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What We Want to Read at Westchester – Summer 2018 Edition

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by Nicole Tomassi, Marketing & Conference Manager

Last December, I shared on this blog a list of books our staff had read in 2017 that they enjoyed so much, they wanted to recommend them. Well, fast forward several months to what I consider the official start of summer – Memorial Day weekend – and I have a new list of titles to share with you; some so new they haven’t been published yet. This list offers interesting selections, including biographies about people you thought you knew, surefire bestsellers from well-known authors, and riveting memoirs. You’re sure to find a title or two to add to your reading list. Though some might think you’re being lazy whiling the day away with a good book, I believe it’s time very well-spent. Wishing you a happy, fun-filled summer of reading from all of your friends at Westchester!

To learn more about any title below or to order from your favorite local bookstore, simply click on the cover image.

Ruthless River: Love and Survival by Raft on the Amazon’s Relentless Madre de Dios – by Holly FitzGerald

Publisher: Vintage Books

Why I want to read this book: A gripping story of survival in the beautiful but deadly Amazon Basin will have you racing through this book. It’s the true story of a young couple, who grew up in southwestern Connecticut, on a delayed honeymoon through South America in the 1970s. The author’s account of their ordeal is harrowing and exciting, but also ruminates on the way love and faith intertwines with a person’s deep-rooted instinct to survive.

Selected by: Erin Leo, Journals Production Editor

Doctor Who, The Day of the Doctor – by Steven Moffat

Publisher: Penguin Group UK

Why I want to read this book: Growing up in the 80s, Britain’s Doctor Who was a nerd touchstone for young American sci-fi and comic book fans. Nowadays it is constantly airing on TV and streaming, but back then it was rerun on public television in the States, and usually only seasonally so you had to wait for your fix of whatever episodes the local PBS affiliate was able to get their hands on for their annual telethon. To fill in the gaps for fans who only got to see it occasionally – or had missed out on earlier incarnations of the sci-fi hero – there were Target paperback novelizations of classic episodes. I devoured these whenever I could find them in a library or local bookshop. Now, even though you can binge-watch it on Amazon Prime whenever you’d like, Penguin has worked with the shows writers and producers to come up with novelizations of newer episodes, expanding the content a bit with Easter eggs for eager readers. I’m awaiting my copy of The Day of the Doctor, written by the show’s writer, Steven Moffat, and plan on finding my inner 80s nerd again while reading this on the beach this Summer.

Selected by: Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

The Outsider – by Steven King

Publisher: Scribner Book Company

Why I want to read this book: I collect Stephen King books, so it’s no surprise that I’m eagerly awaiting the release of his newest book. This one is about a murder in a small town and an upstanding member of the community as the unexpected perpetrator, at least according to the evidence. I have a feeling nothing in this book will be as it seems.

Selected by: Kim Giambattisto, Senior Production Editor

Look for Me – by Lisa Gardner

Publisher: Dutton Books

Why I want to read this book: Lisa Gardner is one of the only authors I’ve discovered who continues to deliver an unexpected and satisfying ending in every one of her books. I gobbled up her last few novels (Find Her and Right Behind You) so quickly that I’ve been dying to see what she’ll do next!

 

Selected by: Christina Kinsella, Journals Production Editor

The Art of the Wasted Day – by Patricia Hampl

Publisher: Viking

Why I want to read this book: A picaresque travelogue of leisure written from a lifelong enchantment with solitude. … The real job of being human … is getting lost in thought, something only leisure can provide. The Art of the Wasted Day is a compelling celebration of the purpose and appeal of letting go.

I plan to take this book with me while enjoying a week by the lake in Maine this summer.

Selected by: Debbie Masi, Production Supervisor, Editorial Services

Beauty in the Broken Places: A Memoir of Love, Faith, and Resilience – by Allison Pataki

Publisher: Random House

Why I want to read this book: Five months pregnant and on their way to their “babymoon,” Dr. Dave Levy suffered a rare and life-threatening stroke. This deeply moving memoir is the story of Dave’s miraculous and hard-fought recovery, which is beautifully chronicled in Allison’s letters to her husband. Interspersing their history with the realities of Dave’s day-to-day recovery, the author seamlessly brings the reader into their love story and their journey to bring Dave back and to fall in love all over again. Beauty in the Broken Places reminds us how life can change in an instant and the miracles of second chances.

Selected by: Wendy Muto, Production Manager, Editorial Services

The Death of Mrs. Westaway – by Ruth Ware

Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press

Why I want to read this book: Everything Ruth Ware has written so far has been intensely captivating and intriguing, and I expect that her newest novel will be no different. In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Lying Game were books I just couldn’t put down. With a movie adaptation in the works, I am excited to see what she comes up with next. The Death of Mrs. Westaway is her fourth novel and is sure to be another addictive one. If you love classic mysteries with modern twists, then I’d definitely recommend picking this up.

Selected by: Christina Kinsella, Journals Production Editor

There But for Fortune: The Life of Phil Ochs – by Michael Schumacher

Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

Why I want to read this book: I was a teenager when a friend’s father first introduced me to the music of Phil Ochs. His wit and sarcasm was very appealing to my teenage mind. Over the years I’ve developed a deeper appreciation for the lyrics and themes of his songs as I’ve pursued graduate work in American history. I’m looking forward to reading his latest biography in hopes of gaining a new perspective on a person whose radical commentary of the 1960s American political landscape continues to find relevance in my studies.

Selected by: JodieAnne Sclafani, Production Supervisor – Design, Graphics, and Proof

The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold: An American Life – by Joyce Lee Malcolm

Publisher: Pegasus Books

Why I want to read this book: If you live (as I do) in Ridgefield, CT, you come to know Benedict Arnold as the hero of the Battle of Ridgefield, which took place on April 27, 1777, rather than just the infamous traitor he became later. This new book provides a portrait of the man from the early days of his life, in the context of late 18th century America, where you are brought right into the action at some of the most important moments of our country’s history. Without Arnold’s brilliance as a general in the Battle of Saratoga and elsewhere the Revolutionary War could have been lost; this narrative seeks to solve the mystery of why he would later plot to surrender West Point.

Selected by: Susan Baker, Director, Editorial Services

Every Other Weekend – by Zulema Renee Summerfield

Publisher: Little Brown and Company

Why I want to read this book: Set in 1988, this debut novel tells the story of Nenny, an eight year old girl who along with her brothers is coming to terms with the reality of her parents’ divorce. Nenny’s an anxious child, and a new living situation which includes her mother’s new husband and his two children only serves to heighten that. Nenny also possesses a very active imagination, which merges the real, the possible, and the improbable in ways that only children can. I’m looking forward to reading this book because like the main character, my family was going through significant changes that made 1988 a transformative year  – though for very different reasons – and with the passage of thirty years, it’s become a time I look back upon with amazement.

Selected by: Nicole Tomassi, Marketing and Conference Manager

If you’re looking for more books to put on your summer reading list, consider these resources:

Publishers Weekly – Best Summer Reads 2018

Gates Notes  – 5 books worth reading this summer

The New York Times – 17 Refreshing Books to Read This Summer

 

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

Olympia, London

A week and a half following my return, and I have finally dug out from a very productive London Book Fair. Westchester once again exhibited at LBF, where last year as you may recall we had a prime location next to the scholarly publishing seminars at The Faculty. This year, instead of being in an independent stand, we relocated to The American Collective Stand which provides fantastic service to the publishers and vendors that use their collective area for meetings and exhibiting. We also were able to attend the IPG stand party (read their  LBF recap here) to network further with our clients and potential partners. This different approach was very effective, with Dennis, Tim, and I having about 40 meetings over the three days we were at the Fair. Those of you who caught the New York Times coverage of the Fair and the rights business may have even had the opportunity to play some Where’s Waldo (Where’s Wally to our British customers) – yes, that is me in my powder blue blazer in the lower left corner of the crowd shot.

It’s worth noting that while the London Book Fair is indeed a global event that allows us to meet with publishers from many countries, this year our emphasis was focused on the British publishing market. Over the past year, Westchester staff have returned many times to the United Kingdom, where we have continued to build out our presence, UK-based staff and freelance resources, and most importantly, our customer base. The level of interest in Westchester’s services from the British publishing market has been so substantial that earlier this Spring we brought on Tim Davies to helm our UK operation.

Tim Davies, at the London Book Fair Westchester stand

Tim’s engagement with publishers on behalf of Westchester at the London Book Fair was a big game changer for the company. Tim has an innate understanding of publishers’ needs having been a publisher himself, and is also quite attuned to the consultative nature of Westchester’s business (no two clients really have the same workflow). This both-sides-of-the-desk expertise, if you will, has allowed Tim to have meaningful dialogues with British publishers, to help them evaluate their publications programs, areas where they may need some assistance, and explore ways that Westchester can provide affordable, scalable solutions to help publishers with as few as 2-5 titles per year or as many as 500+ address their specific editorial and production needs. Publishers we spoke with found our consultative approach towards working with clients and their authors to be very compelling. Shortly after the Fair, our Director of Operations, Terry Colosimo, released a blog post that expands upon this, and echoes much of what was discussed with our partners at the Fair.

Receiving the Freedom of the City of London honor

Lastly, a trip to London for me is not complete without trying to attend an event with my colleagues from The Stationers’ Company, London’s publishing guild. While the Westchester team did indeed catch up with several of The Stationers’ at the Fair and at surrounding events, I was fortunate enough to be granted my Freedom of the City of London from the Company. For this second round of Where’s Waldo/Wally, eagle-eyed readers of the Westchester blog may recall seeing a similar photo from our friend Lorraine Shanley’s ceremony, last year. It was humbling to be one of the few Americans offered this tribute, and in joining the ranks of Morgan Freeman and Bill Gates, I’m quite confident that the wrong Tyler Carey was nominated. Nonetheless, I was happy and grateful to join my friends, family, and colleagues at Guildhall for this ceremony. I was also amazed to learn that I am now eligible, under the privileges bestowed by my Freedom of the City, to drive a flock of sheep across London Bridge.  (No joke, every Fall Freemen get to do this.)  Anybody based near London with an available flock of sheep that can be leased (option to buy, negotiable) is encouraged to contact me directly.

IPG Spring Conference, and gearing up for the London Book Fair

By Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

IPG’s annual Spring Conference, held at the Crowne Plaza Heythrop Park in Oxfordshire, is an exceptionally well-organized event welcoming small-to-mid-sized publishers for an intensive two days of sessions and networking, to help address the pressures distinct to publishers of this size. The grounds of the Crowne Plaza are beautiful, looking a bit like a Downton Abbey manor house placed in the midst of a sylvan Tolkien tale.

There are truly few better places to have a conference!  A particular benefit is that it’s removed from the London trade publishing world, bringing Great Britain’s publishers to an area outside the city, thoughtfully disconnecting them from the day-to-day distractions that can pop up when you’re just a quick tube ride away from the office, or the sense of obligation to play tourist should you find yourself in London having come from a place far away.

Westchester’s Interim Director, UK – Tim Davies – and I were excited to exhibit at the conference. Tim came on board just prior to the conference, providing a great opportunity for him to meet with some of our existing clients as well as talk with other publishers in the industry about their current workflows for editorial and production on their publications. Tim has a longstanding history within the IPG and had been invited to host a very well received workshop with smaller publishers about managing growth and operations. He has also dived in to his new role at Westchester and has provided wise guidance on the resources we will continue to expand to support the particular needs of British publishers.

For Westchester overall, finally getting to attend an IPG event was very valuable. The sessions ranged from the topical (the BBC’s Amol Rajan discussing the trends of fake news and the trust in content), to the geopolitical (MP Ken Clarke providing a perspective on Brexit for the publishing industry), to specific publishing topics (workshops, presentations, GDPR and AI sessions, and a keynote by innovative designer Alan Moore). The feedback for IPG following the conference was very positive. You can read their post-conference wrap up here, which is like a mini-summary for those who missed it.

The footprint of IPG’s membership aligns quite closely with the size of clients Westchester typically supports, especially those that are in growth mode and are at the point where they need to evaluate the choice of hiring on a vendor to help support growth, or hiring on more staff and having enough work to keep them constantly busy.  Within the coming weeks, a white paper sponsored by Westchester Publishing Services will be released exploring that idea in greater detail.  Make sure you subscribe to this blog to stay up to date on that. While that paper has been in production for a while it was really valuable to revalidate that position in discussions with many publishers that are approaching that tipping point of growth.

In closing, the IPG conference also served as a great opportunity to meet with several of Great Britain’s independent publishers in advance of attending the forthcoming London Book Fair. It helped us to reaffirm the services that Westchester provides are in alignment with their requirements as we continue to expand our support for publishers in this important market.

Are you headed to LBF? You can find Westchester on Stand 6B107b.  Contact Us to arrange an appointment at the Fair, or just come by our Stand to meet some of our management team and discuss your particular publications needs.

 

by Mark DaGrossa, Director of Creative Services

In this edition of Cover to Cover, I’m going to take you through the steps we consider when we are designing a textbook.

After the project is awarded to us, we assemble our team and get down to work. First, we determine whether we are creating a design template or if one will be provided. If we are creating the template for our client, we need to define several items, including:

  • Chapter openers, unit openers, covers, testing pages, activity pages – all need to have the same visual theme or family but may have their own feel.
  • Icons – need to be created for each sidebar item
  • Head treatments – the head in the general body of the text will be worked on, A-Head, B-Head, C-Head, and so forth.
  • Columns – how many should each page have?
  • Fonts – We need to select fonts that allow for several options within the font family.
  • Printing – This is important to ensure specific margins or gutter spaces are incorporated into the design.
  • Photos – Will they have square cuts, borders, vignettes, breakout images, outlines or drop shadows? We also consider how captions will be shown.
  • Footers and folios – What will go into these areas?
  • Book map – is there one which shows how the pages flow? This is important if you want each unit to open with a spread.

For projects that are more design intensive, once we have a design template established, we move on to verbal visual conferences (VVC) for the pages. A VVC is a meeting that brings together the editor, art researcher, and the designer.

In the VVC, the designer uses a printout of the loose version of the pages, including the items that are static on the pages. The designer works through the manuscript, page by page, with the editor and art researcher, drawing a sketch of how each page will look. The editor highlights what is important in the content, allowing the designer get a better idea of the look and flow of the page. This also gives the art researcher a clearer understanding of what they need to be looking for and how the images will be used.

VVCs are conducted in the earlier stages of the project using rough sketches and will change somewhat once the final images are found, chosen, and approved. I’ve included an example below of a rough sketch and the final version so that you can see the types of changes that occurred as the project took shape.

Another important detail we need to factor is what grade level the content is being designed and written for. The lower the grade level, the less text and more imagery will be used. Lower grades get a bigger, more easily read font. Leading is larger, and the actual writing is grade level specific. Colors tend to be a bit brighter and primary. The imagery is much larger and more specific to the content, allowing younger students to make a better connection between the words and pictures. As the grade level climbs into the middle and high school levels, less imagery is required. Font sizes will be somewhat smaller, and the colors for images may be more muted so as not to distract from the text.

As you can see, there are many important items designers, working with editors and the art team, consider. Effective design ensures students better understand the program.

I hope this post has helped you learn more about how designers approach working on a textbook project. I welcome your design questions and ideas for future blog post subjects. Feel free to email me at: mdagrossa@westchesterpubsvcs.com

Have a great day!

Mark

 

by Michael Jon Jensen – Director of Technology

Michael Jon Jensen, and the software development team at Westchester’s Chennai office

I recently returned from my third visit to our offices in Chennai, India. The first trip seven months ago was an adventure and a revelation; the second, three months ago, was a return for strategic development. This most recent trip was a reunion with colleagues who I now consider friends, to refine our mutual long-term plans.

My first ever trip to India, in late April of 2017 — was a cultural whirlwind. The intersection between an ancient civilization, the impacts of a few hundred years of colonization, and 21st-century modernity means that Chennai lives all of them simultaneously. Their day-to-day traffic manifests that complex intersection: handcarts, bikecarts, scooters, motorcycles, three-wheelers, autos, small trucks, panel vans, and big trucks interweave constantly, usually gracefully (if terrifyingly hair-raisingly), blithely ignoring lane markings and traffic signs. I tried to put my foot through the floor so often that my right calf ached at the end of the first few commutes.

During that first visit to our Chennai offices, I discovered a depth of skill and capability that I’d only halfway understood. I found a desirable Indian workplace comprised of good jobs which were well-staffed, and a production workflow focused on quality-control at every stage, across the board.

I shouldn’t say I was “surprised” by anything I saw in our Chennai offices on that first trip. Before joining Westchester Publishing Services, I’d done due diligence by talking with a lot of publishers I knew to confirm their reputation before signing on, and to be sure that their Indian staff were well treated. I heard nothing but support.

What I saw on that first trip exceeded my expectations, and delighted me. I also reveled in the reality that at the Chennai offices we have our own software development team, who were already deeply knowledgeable about data transformations, typesetting nuances, as well as XML, EPUB, and textual presentations. These are things I’ve done and loved my whole career, and I realized that we could insource a lot of development, building internal strength, and creating some amazing tools together to serve our clients’ needs, and to expand what’s possible behind the scenes.

My job just got more exciting at that point.

My second trip, in August of 2017, was a solid week of engagement, bookended each day by that brief, routine commute in Chennai’s hair-raising traffic. That time, I complimented myself on only freaking out about the traffic once or twice per commute, such as when a family of five on a motorcycle swerved successfully around the three people on a scooter who were swerving around a slow-moving bicycle cart.

During that second visit, Elan and Christober (Development Chief and Head Architect, respectively) and I strategized out the next 18-24 months. From immediate priorities to stretch goals, we laid out what might be achieved given our existing strengths and client needs, and given our capabilities. Such fun, imagining what we could build. What kinds of hires would we want to make to achieve specific goals? What steps should we take now, to enable certain kinds of analysis a year from now?

Regarding this most recent third trip, begun when the January winter storm began?  Apart from my luggage finally arriving the day of my departure from India (a story for another day), it was sheer delight.  I was returning to meet with friends, people I had worked with to devise some radical improvements of already-streamlined production services, and to re-envision data infrastructure. Only geeks can get excited talking about the user interfaces for our backend workflows, which will also feed data to our client-facing Portal. And we were trans-Atlantic geeks, to be sure.

We’re already working out how to design a “scholarly EPUB” format optimally suited for scholars; refine image and textual analysis tools to flag possible problems like rivers, or stacks, or a disproportionate degree of “feathering”; identify the richest 25% of the document’s content; auto-categorize publications, via multiple frameworks (Amazon, BISAC, LC, etc.); identify most-related titles within a publisher’s WPS ouvre; and on and on.

Of course, we work on this stuff together daily from across the ocean, via Skype, phone, and email. But there’s nothing like being in the same room with really smart developers, brainstorming ways to enhance the quality, the beauty, the processes, and the value of the work we produce.

Best of all, during this visit’s daily commute, I didn’t slam on my “virtual brake” at all. I can’t say I was calm, but clearly, some part of me had become acculturated to Chennai’s traffic.

On my next visit to Chennai, we’ll hammer out the strategic structural necessities, and the required scripted processes to enable our next leap forward.

I can’t wait for that next trip!

– Michael