Westchester Publishing Services

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Why a Pre-Press Production Vendor Provides Better Quality

Composition

The Benefits of Using the Right Vendor Instead of In-House Resources

In my previous article, “The Benefits of Sending Pre-Press Production Work to a Vendor,” I discussed the potential cost savings publishers can achieve when using a large pre-press production vendor with an India based composition house vs. handling this pre-press work in-house. In this article, I will focus on the question of vendor quality compared to the quality of final work product produced by in-house staff.

To jump right in, let me give you two key reasons why a large vendor can (let me emphasize “large” and “can,” which I’ll come back to) achieve better work product quality than in-house staff:

1. Expert Staff – The professionals and staff handling each task along the production workflow are specialists, experts in performing their specific responsibility – back to the time-honored principle – practice (or experience) makes perfect. Adding to this, because a service vendor must have experts in each task along the workflow, they must ensure each expert is well-trained and continues to learn about new systems or processes – otherwise, they will lose the game.

2. Quality Controls – Despite the fact that a provider has experts handling each task, those experts are human beings, and they will occasionally make mistakes. A good service vendor understands they must have comprehensive Quality Control procedures to identify and correct any errors that might occur.

Using baseball as an analogy, while a publisher can bring on experts in any and all tasks within their production workflow just as a service provider does, is it possible once the publisher has brought in that expert “shortstop” to keep the shortstop playing in that position full time? Without a substantial and steady volume of projects flowing through the workflow, and all the other positions filled with their own experts (1st base, catcher, etc.), I submit the answer is no, it’s not possible for that in-house expert to only handle one key responsibility. The next question a publisher has to ask themselves if how much training, most importantly on-going training will they be able to provide for those in-house experts receive? I’ve worked in several very large companies, and job-specific training after day one was practically non-existent. As a practical matter and a reality, It’s just not realistic from a financial standpoint for a publisher to maintain experts at each stage of the pre-press production workflow.

As a vendor providing a service where product quality can mean the difference between a successful business and total business failure, it would be playing Russian roulette not to have comprehensive Quality Control procedures in place. In this case, we’re talking about the primary product of publishers, the books and other publications they sell, where even a single quality failure could have disastrous implications. At Westchester, we have QC procedures in place aimed at achieving 100% quality assurance. While it is possible for a publisher to have similar QC procedures in place, often the pressure of keeping internal costs low wins out over having the extra staff necessary to perform those QC functions. Ultimately, the risk of quality issues getting through to final publications are a trade-off these publishers live with, but they don’t have to.

Now let’s come back to why a “large” vendor “can”.

The importance of being a “large” vendor is related to the challenge of a publisher having experts in each key position along the workflow. In order to maintain experts in each key position, there must be a volume of work to keep them engaged and productive in that position. If you only keep an in-house paginator engaged part-time setting pages in InDesign – and doing completely different tasks the rest of the time – will they ever be as good and efficient as someone doing the same task full time? Being a large vendor ensures the volume of work necessary to keep the experts in place in all positions at all times, performing at the top of their game.

The importance above of saying a vendor “can,” relates to a common complaint in today’s pre-press production service market. Large service providers may have the resources and the impetus to institute comprehensive QC procedures which ensure very high-quality end product – but many do not. At Westchester, we take pride in separating our company from those vendors who are unable to deliver near-perfect quality. Once again, we aim to achieve 100% quality assurance for all our publisher clients.

You might be asking, can a vendor provide all this, experts along the entire workflow plus comprehensive quality control procedures? Tying back to key points in my previous article about higher vendor efficiency, the answer is yes, as a result of larger volumes as well as an extremely cost-efficient workforce on the typesetting side of the workflow.

Westchester Publishing Services with our 40+ U.S. based production editors/project managers, 450+ network of copyeditors, a U.S. based customer service department, and 100% company owned and U.S. managed composition/typesetting facilities located in India, is the only U.S. employee-owned company of scale focused solely on pre-press production services. Let us take care of the editorial and production and after we take care of the coordination and hand-off of your final print files with your designated printer, we’ll leave the printing to the experts in that field.

The Benefits of Sending Pre-Press Production Work to a Vendor

A question which regularly comes up for discussion in our management meetings is, “What is a publisher’s point of view to justify keeping pre-press production in-house?”

Each of our U.S.-based production editors employed by Westchester handles thousands of manuscript pages per year which are received directly from the author. With such a large flow of client projects, we have systems and procedures in place which ensure our PEs work at peak productivity and are not distracted by non-project related tasks. As a result of the high volume of work we receive, we can negotiate extremely competitive rates with our network of over 300 copy editors, who are thoroughly tested, and specifically selected so their copyediting skills match the project content and style.

On the typesetting side, the publishing industry embraced an off-shore business model nearly 20 years ago, putting most U.S. typesetting companies out of business. In 2008, Westchester purchased a composition shop in Chennai, India, which ensures we’re able to keep our composition (typesetting) production costs competitive. Our employees in India are compensated at the high end of the compensation range compared to our India-based competitors, however, it is certainly not what a U.S. based typesetting position would pay. Other vendors won’t hesitate to outsource your work to third-party shops where the oversight may be lacking, resulting in delays and/or poor quality in the final product. All Westchester client composition work is performed at our 100%-owned Chennai composition shop, with significant U.S. management oversight and U.S. quality control checks. As an employee-owned company, we take prudent measures to keep overhead low across our operations in the U.S. and India – allowing us to pass those savings on to our customers in the form of lower prices.

Given these factors, I don’t see how a publisher could match our pre-press production quality or costs by using in-house resources. An explanation I’ve heard from time to time is, “Based on our production editors/project managers working on projects 60% of their time, our cost per page or project are X”. While this is the purest direct project cost, it doesn’t consider the 40% of the time which isn’t spent working on projects, or the overhead necessary to maintain in-house staff including managers and facility costs.

There are certainly other factors related to outsourcing pre-press production, including vendor quality versus in-house quality, and the perceived cost-savings when using a flock of U.S.-based freelance typesetters, which given the requirements of freelance management, brings the image of herding cats to mind.

Click here, to read the next post in this series.

by Nicole Tomassi, Marketing & Conference Manager

Westchester and the publishing industry overall have continued to change how we work on publication projects this year. Being able to successfully pivot and adapt to a different norm is a central theme running through our highlights from the summer of 2020. Read on to learn some of the ways we continued to maintain vital connections with our clients and within the larger publishing community:

Working Better Together

Publishing Now webinar whitepaperIn early July Publishers Weekly and Westchester co-hosted the Publishing Now webinar where attendees across all areas of publishing had the opportunity to hear from stakeholders at BISG, HMH, Ingram, and Princeton University Press about how each company was addressing challenges within their companies and beyond that were impacting producing, shipping, and selling publications to consumers, identifying potential issues to be aware of heading into the highly important fall and holiday seasons, and ideas for how publishers could prepare to navigate effectively through these situations. In addition to the webinar video, Publishers Weekly produced a summary article, and the panelists contributed content related to the discussion that is available to read and download from our website.

Welcome to Carol Wilson

In September, Carol Wilson joined Westchester Education Services in the newly created position of Director of Client Solutions. Carol has extensive experience within education publishing including her work at Pearson, Edmentum, and Renaissance Learning. This recent blog post outlines more about Carol’s credentials and how she will work with Westchester’s clients.

 

Westchester becomes a member of BISG

BISG logoPublishing is an industry where each sector is highly reliant on other companies within the supply chain that transforms author’s creations and delivers the finished product to consumers in the formats they desire. In these complex times, participating in a forum where data informs effective strategies for stepping through each stage of the publication lifecycle can be extremely beneficial. That is why we chose to become a member of the Book Industry Study Group this August. In this blog post, Chief Revenue Officer, Tyler M. Carey explains why the time was right to take this step and how other companies in the publishing industry can do so.

 

IPG Independent Publishing Awards sponsorship

As a member of the Independent Publishers Guild, Westchester UK had the pleasure to sponsor the Education Publishing Award category during the Independent Publishing Awards ceremony, which took place virtually on September 22. Kudos to the independent publishers who were nominated in the various categories, and congratulations to all of the winning publishers. You can view the awards show here.

 

Westchester Publishing Services featured in PW Digital in India article

Being able to conduct operations digitally has been mission-critical during the past seven months, and the right tools are crucial to ensuring processes run as seamlessly as possible. Westchester’s adoption of the Dropbox platform a few years ago both within our internal teams as well as serving as the foundation for our Client Portal are detailed in this article which was part of the coverage in Publishers Weekly’s annual Digital in India section.

 

Keeping focused on the needs of individual publishers

Westchester has weathered many different business cycles during our more than 50 years of operation. At a challenging time for many in the industry, this summer we surpassed the milestone of having more than 250 active clients, publishers who rely on us for editorial, production, content creation, and project management services while workforces are remote and the ways readers purchase and consume content has dramatically changed. We have achieved this by consulting with each publisher to identify the best solution for their specific workflow issues, and providing them with finished projects they and their customers can be proud of.
Would you like to experience how a collaborative partnership can help your publishing program? I invite you to contact us to learn more.

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

National Archives, Washington, DCIt seems for the last several years that visits to our partners’ operations in New England and the Beltway tend to land in October.  Perhaps that’s because it’s this time of year when our clients have taken a post-Summer breath and are ready to begin talking about the editorial and production phases of their list for the upcoming year.  Or perhaps it’s because Key Accounts Manager Bill Foley and I like to try to get these visits in before the inevitable winter weather begins snarling up flight itineraries, road trips, and the like.  Either way, it has been a productive few weeks meeting with our academic, legal, university press, policy group, and trade partners from Boston to New York to DC.  What follows are some key topics that were hit upon during these trips – some of which may apply to you more than others, but all of which raise the recurring topic in these blog pages of tailoring specific solutions to each partner’s needs.

  • Alternate workflows for different product types – This came up during meetings with legal publishers and policy groups in DC and the Beltway, university press clients up and down the coast, and other publishers throughout the Northeast corridor. Over the years, Westchester has become associated with handling specific imprints or product lines for some of our clients, but it’s become apparent to them that we are able to help in other ways.  For some legal publishers, for instance, we may be more associated with helping them on their treatises, where for others we’re their go-to resource for statutory titles. Likewise, some policy groups think of us as ‘book people’, while others send us all of their working papers to edit on tight turnarounds. This is why we believe in having periodic reviews with our clients, so we can share ways we are helping your peers, which can often lead to resolving a similar challenge you’re having with books or other publications not currently assigned to Westchester. Talk with your Westchester rep about the areas where you’re experiencing challenges with books or other types of publications not currently assigned to Westchester, and let’s see if we can provide you with an affordable alternative to managing an army of freelance resources to get your publications to press.
  • Changing modes of trade publishing – Interestingly, after decades (five of them to be precise) of being the go-to vendor for trade publishers on their typesetting needs, we increasingly find ourselves being called upon to help copyedit and project manage trade titles as well. Certainly, our editorial operation, which has been around for over 20 years, has handled many key trade titles for clients over the years, but that has usually been during peak windows when trade publishers needed help on overflow titles.  More and more, though, we find trade publishers are giving serious consideration to outsourcing project management, copyediting, and production for entire imprints, to better free up their in-house staff to work on key or embargoed titles or avoid the time sink of managing a pool of freelance copyeditors with specific subject matter expertise. During the course of these early Autumn visits, several trade houses made moves to start outsourcing specific imprints to Westchester for editorial and production packaging.  We’re proud of the teams we have built over the years to support this need and are happy to talk with you about editing your fiction or trade titles, if that is a growing need.
  • Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and University of Pennsylvania’s book launch for Design with Nature Now.Quality matters – Lastly, one of the highlights of our October road trips was visiting the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and University of Pennsylvania’s book launch for the revised version of Design with Nature, called Design with Nature Now. Editor Frederick ‘Fritz’ Steiner and contributors led presentations at Cambridge’s Lincoln Institute of Land Policy about key projects covered in the book, as well as just the undertaking of revising an industry-standard title to address changing needs in landscape architecture to better address needs around climate change, new approaches to landscape architecture, and more.  The highlight of the evening for Westchester was the kudos and thanks the editors gave to Westchester’s own Susan Baker for her and Production Editor Deborah Grahame-Smith’s efforts working with Lincoln’s and Penn’s teams of writers, editors, and designers on editing and typesetting the book. The emphasis by our client on quality – and the thanks to our staff for their efforts to ensure a sustainable, durable new edition of an academic classic – were greatly appreciated and representative of why we do what we do.

I look forward to any thoughts the above may prompt for you about the publications you currently send to Westchester, or areas where we could help you that we currently do not.  Please reach out to me or your account rep to discuss your changing needs for support on your books, papers, and other publications, so that Westchester can help to prescribe possible solutions to help you continue to keep your publications on schedule and below budget.

by Nicole Tomassi, Marketing & Conference Manager

In the summer months, the pace typically slows down, allowing an opportunity to relax and enjoy the longer, warmer days summertime offers up. While all of us at Westchester made sure to take some time to spend with friends and family, we were still working hard to make sure all of our publishers’ projects were moving along through the pre-press stages. Here’s a quick wrap-up of what we did this past summer:

Collaborative partnership

Dropbox is one of the members of Westchester’s Partner Network, and their Dropbox Business suite of products helps us to remain connected internally as well as with our freelance resources and client publishers to flow project assets to each other within a secure framework. Check out this video that Dropbox produced over the summer that shows how Dropbox applications help support Westchester’s development initiatives, including our Client Portal.

Westchester profiled in Publishers Weekly

In early August, Westchester Publishing Services was featured in the Publishers Weekly annual Digital Solutions in India issue. In the article, Chief Revenue Officer, Tyler M. Carey, explains how the company is prepared for continued growth during the next decade, and reflects on the significant milestone of 50 years of serving publishers’ pre-press requirements, along with reaching the fifth anniversary of being a 100% employee-owned company.

Meet Dilip Chacko

Shortly before the Digital Solutions in India article was published, I had the opportunity to speak at length with Dilip Chacko, Founder and Managing Director of our wholly-owned composition facility in Chennai, India. It was an extremely informative discussion encompassing Dilip’s career, his guiding principles, and how his focus on providing high quality applies to client projects as well as the employees who work on them.

Client Portal Update

In the spring edition of the Westchester Wrap-up, we shared how the Client Portal had been shortlisted for the Stationers’ Company Innovation in Excellence Award. Not content to rest on our laurels (or nominations), we are continually adding capabilities to the Client Portal to better serve the requirements our clients have. Last month, we conducted a webinar demonstrating several of the helpful features that make publisher workflows more efficient throughout the pre-press production process.

UK conferences

While July and August are quieter months from a working standpoint, the pace tends to move faster with September’s arrival. Tim Davies, Managing Director of Westchester Publishing Services UK, was particularly busy last month meeting with publishing industry professionals at the ALPSP (The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers) Conference, and the IPG (Independent Publishers Guild) Autumn Conference. Prior to those conferences, Tim shared some helpful insights for independent publishers in this IPG podcast.

Next Generation Science Standards

If you haven’t been in the classroom for a decade or more, you might be surprised at how much more proficient students are required to be when it comes to understanding scientific concepts. Our STEM Content Director, Dave Bailis, explains how a more effective science curriculum is being implemented around the country to help prepare students for a world that is more reliant on science and technology than in previous generations.

In the Community

Earlier this year, our Westchester K-12 division implemented a program where each month one member of the team selects a project to fund from the thousands that are submitted to DonorsChoose.org by public school teachers. These projects are often for schools where the majority of students are from low-income communities that aren’t able to access much-needed classroom resources through traditional funding avenues. During the summer, STEM Content Director, Dave Bailis, and Director of Creative Services, Mark DaGrossa, each had the opportunity to fulfill a teacher request that was meaningful to them.

Meet with us this fall (and beyond)!

We’re attending and exhibiting at several conferences during the next few months, including Frankfurt Book Fair next week, FutureBook in London this November, and the SIIA Education Business Forum taking place this December in New York City. If you will be attending any of these events, let’s catch up! Make an appointment to connect with us, and be sure to visit our Conferences and Events page where we will be regularly adding information about the conferences Westchester will be attending or exhibiting at in 2020.

You don’t need to wait for a conference to speak with our knowledgeable staff about how our fifty years of experience in providing editorial, composition, and design services can help you produce quality publications while condensing schedules and trimming pre-press expenses. Contact us today to learn how Westchester’s consultative approach can benefit your projects.