Westchester Publishing Services

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The Year of Working Remotely: How Westchester Supports our Clients

POD

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

As we reach the anniversary of the beginning of the Pandemic “Lockdown” back in March 2020, two Washington Post articles caught my attention. One about the hindsight that can now be applied to the tragic impact of the COVID-19 virus on the world, which was far greater than any of us could have anticipated, and another about how conferences and events are trying to adapt to restart in-person industry meetings this year as hope around vaccines and recovery begins to take hold.  It was exactly a year ago that Westchester temporarily closed its Danbury location, hoping to have staff return expediently once it was safe.  A year on, nearly all of us are continuing to work from home, with only select staff going into the office as needed to tend to billing and postal needs.  As vaccine distribution improves, we look forward to more formally reopening our operations in Danbury and Dayton in the States, Stratford upon Avon in the UK, and Noida and Chennai in India.

The pandemic quickly impacted all of us and the ways we engaged with our clients to support them evolved rapidly.  We realized that our history and expertise working distributed, globally, could help many of our clients who were newer to navigating the distributed or “work-from-home” model. Our marketing team quickly brought together clients and industry figures for a webinar to talk through their approaches to the challenges that hit us all immediately. On our website, we set up a Work from Home resources page, curating articles and other useful information to help people adapt to this new way of working.

Many of our clients were experiencing similar challenges within their operations, prompting us to create video content to address those issues, including:

You can find all of these and more video content on the Westchester YouTube channel.

We’re all continuing to consider what’s next for the publishing industry. On April 6th, Westchester will again partner with Publishers Weekly for the industry thought leader webinar, “Publishing Now ’21: Looking Forward”, featuring insights from Dominique Raccah of Sourcebooks, Cathy Felgar from Princeton University Press, Lorraine Shanley of MPI, and Tom Chalmers of Legend Times.  I invite you and your colleagues to join us for this free webinar, and engage with these publishing experts on questions about all aspects of the industry and supply chain that are affecting you.

Westchester remains committed to helping the Publishing Industry with its changing editorial and production needs, and continues to pivot and address individual workflow needs for our clients, to help each client in their areas of greatest need. Stay connected with us through our webinars, video content, and our recently launched Westchester Words podcast, featuring short, impactful conversations on topics specific to the publishing industry. Contact Us to discuss your challenges, and how Westchester can help you.

by Nicole Tomassi, Marketing & Conference Manager

book printing machineOn Tuesday, March 2, the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) hosted the webinar, “Book Printing in the U.S. Market: An Update. BISG Executive Director Brian O’Leary moderated the session, which shared updates from the Book Manufacturing Institute’s (BMI) Executive Director, Matt Baehr, and Versa Press Executive Sales Director, Matthew Kennell.

Matt Baehr noted several ways that businesses were impacted in 2020 by the pandemic, from extended lead times in getting both raw and finished materials from overseas, the higher costs and delays associated with sourcing these products, to increased run lengths for certain product lines, particularly cookbooks, and content that focused on politics and social justice issues.

As a result, capacity issues were a dominant factor throughout last year and this has persisted into 2021. This has led to increased interest for publishers seeking to shift more of their printing needs onshore, however, that presents other issues due to the consolidation in that space during the last several years. As discussed in our Publishing Now webinar last summer, print on demand is a solution that can help address this challenge, and Matt noted in his presentation that the quality is steadily improving in comparison to offset. He shared that publishers are utilizing print on demand for backlist titles in their catalog, reducing the need to maintain significant physical inventory. To supplement the increased interest in POD, some book manufacturers are expanding into “POD lite” services, offering a blended product with a digital component to augment the physical print run.

Another area of concern are the challenges that manufacturers are experiencing with maintaining full employment to meet higher demand.  The workforce in this sector tends to be older, where the concerns of the pandemic have a more pronounced effect. Many of these facilities are located in more rural areas of the country, making it difficult to draw in younger workers who tend to live in more populated regions. Through their affiliation with the National Association of Manufacturers and other industry associations, BMI is looking to generate higher awareness and interest for careers in manufacturing during 2021.

Matthew Kennell, confirmed that Verhttps://bisg.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1465835&group=sa Press has experienced several of the trends referenced by Matt Baehr, including lead times that have grown to about six weeks for a paperback run compared to the more typical lead time of 3 to 4 weeks. At the beginning of 2020, Versa was already in the process of ordering printing equipment for planned expansions. Some of these presses will arrive at the facility and come online during the summer of 2021. According to Matthew, the fourth-generation family-owned and operated business takes a long-term approach with its growth strategy. They diversify by serving publishers who are in various market segments, and Versa Press’ overall outlook for the next few years is positive due to the longstanding relationships they have cultivated with many of their clients.

Though challenges remain in various parts of the supply chain, there’s plenty of reason for optimism in the publishing industry as we move forward through 2021. BISG offers periodic webinars that address various aspects of the industry, along with committees that employees of member companies can participate in. Visit the BISG website to learn more about upcoming programming, view previous content or become a member.

Sign up here for BISG’s next webinar on Tuesday, March 16 – The Paper Market for Books: An Update.