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2022 Year in Review

reading

December 29, 2022

compiled by Nicole Tomassi, Marketing & Conference Manager

While the publishing industry continues to contend with various challenges in the marketplace, it also has a deep foundation of resiliency and collaboration to draw upon that provides us with the ability to adapt and thrive. Here are some ways we partnered with our industry colleagues throughout 2022 to help them identify and implement effective solutions:

Sharing Industry Knowledge

PW article about Impacts on Accessibility and Sustainability webinar.In 2022, we continued our successful partnership with Publishers Weekly, hosting two highly attended and informative webinars. In the spring, panelists Michael Jacobs, Lorraine Shanley, Jessica Ryan and Jim Fetherston discussed how each of their respective areas of the publishing industry were “Driving Business Forward”, and in the fall, Bill Kasdorf, Kristen McLean, and Rachel Martin provided steps publishing businesses could easily implement to have positive “Impacts on Accessibility and Sustainability”.

Also in the fall, consultant Jay Diskey was a panelist for the Westchester Education Services webinar, “2023 K-12 Education Funding and Policy Outlook”. The hour-long session was geared towards helping businesses developing materials for the K-12 education market better understand the various legislative and funding initiatives at both the federal and state level, and how these will impact the market during the next year.

 

A Fresh Look (and more great info!) for the Westchester Education Services website

WES homepageThis fall we improved the functionality and features on the Westchester Education Services website to provide you with a better user experience. With a mega-menu to help you quickly get to the specific subject areas you’re interested in, along with expanded content throughout including downloadable case studies, it’s packed with helpful information. Check it out and make sure to subscribe to our blog and our mailing list so you’re always up to date on what we’re doing.

 

Westchester UK and International Grows

world globeOur colleagues in the UK expanded their ranks to continue serving the growing client base Westchester works with beyond the North American market. Joining the education team throughout the year were Thomas Storr, Emma Hudson, and Adam Wilkinson. In June, Rebecca Durose-Croft was promoted to the position of Managing Director, Education. In the fall, she took some time to discuss what led her into a career in education publishing in this blog post.

 

Within the River Editorial team (a division of Westchester Publishing Services UK), Grace Peterson has recently joined as project manager, to provide support for their increased full-service client roster.

 

Promotions within our US editorial and production teams

woman climbing penciled stairsAs our client base inside the United States has continued to experience stellar growth, several of our US-based editorial and production staff received well-deserved promotions during the year. Some of the long-time employees who are bringing their vast experience into new roles are Terry Colosimo, Scott Keeney, Wendy Muto, Celeste Bilyard, Amanda Montes de Oca, Melody Negron and Erin Davis. Congratulations and continued success!

 

Westchester Education Services Expands its Staff

colorful group of peopleIt was also an exciting spring and summer of growth for the Westchester Education Services team as they welcomed several new people. Content Directors, Jennifer Cole and Laura Cunningham, Senior Editor, Tara Hlavinka, and Director of Client Solutions, Kevin Schroeder all arrived at Westchester in the spring, as shared in this press release. Later in the year to continue supporting client growth, we welcomed Christina DeYoung as Director of Client Solutions, Jada Bradley as Senior Editor, Culturally Responsive Education, Sheyla Lucas as Editorial Project Manager, and Jordan Orfitelli as Project Manager.

 

Scholarly and Academically Speaking

Table with dark blue tablecloth and WPS logoIn June, Hugh Shiebler, Director of Client Solutions was busy on the conference circuit, representing Westchester Publishing Services for the Society for Scholarly Publishing Conference, in Chicago. Later in the month, he joined Bill Foley, in Washington, DC, for the in-person return of the Association of University Presses Conference. Both enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with fellow publishing industry colleagues, to discuss workflow solutions to help publishers. Hugh also conducted an information session for AUP attendees about accessibility, which you can view and download here.

Westchester UK Spring Events

Westchester UK teamMembers of the Westchester Education UK & International, and Westchester Publishing Services UK teams participated in several publishing industry events during the spring, including sponsoring the Independent Publishers Guild Awards in April, the star-studded British Book Awards (known by its nickname, the Nibbies) in May, both of which were held in-person. Rounding things out in June was the hybrid Independent Publishers Guild Spring Conference. You can read more about it in these blog posts.

Westchester Education Conferences

WES 2022 BETT UK boothOur Westchester Education Services colleagues were busy attending several industry conferences in-person, including BETT UK in late winter, ASU-GSV in the spring, and several events in late fall, including sponsoring the EdWeek Market Brief Summit in November (Christina DeYoung shares 3 Key Takeaways), as well as attending the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE), National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) regional conference, and the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), which you can read about in this overview from Kevin Schroeder. You can read more about our 2023 conference plans later in this message.

 

Have you heard Westchester Words?

Westchester Words podcast logoOur podcast episodes are an efficient (15 minutes on average) way to learn about various topics that matter to the publishing, education and ed tech sectors on both sides of the Atlantic. You can find the Westchester Words and Westchester Words UK podcasts on your favorite streaming platform as well as on our websites, where we provide additional content related to the episodes along with downloadable transcripts. New episodes will be premiering in January, so now is the perfect time to get caught up!

 

What are we reading at Westchester?

man and woman browsing in bookstoreThe staff of Westchester are fortunate to be involved in working on thousands of book projects every year and on the other side of it, we enjoy doing our fair share of reading the finished product! See our Summer 2022 selections along with our recently published blog post Books We Want to Read or Gift Holiday 2022, to find out what books we’ve been reading this year.

 

Where Will Westchester be in 2023?

We are excited to have preparations underway for several industry conferences in the New Year, some of which we plan to attend in-person, including:

 

  • Digital Book World (January 16)
  • Future of Education Technology Conference (January 23)
  • BETT Show (March 29)
You can learn more about our event plans in this blog post, with more opportunities to connect online or in-person being added as the year moves forward.

 

Speaking of connecting online, we will continue to host informative webinars, starting with the Westchester Education Services session, “Best Practices for Engaging with a Vendor Partner Network” taking place on Thursday, January 19.

 

Let us know what conference and industry events are on your radar in the year ahead. We look forward to meeting with you at some point in 2023!

Employee-owned Westchester Publishing Services is honored to support more than 500 publishers globally, providing a wide variety of editorial, production, and digital conversion services, to help them prepare their publications for the print and digital formats their customers most desire. We look forward to continuing to serve publishers across all segments of the industry in 2023 with their frontlist releases, updates to backlist content, adapting materials for print on demand platforms, and conversion of assets into ePubs to help them get them content to market more efficiently and cost-effectively. As a Benetech Global Certified Accessible™ (GCA) Vendor, we have the expertise you can rely on to produce materials that are in accordance with accessible ePub accessibility standards.
Let us know how we can help you optimize your workflow in the year ahead, using the full array of customizable services we have to help you reduce or eliminate the project bottlenecks you don’t have time to deal with.

With best wishes for a happy holiday season and a healthy, prosperous New Year.


Filed Under: Conferences, News, Services, Westchester UK News Tagged With: ASU/GSV, AUP, Benetech GCA vendor, BETT UK, books, digital conversion, education funding, education policy, EdWeek Market Brief Summit, information sharing, NCSS, NCTE, NCTM, podcasts, reading, SSP, webinars, Westchester Words, working together

May 24, 2018

by Nicole Tomassi, Marketing & Conference Manager

Last December, I shared on this blog a list of books our staff had read in 2017 that they enjoyed so much, they wanted to recommend them. Well, fast forward several months to what I consider the official start of summer – Memorial Day weekend – and I have a new list of titles to share with you; some so new they haven’t been published yet. This list offers interesting selections, including biographies about people you thought you knew, surefire bestsellers from well-known authors, and riveting memoirs. You’re sure to find a title or two to add to your reading list. Though some might think you’re being lazy whiling the day away with a good book, I believe it’s time very well-spent. Wishing you a happy, fun-filled summer of reading from all of your friends at Westchester!

To learn more about any title below or to order from your favorite local bookstore, simply click on the cover image.

Ruthless River: Love and Survival by Raft on the Amazon’s Relentless Madre de Dios – by Holly FitzGerald

Publisher: Vintage Books

Why I want to read this book: A gripping story of survival in the beautiful but deadly Amazon Basin will have you racing through this book. It’s the true story of a young couple, who grew up in southwestern Connecticut, on a delayed honeymoon through South America in the 1970s. The author’s account of their ordeal is harrowing and exciting, but also ruminates on the way love and faith intertwines with a person’s deep-rooted instinct to survive.

Selected by: Erin Leo, Journals Production Editor


Doctor Who, The Day of the Doctor – by Steven Moffat

Publisher: Penguin Group UK

Why I want to read this book: Growing up in the 80s, Britain’s Doctor Who was a nerd touchstone for young American sci-fi and comic book fans. Nowadays it is constantly airing on TV and streaming, but back then it was rerun on public television in the States, and usually only seasonally so you had to wait for your fix of whatever episodes the local PBS affiliate was able to get their hands on for their annual telethon. To fill in the gaps for fans who only got to see it occasionally – or had missed out on earlier incarnations of the sci-fi hero – there were Target paperback novelizations of classic episodes. I devoured these whenever I could find them in a library or local bookshop. Now, even though you can binge-watch it on Amazon Prime whenever you’d like, Penguin has worked with the shows writers and producers to come up with novelizations of newer episodes, expanding the content a bit with Easter eggs for eager readers. I’m awaiting my copy of The Day of the Doctor, written by the show’s writer, Steven Moffat, and plan on finding my inner 80s nerd again while reading this on the beach this Summer.

Selected by: Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer


The Outsider – by Steven King

Publisher: Scribner Book Company

Why I want to read this book: I collect Stephen King books, so it’s no surprise that I’m eagerly awaiting the release of his newest book. This one is about a murder in a small town and an upstanding member of the community as the unexpected perpetrator, at least according to the evidence. I have a feeling nothing in this book will be as it seems.

Selected by: Kim Giambattisto, Senior Production Editor


Look for Me – by Lisa Gardner

Publisher: Dutton Books

Why I want to read this book: Lisa Gardner is one of the only authors I’ve discovered who continues to deliver an unexpected and satisfying ending in every one of her books. I gobbled up her last few novels (Find Her and Right Behind You) so quickly that I’ve been dying to see what she’ll do next!

 

Selected by: Christina Kinsella, Journals Production Editor


The Art of the Wasted Day – by Patricia Hampl

Publisher: Viking

Why I want to read this book: A picaresque travelogue of leisure written from a lifelong enchantment with solitude. … The real job of being human … is getting lost in thought, something only leisure can provide. The Art of the Wasted Day is a compelling celebration of the purpose and appeal of letting go.

I plan to take this book with me while enjoying a week by the lake in Maine this summer.

Selected by: Debbie Masi, Production Supervisor, Editorial Services


Beauty in the Broken Places: A Memoir of Love, Faith, and Resilience – by Allison Pataki

Publisher: Random House

Why I want to read this book: Five months pregnant and on their way to their “babymoon,” Dr. Dave Levy suffered a rare and life-threatening stroke. This deeply moving memoir is the story of Dave’s miraculous and hard-fought recovery, which is beautifully chronicled in Allison’s letters to her husband. Interspersing their history with the realities of Dave’s day-to-day recovery, the author seamlessly brings the reader into their love story and their journey to bring Dave back and to fall in love all over again. Beauty in the Broken Places reminds us how life can change in an instant and the miracles of second chances.

Selected by: Wendy Muto, Production Manager, Editorial Services


The Death of Mrs. Westaway – by Ruth Ware

Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press

Why I want to read this book: Everything Ruth Ware has written so far has been intensely captivating and intriguing, and I expect that her newest novel will be no different. In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Lying Game were books I just couldn’t put down. With a movie adaptation in the works, I am excited to see what she comes up with next. The Death of Mrs. Westaway is her fourth novel and is sure to be another addictive one. If you love classic mysteries with modern twists, then I’d definitely recommend picking this up.

Selected by: Christina Kinsella, Journals Production Editor


There But for Fortune: The Life of Phil Ochs – by Michael Schumacher

Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

Why I want to read this book: I was a teenager when a friend’s father first introduced me to the music of Phil Ochs. His wit and sarcasm was very appealing to my teenage mind. Over the years I’ve developed a deeper appreciation for the lyrics and themes of his songs as I’ve pursued graduate work in American history. I’m looking forward to reading his latest biography in hopes of gaining a new perspective on a person whose radical commentary of the 1960s American political landscape continues to find relevance in my studies.

Selected by: JodieAnne Sclafani, Production Supervisor – Design, Graphics, and Proof


The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold: An American Life – by Joyce Lee Malcolm

Publisher: Pegasus Books

Why I want to read this book: If you live (as I do) in Ridgefield, CT, you come to know Benedict Arnold as the hero of the Battle of Ridgefield, which took place on April 27, 1777, rather than just the infamous traitor he became later. This new book provides a portrait of the man from the early days of his life, in the context of late 18th century America, where you are brought right into the action at some of the most important moments of our country’s history. Without Arnold’s brilliance as a general in the Battle of Saratoga and elsewhere the Revolutionary War could have been lost; this narrative seeks to solve the mystery of why he would later plot to surrender West Point.

Selected by: Susan Baker, Director, Editorial Services


Every Other Weekend – by Zulema Renee Summerfield

Publisher: Little Brown and Company

Why I want to read this book: Set in 1988, this debut novel tells the story of Nenny, an eight year old girl who along with her brothers is coming to terms with the reality of her parents’ divorce. Nenny’s an anxious child, and a new living situation which includes her mother’s new husband and his two children only serves to heighten that. Nenny also possesses a very active imagination, which merges the real, the possible, and the improbable in ways that only children can. I’m looking forward to reading this book because like the main character, my family was going through significant changes that made 1988 a transformative year  – though for very different reasons – and with the passage of thirty years, it’s become a time I look back upon with amazement.

Selected by: Nicole Tomassi, Marketing and Conference Manager


If you’re looking for more books to put on your summer reading list, consider these resources:

Publishers Weekly – Best Summer Reads 2018

Gates Notes  – 5 books worth reading this summer

The New York Times – 17 Refreshing Books to Read This Summer

 

Filed Under: blog, Featured Tagged With: bestsellers, new books, reading, staff selections, summer

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