Adding more than 150 companies to its client roster since 2019 is not just a reflection of Westchester’s business success, says chief revenue officer Tyler Carey. “It is indicative,” he says, “of the expansion within the publishing industry, the number of titles released in different formats, and how publishers are able to sustain—and grow—their businesses during this pandemic.”
Many publishers “are investing in new distribution methods, content areas, and file formats,” Carey says, “and we are helping these publishers via the creation, editing, design, and production processes. Accordingly, we invest in our own infrastructure and bring in industry experts to help us continue to grow our internal and client-facing technologies, as well as offerings to address these needs.”
Westchester’s education groups in the U.S. and the U.K. have posted higher growth than ever in the past two years. “One key factor is the creation of our culturally responsive education [CRE] rubric, as our response, as parents and educators, to the current market,” Carey says. “Many parents had not seen much of their children’s classroom content until their kids were distance-learning during the pandemic. And not all parents liked what they saw, especially the underrepresentation of cultures and the dated and offensive language that persists in some content.”
Through this proprietary CRE rubric, publishers and content creators are able to identify, and address, the errors of omission, representation, or insensitivity and improve their content. “The open dialogues and recommendations have helped our clients to not just ‘fix’ their backlists but also create more relevant and appropriate new content going forward,” Carey says.
The team has been busy working with trade book publishers worldwide, including Bloomsbury (U.K.), Macmillan, and Crooked Lane. “Increasingly, when we typeset a trade book, we are also generating digital galley files, POD files, ePubs, web PDFs, and accessible ePub files,” Carey says. “Publishers are using these different file types to minimize their risks and prepare for future and emergency use cases. For instance, if there is a backlog at the printing companies, they have the POD files to go for digital printing. Or they can do a digital release using ePub files while awaiting an initial print run. They now have all the file formats they might need, ready to go.”
Then there was the acquisition of U.K.-based River Editorial in March, which has been “transformative,” Carey says. “We can now offer U.K. clients onshore project management and editorial services. We continue to look out for strategic opportunities and key hires to expand our services and capabilities and offer our best to the publishing, education, media, and communications markets.”
