Westchester Publishing Services

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New York Book Forum and BISG events

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headshot of Tyler Careyby Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

For the past few years, getting together at the end of the year to celebrate as we typically did pre-pandemic was challenging for a lot of folks for obvious reasons. Even last year, as I attempted to put together a small focus group meeting in mid-December for one of the markets we serve, I found that the 2021 Omicron surge was still front of mind for a lot of New Yorkers and we had a lot of last minute cancellations. All of this was completely understandable for everyone’s own decisions about their situation and the safety of themselves and their loved ones.

So, it was a refreshing, welcome opportunity to attend a packed house event hosted by the New York Book Forum on December 13, gathering together publishers, manufacturers, vendors, and other publishing thought leaders for some end of year conviviality in midtown Manhattan. I had the opportunity to reconnect with customers and vendors I had not seen in person since before the pandemic, and the old habit of trading business cards was even back for some of us.

I have to give the leadership of the New York Book Forum a lot of credit for filling the void from the former BIGNY, which in many ways was its precursor organization. The need for regional networking organizations for the publishing industry is even more important now due to the ways the industry has changed over the past few years in response to supply chain issues, increasing costs at all stages of a book’s life cycle, and emerging topics like the potential use cases for artificial intelligence in publishing workflows. The Book Forum’s regular events give a voice to publishers and vendors to share their experiences and practices, and I highly recommend checking out their event calendar for 2024 to find ways to participate in person — or virtually, if you’re not regularly in the New York area.

I would be remiss in not highlighting one of the most engaging conversations I had during the evening. The holiday event served as an opportunity for me to catch up in person with the Book Industry Study Group’s Brian O’Leary and Brooke Horn, as well as Linda Secondari of Studiolo Secondari, who played a big role in rebranding and launching BISG’s new website. BISG serves a different role from NYBF for our industry, as a formal trade association that explores topics of interest to our industry which affect segments like workflow, supply chain, and rights. BISG’s upcoming events are also worth exploring, as their committees regularly put out papers and webinars to help provide analysis and best practices that are practical and applicable to publishers of all types. Westchester is very active in the BISG workflow committee, and exploring having stakeholders join other committees to help us learn more and participate in discussions around different aspects of our clients’ work.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you likely received an email from us thanking you for your interest in 2023 and sharing that we have once again made an annual gift to the Connecticut Food Bank, which is part of the national organization Feeding America. US employee-owned Westchester continues to champion the cause of helping local communities combat food insecurity, and encourages you to join us by supporting a food pantry or charity in your community.

From me and all of the team at Westchester’s offices in the US, UK, and India, we wish you the happiest of holidays. When you’re back in January, let us know what we can do to help you in the new year by using the Contact Us link at the bottom of this page.

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