editorial services

October 11, 2019

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.

January 7, 2019

Keeping offshore editorial services 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 Offshore Editorial 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, headquarters for our offshore editorial services. 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.

Visit our Westchester U.K. site

November 13, 2018

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 Wrap-up: Summer 2019