By Nicole Tomassi, Marketing and Conference ManagerIn 2017, Westchester Publishing Services enjoyed several significant accomplishments, and we’re already hard at work to build upon those successful initiatives in 2018. These achievements are possible thanks to the efforts of our employees, along with the trust placed in us by our valued clients. Together, they made 2017 a year we look back on with pride, and we hope 2018 will be an equally successful year for all. Conferences, tradeshows, and events, oh my!
Increasing the growth of our client listThroughout the year, Westchester Publishing Services became the provider of editorial or composition services to several more publishers, including signing multi-year agreements with prestigious publishers The MIT Press and Rutgers University Press. Meanwhile across the pond… |
Westchester UK News
In 2017, Westchester significantly increased our sponsorship and attendance at conferences and events in publishing, including 
Shortly before the 
On the digital front, we gave our website a makeover, which made it more functional and user-friendly. We also unveiled a new version of our 
Being involved in our local community is important to us at Westchester Publishing Services. In addition to providing a financial donation supporting the efforts of the By Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer
Westchester returned to the UK a few weeks ago for meetings with customers, partners, and potential customers, this time with three tentpole events across our trip.
Friend and colleague Lorraine Shanley of Market Partners International was granted her Freedom of the City of London on 30 November, and I was fortunate enough to attend as one of her witnesses at London’s famous Guildhall. The ceremony, which essentially grants honorary citizenship to the City of London to members of guilds and dignitaries, was administered by Laura Miller, a Deputy Clerk of the Chamberlain’s Court City of London. In addition to her role at Guildhall, Miller is also a member of London’s publishing and communications guild, the Stationers’ Company. (More on them in a bit!) Here’s a photo of Laura Miller, Lorraine Shanley, and the Beedle / Clerk of the Chamberlain’s Court from the ceremony.
On 01 December, I represented Westchester at The Bookseller’s annual FutureBook conference, where we sponsored and exhibited. The conference itself was phenomenal, covering many aspects of innovation and technology in communications and publishing, with tracks for audiobooks, educational content, and the trade industry. The session that stood out the most for me was the ‘What can we learn from the video on demand business?’ panel, which included Molly Barton from Serial Box, Jeff Norton from Awesome Media & Entertainment, and speakers from Yodomo, The Artists Partnership, and Mammoth Screen. I found Serial Box’s model for distribution of serialized titles to be very compelling, and Norton’s comments about how not just younger generations – but our society in general – are once again rapidly embracing digital ingestion of content to be thought-provoking.
The attendees at FutureBook confirmed much of what I’ve been hearing on my last few trips to the UK on behalf of Westchester, as well as in sales meetings I had in the days leading up to FutureBook. There is a keen interest in Westchester’s expanding US employee-owned operation in Connecticut, and the work that we do to support publishers from both our world headquarters in the US, as well as our offices in India. Some UK publishers have readily embraced the Domestic Full Service model used by Harvard University Press and others, through which US Production Editors, and US or UK-based copyeditors, take a developed manuscript and bring it through to final printer and ebook files with our composition operation in Chennai, India. Additionally, other publishers in the UK have expressed an interest in liaising directly with our editorial office in Noida, India, or solely with our composition operation in Chennai, India – as Bloomsbury currently does.
Louise Cameron, who is Bloomsbury’s Group Production Director very generously shared this testimonial with me, regarding the work we’ve done for Bloomsbury over the years:
“Bloomsbury has been using Westchester Publishing Services for Trade typesetting for over a decade – not just because the service is excellent but also because the company has been willing to invest and flex to support Bloomsbury’s evolving XML-based workflows.”
With a spring in my step from the above feedback, and positive decisions from three publishers I met with on this and a previous trip to proceed with working with Westchester, I continued on to my final – and most inspiring – of the industry events which brought me to London for this trip.
The Stationers’ Company is a more than 600-year-old London Guild that helps advance the publishing, media, and communications industries. It is perhaps best known as the organization that tracked copyright on British literary works as far back as Shakespeare’s folios and continued to do so in one form or another until 2000. You can learn more about their work here. There are not many Americans who are selected to be members of the Stationers’ Company; Lorraine Shanley, referenced above, is one of my fellow US residents who has been invited over the years. Very graciously, Oliver Gadsby (CEO, Rowman & Littlefield International) and Tej Sood (Managing Director, Anthem Press) sponsored me for membership, and on 05 December I was accepted in as a Freeman, or member, of the Company. It was truly an honor to join the ranks of publishing and media luminaries who have been members over the centuries, and to attend my Freeman ceremony at Stationers’ Hall, which is located in the shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral. My wife came across the pond to join me for the ceremony (and yes, waiting for her at Heathrow Airport was like the opening scene of Love Actually), and it was a great memory that we will share for years to come. Our marketing manager decided my ceremony was worthy of a press release, and below is a picture from the ceremony. I am looking forward to participating in many other Stationers’ events and supporting this amazing organization which does so much to help our industry.
Westchester is proud of the growth we are continuing to experience within the UK publishing industry. We already have a number of trips planned for our Staff in the next few months, including:
- ALPSP University Press Redux – 13 and 14 Feb, London
- IPG’s Annual Spring Conference – 07 through 09 Mar, Oxfordshire
- And of course, The London Book Fair – 10 through 12 Apr, London
If you are interested in meeting with us at the above shows – or speaking by phone or Skype in the interim – please Contact Us to arrange a conversation about your publishing program and the many ways that we can help you.
This is my final blog post of 2017, so I will close by wishing you the happiest of holidays, and to be on the look-out for more Travels with Tyler posts in the coming year.
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.
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.
“Composition is not a commodity; it’s something that matters, both to the author and the reader.”
I have just returned from the London Book Fair, where I enjoyed having the opportunity to meet with Westchester Publishing Services’ current and prospective publishing partners to learn more about their editorial and production needs, and share the ways Westchester can help simplify their processes.
According to veteran attendees, the London Book Fair this year seemed more active than usual. Publishers Weekly did a thorough job covering many of the hot topics being discussed at the conference, with articles covering subjects as diverse as publishing in times of political uncertainty, to growth in the industry. In addition, The Bookseller considered the impact of the Fair’s return to the Olympia London for the first time in over a decade.
Having a prime location next to the LBF Faculty sessions on scholarly publishing ensured the Westchester stand received a steady stream of traffic, including from prospects who may have heard from Westchester in the past, and were now able to meet with us in person. We enjoyed talking to everyone who visited our booth, whether they had a scheduled appointment or happened to drop by. We socialized online as well, posting regularly to Twitter, encouraging #LBF17 attendees to stop by and meet our new mascot, Wes T. Chester. (See photo, below.) Don’t fret if you weren’t in London though, Wes is a jet-setter and will attend BEA in New York City at the end of May!
I visit the U.K whenever I can, for work and some cultural travel as well. When I pass through Heathrow to fly home, if I have a few pounds left in my pockets I make it a point to stop by W.H. Smith’s and invest in a paperback or two to enjoy on my flight. Westchester typesets books for publishers in both the U.S. and U.K., but growing up in the States I always enjoy the slightly different tactile feel and format of a British book. One of the books I happened to pick up on this trip was one I’ve read many times, but given away all my copies of over the years – The Fellowship of The Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien. It was fortuitous I chose this title, as the 2004 HarperCollins U.K. paperback edition contains an opening essay by Douglas A. Anderson about the evolution of Tolkien’s work from edition to edition. Anderson writes a compelling account about the history of events which occurred, from Tolkien’s manuscript initially being mishandled by its initial typesetter, to the variations that sprang up from U.S. and U.K. versions of the book over the years, with words being changed, entire sections being dropped, and other typesetting errors which naturally irritated Tolkien. In between writing his subsequent works, Tolkien spent a great deal of time annotating pages in existing editions for his publishers to incorporate into reprints. Reading of Tolkien’s struggles with this title after talking with publishers all week at the London Book Fair about the quality of Westchester’s work, brought into sharp focus something I’ve been saying for years:
“Composition is not a commodity; it’s something that matters, both to the author and the reader.”
I’m proud of the work that Westchester does to help Macmillan, W.W. Norton, Bloomsbury, ABC-CLIO, Springer Publishing, Harvard University Press, and dozens of other publishers present their content in a high quality and accurate way to their readers. Call me today at 203-658-6581, or email me at tyler.carey@westchesterpubsvcs.com to learn how Westchester Publishing Services can help improve your publications program.
Learn more about Westchester Publishing Services here.
