Last year, Westchester supported more than 600 publishers across 16,000-plus projects that ranged from books and white papers to journals and EPUBs. “Deb Taylor, our COO, is helping drive cross-departmental collaborations, so we can further expand the support we provide to our clients,” says chief revenue officer Tyler Carey. “It is an exciting time with our 400- plus employees doing more to help each other and our clients with a wider set of offerings than we have ever had before.”
From helping key accounts with large print and POD projects to writing alt text and helping reinvent XML-driven workflows for publishers, the Westchester team is taking on tasks that on the surface may not seem as exciting as AI or other trending topics. “But these are areas where clients can get bogged down on less profitable tasks,” Carey says. “We, on the other hand, can take on these tasks and make our clients more efficient and their projects more cost effective.”
Meanwhile, Westchester’s Client Portal, built on top of the Dropbox API, continues to expand not only with new tools for clients but also with additional features to help the internal team better manage each project. “Our relationship with Dropbox is immensely valuable as it engages with us regularly on how to better use its platform and help us craft solutions to meet publishing needs,” Carey says. “The Dropbox Dash platform is something further that we have been exploring for controlled-use cases on AI that do not involve client content. We see the potential for AI to help us with the book production process in ways that do not risk our clients’ content or our own security. While AI is exciting for us, we are moving cautiously and deliberately.”
Being a Benetech GCA-certified vendor has attracted more clients interested in accessible content to Westchester. “Our ability to offer accessible EPUBs—not just through conversion but also in editorial and production services—has helped grow our business,” Carey says. “Clients come to us because they have heard about our success in helping others to solve accessibility issues in frontlist workflow and in remediating backlists.”
Westchester is currently helping IngramSpark self-published authors with editorial and production processes under a new arrangement specific to the platform. “We have also partnered with Studiolo Secondari on high-touch services for authors who want to invest in more strategic consultative needs such as market research and ghostwriting,” Carey says. “We find this ability—and opportunity—to help individual authors really rewarding. It’s an exciting time to be at Westchester!”
