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Association of University Presses 2024 Recap

conference

June 27, 2024

Westchester Publishing Services participated and was an exhibitor during the Association of University Presses Conference which took place in Montreal, June 10-14, 2024. This was the first in-person annual meeting since 2022 and turnout was respectably strong. Here are some of the insights shared by Bill Foley and Hugh Shiebler, who were in attendance.

Man wearing light button down shirt and brown trousers stands behind an exhibit table covered with a dark blue tablecloth and topped with neatly organized notebooks, papers, and pens.There were many topics covered during the conference session and in discussions among attendees in the exhibit hall and elsewhere. While everyone’s conference experience is different, these two themes seemed to continually feature in the conversations we were having with clients and fellow attendees:

Accessibility – with the European Accessibility Act coming into force about a year from now, this is understandably a very hot topic. Publishers have a relatively small window of time to figure out the best way to balance the needs of the EAA and prioritize the titles within their backlist that need to be updated to adhere with the guidelines. As a Benetech-certified vendor, we have been having a lot of conversations with publishers about how to adapt their workflow to make frontlist “born-accessible” and ways they can effectively manage converting backlist content to meet accessibility requirements. Along these lines, you may be interested in the webinar, “Path to eBook Accessibility” on July 10, hosted by Ingram Content Group, with the panel including Michael Johnson from Benetech, Richard Orme of DAISY, Cathy Felgar from Princeton University Press, and Westchester’s Tyler M. Carey.

AI – This vowel combination is dominating conversations everywhere you turn and not surprisingly, it received a considerable amount of attention at the conference. While there are some proponents who are excited about the potential it offers, the general sentiment about artificial intelligence among people within the AUP community is highly skeptical. Understandably, with the proliferation of fake books being sold on sites like Amazon, there are practical concerns about the ability for AI to ingest copyrighted materials without attribution, consent, or compensation, risking reputational and financial harm for authors and publishers. AI is evolving at a very rapid pace and discussion about where to draw the boundaries from ethical, legal, or financial standpoints will continue for the foreseeable future. In April the Stationers’ Company, with support from Westchester hosted the webinar “Artificial Intelligence and Its Impact on Rights and Intellectual Property” which explored some of the complex challenges the publishing industry is encountering.

While these situations get sorted out, Westchester will continue to be here to support university press and academic publishers as they shepherd their content through the publication lifecycle. When assessing your next season’s list of new titles, backlist materials, or content acquired content from another entity, let us know how we can guide you through your editorial, production, design, or digital conversion challenges. We’re here to help, so Contact Us to talk about how we can make this a less cumbersome process for your press.

Filed Under: blog, Conferences, News, Services Tagged With: accessibility, AI, artificial intelligence, Association of University Presses, AUP, conference, eBook, epub, intellectual property, IP, webinar

June 4, 2024

Travels with Tyler, New York City

man in a pink blazer and a blue shirt in checkerboard pattern standing in an auditorium before a stage with a screen reading US Book Show, containing several company logos
US Book Show at New York University Kimmel Center, Wednesday, May 22, 2024.

Publishers Weekly put on one of the most compelling NYC-based publishing trade shows in years on Wednesday, May 22nd at New York University’s Kimmel Center. Blending the best of the in-person tradeshow aspects of Book Expo (on a more manageable scale) with quality sessions akin to those one would see at Book Industry Study Group’s Annual Meeting, the US Book Show made for a productive day for over 800 publishing professionals from trade and academic publishers, as well as providers like agents, epub platforms, educational programs like Agate Publishing Academy, and Perfectbound’s platform for connecting printers and publishers.

The opening CEO roundtable – featuring Jonathan Karp (CEO, Simon & Schuster), Aman Kochar (CEO, Baker & Taylor), Mary McAveney (CEO, Abrams), and Peter Warwick (CEO, Scholastic), was moderated by Lucia Rahilly, the Global Editorial Director at McKinsey & Company. The discussion ranged from the opportunity for growth in the audiobooks space, the need to protect librarians and libraries, considerations about AI, and the overall state of the industry. Deep coverage of this and other sessions is available in this article from Publishers Weekly, this further article from Publishers Weekly, and in the May 23 issue of Publishers Lunch (subscriptions may be required to access article content).

Other key sessions included Clare O’Rourke’s session covering how to manage P&L’s on trade publications, Steve Potash from Overdrive talking about harnessing influencers to drive book sales, sessions geared towards learning more about the agency side of the business, and a compelling panel consisting of Dawn Davis (Publisher, 37 Ink), Sally Kim (Publisher, Little, Brown), Todd Shuster (Co-CEO of Aevitas Creative), and Dominique Raccah (CEO, Sourcebooks) talking about leadership and building a career in publishing.

One of the sessions that perhaps drew the most attention was Ulysses Press and Perfectbound’s Keith Riegert presenting about AI. Keith’s practical walk through of a number of tools available to publishers, and the pros and cons of AI was one of the most discussed sessions of the day. And if you missed it – well, Keith generously shared his slides. It’s worth spending 20-30 minutes going through the slides showing how to navigate different platforms (far more than just ChatGPT) to consider ways to be more efficient with everything from contract boilerplate to more exciting tasks.

The above resources we linked to should give a good insight as to the value of the day – and a number of the takeaways in case you weren’t able to attend. As always, Contact Us if there are any topics above that resonate that you would like to explore in greater detail. The team at US employee-owned Westchester Publishing Services are always here to help you.

Filed Under: blog, Conferences, Services Tagged With: academic publishing, AI, book publishing, conference, trade publishing

October 13, 2023

Discussing the Westchester Publishing Services Client Portal

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

This week’s Dropbox Work in Progress conference in New York City was exciting whether you are a Dropbox power user or not. Topics covered included the new normal of what workplaces and productivity look like, supporting clients and staff with the right tools to get work done as well as communicate more effectively, and — threaded through pretty much every session and panel — the impact of AI on work itself. I was fortunate enough to participate in two back to back editions of a panel called “Scaling Success: the role of automation and collaboration in business growth.” More on what I shared there about our Client Portal, but let’s talk about what the overarching message of the day was, first.

Image of Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox standing on a stage in front of a screen with the words Global Pandemic and Economic Uncertainty on the left and the words Flexible work and AI revolution on the right.
Drew Houston keynote speech, Dropbox Work in Progress Conference, October 10, 2023

The keynote by Dropbox CEO Drew Houston sets the table for a discussion all companies should have on an ongoing basis about how work is handled in a post-pandemic world, how we are supporting our team members, and how new tools — including AI — can be used to add to productivity when used with the right level of trust and responsibility.

Houston’s keynote is a must watch, and set the tone for the day. To cherry pick another highlight, I would also point to comments by one of the later panelists — John Horton, Associate Professor at MIT Sloan School of Management — who emphasized how AI benefits us most when paired with human beings to apply their judgment and selectively apply what AI can output, rather than just use AI output and guidance without consideration. That is right in line with how the best companies are using AI as a tool, rather than replacing proven expertise. Westchester, for instance, will never just dump a manuscript into an engine for copyediting – that negates the expertise we bring to every project. But, just like how our indexers using indexing software to create lists of terms, or we use NLP to create lists of keywords for marketing, it’s worth looking at what tools can help our editors, typesetters, sales people, and more with using their skills effectively.

Image of man standing on a stage in front of a screen displaying learning points
Drew Houston, Dropbox Work in Progress Conference, October 10, 2023

Lest it be thought that the day’s content was just a one-time event-driven theme, it’s clear to see that Dropbox’s approach to making work easier – not just designing a strong file sharing and productivity platform – is baked into everything Dropbox does and communicates, right now. An op-ed in this week’s Independent (UK) by Dropbox’s Andy Wilson elaborates on the company’s approach to work – with an emphasis on finding ways to help users find info they need and avoid the constant distractions of email messages, Slack notifications, and other attention grabbers that, according to data cited in the article, eat up a typical 131 hours of each employee’s work time each year. You may remember Andy from our Work from Home webinar in March 2020, where he – in the thick of the initial pandemic lockdown – spoke about productivity and tools – and continues to share insights and solutions to this day. Andy will be co-presenting with me and Westchester’s COO, Deb Taylor, at the upcoming Digital Book World in January in NYC on just this, once again!

Picture of two women and a man seated on stage with a banner reading Perspectives behind their chairs.
Debbie McClure, Tyler Carey, and Darci Kendall. Photo provided by Dropbox

I was excited to join Debbie McClure, Dropbox’s Global Head of Sales, and Darci Kendall, Founder of Hodde Bros Beverage Co, on the two back-to-back sessions for our panel called “Scaling success: the role of automation and collaboration in business growth.” Debbie moderated the panel asking us questions about our businesses, our tech stack, the opportunities with AI (which I talked about in a recent blog post), and how we grow our businesses – and make our client experience better – by using different tools. Darci provided a lot of great examples of how she uses different channels to engage with her clients, and how she has grown from a small start up ten years ago into a top brand for the beverage and events industries. If your firm is a start up looking to grow, I really encourage you to look up the story of Hodde Bros Beverage Co and learn more.

So, why is Westchester’s story relevant enough to this topic that I was asked to come speak in these sessions at the event? Well, here’s an overview of what I shared during the panel, in narrative form.

Not long after Westchester became an employee-owned company in 2014, Westchester’s managers began highlighting areas where we could focus on a better client experience, as well as ways to grow our company. Our client experience at the time was in some ways fragmented, client by client. On one-hand, this was a bespoke solution for our clients — each client’s own workflow was tailored to, and supported as essentially its own unit here. But that worked well, for both us and our clients, when we had only forty clients to support, and most of those clients had one major line of work with us. But, as we started doing more work across organizations, we found that maybe one department liked to send us files via FTP en masse for typesetting and ePub conversion, and another department was essentially a smaller operation within the same firm that sent individual projects via WeTransfer for editorial and typesetting – and had wholly different style guidelines, schedules, and expectations. And as we moved into new markets back then — like the work we do for think tanks, legal publishers, trade associations, and more — we found that different types of clients had different needs and expectations for file transfer, schedules, communications, project involvement, and services.

To scale, Westchester needed a partner. After vetting many platforms, we selected Dropbox as our partner for file exchange and storage (to start). Clients could still send and receive files via FTP, WeTransfer, Box, Google Drive, what have you, but by setting up a number of processes on our end that talked to those different systems and pulled files into a central cloud-based Dropbox environment, we created efficiencies for us and for our clients.

And wow, did things grow from there! Dropbox was highly consultative, and our team identified use cases with the Dropbox API that let us build a custom project management system using our development team, and sitting on top of a trusted brand by using the Dropbox API for automations and process management, which expedited file transfer and made for a robust client experience. You’ve heard me talk about this in past blog posts, but this was the launch of our Client Portal. The Client Portal allows for easy transfer of files to Westchester via whatever means are best for you — but optimized for easy drop-off using Dropbox, even if you don’t have an enterprise account. No longer did clients have to log into a server, download assets, pass them to an author, gather those files back, upload them again… Steps like that became more automated and lightning fast.

Throughout each project, our clients can see the status of assets at each phase, download assets using downloadable links, and track the project schedule against milestones. None of these features, reports, or options for exchange replace the human interaction and customer care that Westchester is known for — we are just providing added transparency and options for engaging with your project’s assets. This has made for a great experience for our clients and has helped us scale our company as we have added more services and clients, growing from the forty-odd we had in the US back in 2014 to nearly 600 clients around the globe, today.

Beyond the Client Portal, Dropbox opened up its platform to us so that we could use more of their tools, including Dropbox Paper (which we use for many things including tracking client documentation, collaborating on marketing pieces, and planning projects), Dropbox Sign (which we use for contracts and onboarding clients within certain units of our company), DocSend (which we use for maintaining a library of marketing collateral for our sales and marketing teams to engage with clients and prospects about meaningful, relevant case studies), Dropbox Capture (which helps with internal training and other use cases for sharing content with narration), and more. Dropbox has been a phenomenal partner, and we rely on their platform, products, experience, consultation, innovation, and highly regarded security as a key element of not just our tech stack, but also how we support our staff and our clients.

While I’m excited about our above use cases that I shared on the panel — as well as further discussions we had about AI, marketing, and client engagement — that’s not the end of the story. We continue to have very detailed workflow conversations with dozens of accounts each week – both existing partners looking to address new products or challenges, as well as exploratory discussions with new, potential clients. Our editorial, production, and digital services are a cornerstone to the workflows for our nearly 600 clients around the world for a reason, and the blend of people skills and technology we are known for is key to their success. If you are a publisher, the chances are very good that we have had to solve any of the editorial or production challenges that you are currently facing. Contact Us to discuss your needs, and explore ways that US employee-owned Westchester Publishing Services can help.

Filed Under: blog, Conferences, News, Services Tagged With: AI, API, automation, client documentation, client engagement, Client Portal, client support, collaboration, conference, digital conversion services, Dropbox, editorial services, file exchange, production services, secure storage, technology platform, technology solutions, work in progress

October 9, 2023

by Hugh Shiebler, Director, Client Solutions

Hugh ShieblerAs Alvin Toffler wrote over fifty years ago, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” The ever-quickening pace of change – and the necessity of adapting to that change – was a main theme of the New Directions in Scholarly Publishing Seminar, held October 4-5, 2023 and hosted by the Society for Scholarly Publishing. I attended both days of this year’s seminar, titled “Navigating the Shifting Sands: Managing Disruptions in Scholarly Communications.” The timeliness and depth of the presentations was matched by the quality of the questions asked, resulting in a lively dialogue.

picture of Society of Scholarly Publishing conference attendees sitting at tables in a conference room, looking at pulldown screens containing information about a session topic.Discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) threaded through most of the presentations. Sessions such as “New Directions in Research Integrity: Values to Value in Research Publishing” and “Authorship in the Age of AI” emphasized embracing new technologies as tools without compromising one’s values or losing touch with the human elements that make scholarly publishing what it is. Dr. Rebecca Brendel, the Director of the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, delivered the keynote address, “New Directions in Research Integrity: Values to Value in Research and Publishing.” Dr. Brendel reminded all of us that integrity in research depends upon the integrity of individual researchers, administrators, and publishers. And, that core values such as honesty and transparency will be even more critical as AI continues to pervade the research and publication processes. Following the keynote address, Simone Taylor, the Publisher of the American Psychiatric Association, moderated a discussion with Dr. Brendel.

You may have seen our recent blog post on AI or my colleague’s appearance on a recent podcast discussing our view on how to integrate it into publishing workflows. We’re excited about the potential to continue expanding our offerings and ways we can help publishers.

Filed Under: blog, Conferences, News Tagged With: academic publishing, AI, artificial intelligence, conference, publishing, research, scholarly publishing, Society for Scholarly Publishing, SSP

February 9, 2022

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

I had the great fortune to participate virtually on a panel at PubWest 2022 with Rachel Noorda (Director of Book Publishing, Portland State University) and Suzanne Norman (Publishing Program, Simon Fraser University) entitled “Getting your Book into Readers’ Hands”. One of the Intensives at this year’s PubWest conference, we met with a small group of publishers to discuss the industry trends affecting book availability, supply chain, purchasing practices, equity in content, inclusive marketing, and the challenges publishers and readers have getting access to content.  Rachel Noorda deserves applause for the effort she invested in hosting and facilitating this panel in-person at the conference while Suzanne and I joined in via Zoom.

The overview Rachel and Suzanne provided on the above topics helped the attendees understand the impacts of global factors on launching new titles, keeping books in print, considerations for Print on Demand, and also how to consider accessibility in your books.  As we discussed with the attendees, over 20% of the world’s population has a print disability, and some numbers suggest at least 5-10% of the population has dyslexia.  Best practices with fonts, colors, and alt text were covered during our session, and we showed how to crack open an ebook you’ve released and check it using Ace by DAISY and Thorium.

Westchester will be covering supply chain concerns in our next webinar that we’re co-hosting with Publishers Weekly, Publishing Now ’22: Driving Business Forward, on Tuesday, March 22. I hope you can join us for that! My colleagues and I at Westchester would also welcome the chance to speak with you about your thoughts around accessibility and your content.  If you want to spend some time reviewing an ebook or two from your list to talk about best practices, the team at Westchester would be happy to have a brief Zoom.  Contact us to schedule some time to talk about your editorial, production, and digital needs.

Filed Under: blog, Conferences, Services, Uncategorized Tagged With: accessibility, conference, print on demand, PubWest, virtual conference, webinar

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