and we realized there is an increased desire for shorter format content that is informative and compelling. This became the inspiration for our new podcast, Westchester Words: Education, EdTech, and Publishing.

Westchester Words is geared towards publishing industry professionals and others who are equally passionate about the creation of education content, books, and the business of publishing. These information-packed 10-15 minute episodes will feature conversations focused on topics including culturally responsive education, project management considerations, diversity, equity, and inclusion, supply chain impacts, the general state of the publishing industry, and much more.

You can listen to the introductory episode here:

We hope you’ll listen in and follow us on your favorite podcasting platform as we engage with others in conversation about the issues that are shaping education, edtech, and publishing. If you would like to suggest a topic for us to feature in a future episode, or join us to share your expertise with our audience, send us an email at: WestchesterWords@westchesteredsvcs.com.

Tyler Carey quoteTyler M. Carey, Westchester’s Chief Revenue Officer, has worked with our sales and marketing teams that have led our growth since becoming an employee-owned company in 2014.

Recently, Tyler sat down for a conversation with Chris Smith, Founder of Empellor CRM, and host of the Sales Lead Dog podcast. During their discussion, Tyler shared several insights that highlight the consultative approach Westchester takes with its partners to help them identify the right solutions to resolve their challenges from the suite of services offered by Westchester’s global operations teams.

You can watch the episode below, or stream it on your favorite podcast platform.

As 2020 comes to a close, and we all look forward to the news of a pandemic vaccine with hope and relief, the team at Westchester Publishing Services is grateful for the health and spirit of our staff and customers.

Though few of us could have foreseen how publishing would be transformed, almost none would be surprised at the resiliency the industry showed by adapting, sharing best practices, and identifying solutions to meet the needs of our customers.

As many trade shows and conferences were cancelled or went virtual, Westchester understood the importance of staying connected with the publishing community, at least digitally. Below, we look back on 2020 to see how Westchester and our customers adapted to all the changes this year brought.

In early March, Westchester made the decision to transition the majority of our employees to a Work from Home model. On March 19, we hosted a session with panelists from various areas of publishing to share how their companies and staff were adjusting, and providing actionable ideas to help the transition process go more smoothly. Additionally, we cultivated this resources page for our new reality.

In July, we teamed up with Publishers Weekly to present a panel discussion about the state of the industry, along with the challenges and opportunities for companies in the publishing supply chain to consider during the crucial second half of the year. In addition to the webinar, PW produced a summary article, and we made multiple resources from the webinar available to access on our website.

In September, Tyler M. Carey, Westchester’s Chief Revenue Officer, participated in a BISG panel discussion led by Brian O’Leary about how publishers can identify inefficiencies in publishing workflows and solutions they can implement to improve effectiveness (requires free registration).

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Westchester released several case studies this year, sharing the solutions we provide for publishers to streamline their workflow and perform tasks that they may not have previously considered engaging a services firm to handle. You can download the convenient checklist shown here to help you identify ways we are able to improve your workflow.
We were also featured in the Publishers Weekly Digital in India issue about how our expanded production capacity and robust Client Portal (provided at no cost to clients) helped clients efficiently manage their editorial and composition jobs throughout the year.

Until we are able to safely return to in-person events, Westchester looks forward to connecting with you virtually through webinars and other content forms. We’re a convenient phone call or Zoom session away to help you address your workflow challenges. Get in touch with us, and let us know how we can become your trusted partner in publishing in the year ahead.

 

by Nicole Tomassi, Marketing & Conference Manager

Westchester and the publishing industry overall have continued to change how we work on publication projects this year. Being able to successfully pivot and adapt to a different norm is a central theme running through our highlights from the summer of 2020. Read on to learn some of the ways we continued to maintain vital connections with our clients and within the larger publishing community:

Working Better Together

Publishing Now webinar whitepaperIn early July Publishers Weekly and Westchester co-hosted the Publishing Now webinar where attendees across all areas of publishing had the opportunity to hear from stakeholders at BISG, HMH, Ingram, and Princeton University Press about how each company was addressing challenges within their companies and beyond that were impacting producing, shipping, and selling publications to consumers, identifying potential issues to be aware of heading into the highly important fall and holiday seasons, and ideas for how publishers could prepare to navigate effectively through these situations. In addition to the webinar video, Publishers Weekly produced a summary article, and the panelists contributed content related to the discussion that is available to read and download from our website.

Welcome to Carol Wilson

In September, Carol Wilson joined Westchester Education Services in the newly created position of Director of Client Solutions. Carol has extensive experience within education publishing including her work at Pearson, Edmentum, and Renaissance Learning. This recent blog post outlines more about Carol’s credentials and how she will work with Westchester’s clients.

 

Westchester becomes a member of BISG

BISG logoPublishing is an industry where each sector is highly reliant on other companies within the supply chain that transforms author’s creations and delivers the finished product to consumers in the formats they desire. In these complex times, participating in a forum where data informs effective strategies for stepping through each stage of the publication lifecycle can be extremely beneficial. That is why we chose to become a member of the Book Industry Study Group this August. In this blog post, Chief Revenue Officer, Tyler M. Carey explains why the time was right to take this step and how other companies in the publishing industry can do so.

 

IPG Independent Publishing Awards sponsorship

As a member of the Independent Publishers Guild, Westchester UK had the pleasure to sponsor the Education Publishing Award category during the Independent Publishing Awards ceremony, which took place virtually on September 22. Kudos to the independent publishers who were nominated in the various categories, and congratulations to all of the winning publishers. You can view the awards show here.

 

Westchester Publishing Services featured in PW Digital in India article

Being able to conduct operations digitally has been mission-critical during the past seven months, and the right tools are crucial to ensuring processes run as seamlessly as possible. Westchester’s adoption of the Dropbox platform a few years ago both within our internal teams as well as serving as the foundation for our Client Portal are detailed in this article which was part of the coverage in Publishers Weekly’s annual Digital in India section.

 

Keeping focused on the needs of individual publishers

Westchester has weathered many different business cycles during our more than 50 years of operation. At a challenging time for many in the industry, this summer we surpassed the milestone of having more than 250 active clients, publishers who rely on us for editorial, production, content creation, and project management services while workforces are remote and the ways readers purchase and consume content has dramatically changed. We have achieved this by consulting with each publisher to identify the best solution for their specific workflow issues, and providing them with finished projects they and their customers can be proud of.
Would you like to experience how a collaborative partnership can help your publishing program? I invite you to contact us to learn more.

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer
I hope the Summer is going well for you and your team, all things considered. Things have been very busy at US employee-owned Westchester Publishing Services despite the headwinds caused by the pandemic within our industry.  We are editing and typesetting more projects for our clients this year than in any past year.
Related to the challenges in our industry, though, I wanted to make sure you received the outcomes from the “Publishing Now” webinar that we co-hosted with Publishers Weekly last month. We were fortunate enough to have stellar speakers from Princeton University Press, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Ingram, and the Book Industry Study Group on our panel, and the feedback to their insights about the supply chain and state of the industry was very favorable.
In case you missed the link to watch the webinar or read the post-webinar assets, you can access that info here.
One outcome for Westchester coming on the heels of the webinar is that many of our clients are engaging with us about different ways of working together. From an increased interest in using our Client Portal to having us handle different types of editorial or production tasks besides those we have handled for them before, we are finding our clients leaning on Westchester more and more for support in the current climate. 
Let me know if a quick call about any new ways we can help you would be helpful.  Be well.