Westchester Publishing Services

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Updated Client Portal Overview – Dropbox, Gantt Charts, Email Threads, and More!

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by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

As announced last summer, Westchester Publishing Services partnered with Dropbox to use its Dropbox API as part of the architecture of our Client Portal. Since then, we’ve been hard at work to bring you even more enhancements, resulting in the release of Version 2018.C.03, late last year.

To start off the new year, I thought I’d take a few minutes to give you a relatively concise tour of all the great features the Client Portal has to help you streamline management on your Westchester projects.  Want to learn more about how you can use the Client Portal to easily submit editorial and production projects to Westchester, track the assets and status of your project at each pass, customize dashboards and reports, email your rep at Westchester, and more?

If you’ve got about 9 minutes, you can learn more about the core editorial and production features as well as our newest enhancements to the Client Portal.

After you’ve toured the Client Portal, contact Westchester to learn how you can use it to help you trim costs and condense schedules on your publications projects.

 

Keeping costs in check on publication projects may mean you need to rely on outside editorial and production resources. If you decide to work with a production facility that is located offshore, how can you be certain that your expectations for high-quality production values will be achieved while also maintaining trim budgets and tight schedules?

Meet Mona Tiwary, Director of Publishing Services, Westchester Publishing Services, India.

Mona possesses nearly two decades of distinguished experience in producing a multitude of print and digital products for top publishers like McGraw-Hill and Cengage. She joined Westchester Publishing Services in 2015 as the business head of the New Delhi Business Unit. Her strong understanding of the publishing needs/goals of publishers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia and her knowledge of the K-12, higher education, professional, trade, and academic markets make her a valuable asset for WPS.

Mona leads a highly skilled team of editorial and production resources at our wholly-owned and US-managed production facility, in New Delhi. This team includes project managers with expertise in end-to-end project management services, each with approximately a decade of experience in working for major publishers. She has cultivated a vast network of editorial resources across disciplines – there are more than 400 editorial staff (freelance as well as in-house) located in the United States, United Kingdom, and other international destinations, ensuring the editor who is assigned to your project possesses the requisite subject matter knowledge. No matter how specific your content is – science and technology, humanities, math, life sciences, fiction to name just a few – Mona is able to pair it with an editor who can adhere to your standards and deliver a quality product.

Mona’s team can capably execute on a complete menu of full-service pre-press services, including, but not limited to, content creation, developmental editing, copyediting, project management, complex composition layout, cover and book design, proofreading, indexing, artwork, photo research, and alt-text content creation.

Michael Burggren, Senior Director of Production for National Geographic Learning, shared this feedback about working with the team at the Westchester Publishing Services New Delhi office:

“We recently had the Westchester New Delhi operation handle the Wonderful World 2E Lesson Planner adaptations and to say these were messy and complicated is underselling the challenges these presented. Westchester Publishing Services was excellent and able to meet program expectations, as well as schedule and budget requirements.”

Clients including Blue360 and Twelve Tables also shared testimonials about working with our New Delhi operation, which you can read on this page of client feedback.

When you consider the knowledge and experience that Mona and her team of professionals bring to publication projects, it is beyond what is traditionally considered full-service because they act as a partner to publishers, becoming a trusted, reliable extension of the publishers’ internal team and practices. Publishers who work with Westchester’s New Delhi team are confident in the quality of the finished product due to the consistency and consultative approach they receive at every stage of their projects. They are also impressed with the responsiveness and solutions that are utilized to address challenges which can happen as a project progresses. If you have been looking for the balance between cost-effectiveness and high-quality production values for your projects, the search is over. Download these workflow overview charts, which are customizable to your specific requirements, and contact us to learn how you can benefit from the expertise of Mona and the New Delhi team.

compiled by Nicole Tomassi, Marketing and Conference Manager

I’m not quite sure how a year has elapsed since I put together the 2017 compilation of books that employees of Westchester Publishing Services read and wanted to recommend to others, but lo and behold, here we are. My colleagues have chosen a selection of titles as interesting and unique as each of them are, and you’ll likely find at least one book you should gift to yourself or to a fellow bibliophile who is special to you. Following these recommendations, are links to some other Best of Lists from this past year with book selections perfect for every age group and book category.

Make your gift go even further by purchasing any of these titles from your local independent bookseller. Simply click on the cover to locate a bookstore near you (or where the person you’re gifting it to is located). Happy holidays, and seasons readings!

These Truths: A History of the United States – by Jill Lepore

Publisher: W.W. Norton (a Westchester client publisher)

Why I recommend this book:  My wife is kind enough to give me a book every year for my birthday, from the local bookstore on Small Business Saturday. At a recent dinner party, we were discussing books we’d liked with two history professors – one teaches with my wife at Lewis University, her husband teaches at Loyola University in Chicago. My wife and her colleague both mentioned Lepore’s recent book on the history of Wonder Woman and this new book. I look forward to devouring this and challenging my beliefs on American history, and my wife is looking forward to reading it as well.

Selected by: Curt Alliaume, Project Manager, Westchester K-12 Publishing Services

The Witch Elm – by Tana French

Publisher: Viking

Why I recommend this book: Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series has been so enjoyable for me that when this standalone novel was released, I knew I would like it too. The book is about a young man recovering from injuries sustained when burglars broke into his apartment and beat him up badly, who then goes to live with and care for his dying uncle at his family’s ancestral home—and then a human skull is discovered hidden in a tree in the back garden. The writing is incredible, and it’s fascinating to see French’s knowledge of interrogation techniques from the point of view of the person being interviewed.

Selected by: Kimberly Giambattisto, Senior Production Editor

Never Use Futura – by Douglas Thomas

Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press

Why I recommend this book: A book about a typeface is probably not for everyone, but if you enjoyed the documentary Helvetica, you’ll appreciate this ironically titled look at arguably the twentieth century’s most influential sans serif. Baked into the story of Futura are implications for the potential value of artistic compromise and the politics of appropriation. This is a quick read, a bit more engaging in its historical research than some of its later interpretations and case studies, but filled with interesting nuggets throughout.

Selected by: Scott Keeney, Production Manager – Composition and Digital Production

Inventing Edward Lear – by Sara Lodge

Publisher: Harvard University Press (a Westchester client publisher)

Why I recommend this book: I have always been a fan of Edward Lear and his nonsense rhymes, but he is even more interesting than I knew. A wonderful bio explores his writing, milieu, music, psychology, and influence. His drawings often incorporated his face (sometimes more of him, his rotund form worked well for many creatures) in his image of a bug, a snail, etcetera. I read here that Lear’s body of work may be viewed as an emotional autobiography, something of himself in every character. I am now going to read everything by Lear that I can get my hands on.

Selected by: Amelia Thurston, Production

The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living – by Meik Wiking

Publisher: William Morrow

Why I recommend this book: Meik Wiking is the CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen. (Yes, that’s really a thing.) Being based in Copenhagen, he may be biased about why Denmark is the happiest place on earth, but over the course of this entertaining and at times thought-provoking look at the benefits of chilling out, wearing fluffy socks, drinking cocoa, and spending time with your friends and family, Wiking hits upon a number of meditative maxims about living in the moment that may benefit all of us. Especially as cocoa and fluffy socks season arrives here in the States.

Selected by: Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

The 17th Suspect – by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Why I recommend this book: This book is about a string of shootings taking place in San Francisco, with the killer randomly choosing his victim. The main character, Sergeant Lindsey must hunt down the killer while also trying to balance motherhood, wifehood, and a disease that could kill her. I chose this book because it has a strong female lead who asks help from other strong lead women to help with the case. Also with each turn of the page, the suspense grows to where you reach the end and are surprised to found out the killer’s identity. I highly recommend it.

Selected by: Kenia Gonzalez, Customer Service Representative

The Secret Lives of Color – by Kassia St. Clair

Publisher: Penguin Books

Why I recommend this book: This book caught my eye when I was browsing in my local Waterstones shop in Stratford upon Avon. It’s beautifully designed, printed and bound, with colour edging to the pages and restrained and elegant use of colour icons inside. It was a definite ‘impulse buy’ which transpired to be not only a beautiful object in itself, but also a fascinating and entertaining read, describing the history of colour, its use and meaning through the ages. It also reinforced the value of local bookshops and how high-quality production values and cleverly-curated merchandising can sell more books.

Selected by: Tim Davies, Managing Director, Westchester Publishing Services UK

The Fifth Season (Book 1 of the Broken Earth Trilogy) – by N.K. Jemisin

Publisher: Orbit

Why I recommend this book: There is a reason Jemisin won the Hugo Award three years in a row with this series (and broke a record by doing so)! In this gripping first installment, she builds a mysterious world in which Earth is a single continent that has been repeatedly ripped apart by seismic catastrophes over the past several centuries, and the telekinetics known as orogenes are the only thing keeping the human race from dying out completely. I won’t say any more because Jemisin keeps her world’s secrets close to her chest, but this is a mesmerizing book that should not be missed.

Selected by: Ashley Moore, Copyeditor

White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk About Racism – by Robin DiAngelo

Publisher: Beacon Press

Why I recommend this book: In White Fragility, DiAngelo, an expert on racial and social justice issues, explores systemic racism in American society, delving into the often subconscious ways in which the dominant culture remains dominant. Her book challenges the notion of “good old days,” forces the reader to explore what it means to be white, and offers concrete ways for whites to challenge assumptions and to act as allies for equality. This book is a fascinating read recommended to me by Nilofer Ali, our K-12 Resources Manager.

Selected by: Kevin J. Gray, Managing Director, Westchester K-12 Publishing Services

Educated – by Tara Westover

Publisher: Random House

Why I recommend this book: This compelling memoir is about the author’s upbringing as the youngest of seven children raised by her paranoid, survivalist father and his wife, an herbalist and unlicensed midwife, in rural southeastern Idaho. Due to her father’s distrust of the government, his four youngest children weren’t even known to exist (no birth certificates were filed) and they never attended school. Education came from the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and a children’s science book, along with physical labor in their father’s scrapyard. Tara’s journey from this unfathomable existence to graduating from Brigham Young University and Cambridge University is a testament to the strength of the human spirit when someone believes in –and helps you to recognize– your full potential.

Selected by: Nicole Tomassi, Marketing and Conference Manager

For even more selections and reviews, check out these compilations:

New York Public Library’s Best Books of 2018 – Top titles for young children, teenagers, and adults.

National Public Radio’s Book Concierge – Practically a mini-library of more than 300 books that can be sorted by a multitude of categories.

The Scholarly Kitchen Chef’s Selection Part 1 and Part 2 – Contributors to the Society of Scholarly Publishing’s Scholarly Kitchen blog share the titles that they enjoyed reading in 2018.

5 Books I loved in 2018 – by Bill Gates

San Francisco Chronicle’s Holiday Gift Guide: Novels, Memoirs, Cookbooks, and more. Lots more.

 

 

Many vendors say that they can handle your editorial and production needs, but what do they actually mean? Who owns the process, and how are they ensuring quality and consistency from project to project?

Meet Susan Baker.

Susan joined Westchester in 2002 – from Greenwood Publishing Group where she was Vice President of Production – to launch our editorial services division that is based in Danbury, CT. Over the past sixteen years, Susan has led the team and continues building it out to serve an expanding client list that includes Harvard University Press, The MIT Press, Brookings Institution Press, and dozens of other clients. In all, Susan’s team currently provides editorial services for more than 600 titles every year.

Why do such prestigious clients rely on Susan’s staff and processes?  In a word, care.

Susan’s team of production editors ensure that each book, white paper, or journal is handled with the attention to detail that the publishers themselves would ideally provide. From the beginning of a project, reviewing a manuscript prior to pre-edit tagging, organizing art logs and pre-flighting art, engaging with authors to launch projects, testing and assigning copyeditors specific to a project’s domain area, checking copyedited pages, engaging with designers and our composition team on steps from castoff to sample pages, checking first pass pages, reviewing pages with the publisher, checking printer proofs and epubs, all the way through to ensuring that assets have been received and processed by printers and platforms, the editorial services team looks after everything.

Wow, that’s a long list of items to care about!

Based on what clients have shared with us, there are few vendors or freelancers in the marketplace who possess the level of attention to detail that Susan and her team of editors provide on every project. Download copies of our workflow documents, providing examples of full-service and digital production workflow options. We know each client has different needs, schedules, and approaches to handling their projects, and we work with you to adhere to your workflows, ensuring your projects are completed accurately, on-time, and within budget. Contact us to discuss the ways Susan’s team of production editors can put their expert care and attention to detail into your projects.

Westchester has been a client of Dropbox for some time, and after conducting an in-depth analysis of the extent of their capabilities, we made the decision to partner with them at the beginning of 2018. It is important to us as a company to ensure our clients are able to use a best-in-class solution product that allows them easier ability to transmit files and track versions than they could with FTP sites, WeTransfer, or other alternatives. While Westchester has had enterprise FTP solutions via FTP and web-based FTP transfer for many years – constantly expanding those capabilities, we realized that many of our newer and legacy clients were adapting to newer transfer options.
 
In our latest version release of the Client Portal, Westchester has integrated features of the Dropbox API to save our clients valuable time when sending and receiving files, as well as tracking versions and interacting with Westchester on their projects. By adapting Dropbox features into the Client Portal, clients benefit from both the Dropbox DBX platform as well as our own project management software, to gain a clearer understanding of where each project is in the editorial or production workflow, and engage with their assets throughout the project. 
 
Learn more about our use of Dropbox in this video, and contact us to find out how using Westchester’s Client Portal can streamline your production workflow.