Westchester Publishing Services

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Westchester Winter 2021 Highlights

Services

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.

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).

Westchester Services Checklist
Download our Services Checklist

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.