On the Same Page: Building Strong Publisher–Vendor Partnerships

Considerations for Communicating with a Book Production Vendor for Page Production
by Rebecca Burgoyne and Tyler M. Carey

With the increase in complexities around digital publishing and accessibility, book production tasks require increasingly specialized skills. Even smaller publishers that typically handled production and manufacturing tasks in-house are now benefiting from partnering with trusted freelancers and book production vendors. These partners help publishers by acting as specialists with a familiarity on these requirements, and can help a publisher scale as their list grows.

Last month, our BISG Workflow Committee colleague Shelby E. Jenkins wrote about considerations for digital production in this blog.

Now, we're looking at page production in partnership with a vendor, and the communications needs to make that work really well.

TYLER: I’m on the vendor side of this topic…

REBECCA: And I’m on the publisher’s side of the desk!

TYLER: Rebecca and I have been in the industry for a bit, and have found that communication is key when selecting, onboarding, and continuously improving how vendors and publishers work together. Rebecca, can you tell us about the things you think about when communicating with a vendor? Including selecting a vendor and figuring out how to work together...

REBECCA: Absolutely, Tyler. You're right that an effective partnership and good communication starts at the vendor selection stage. When we're evaluating potential production partners at United Methodist Publishing House (UMPH), we look at three main areas of communication.

First, we want to see how well they understand—and try to understand—our business, right from the start. Are they asking relevant questions about our production processes, specifications, and timelines? A vendor who jumps straight to pricing without thoroughly understanding our requirements comes off as transactional. Good communication and effective partnership is built on solid mutual understanding. Building on that, we want to understand our partners in return. We appreciate vendors who can articulate their business model and their client expectations in an open and authentic way. No one wants to enter a business relationship only to find out down the road it isn't a good fit.

Second, we pay close attention to their responsiveness and the quality of their initial communication. New partners who are slow to respond or offer vague replies... well, that tells us a lot about what the long-term will look like. Everyone's on their best behavior early on, right? So, if things aren't great off the bat, that's not a good omen. What we are looking for is expertise—for partners who demonstrate that they can guide us through complex production decisions. When initial responses are rich and arrive in a timely manner, that sets a good tone.

And third, of course we always ask for samples of comparable work and for references. And, here's what we've learned: it's not just about seeing the samples and the reference list. It's important to actually call those references and ask specifically about the communication experience. How did the vendor handle problems when they arose? Were they proactive about flagging potential issues? Did they meet deadlines consistently? Reports of real experiences give us clearer picture of what the ongoing relationship can be.

TYLER: Those are the principles we aim to adhere to at Westchester, for all those reasons. And we similarly look at what kind of documentation we’re getting when quoting or launching work, to figure out how best to support a publisher.

To illustrate this, we started working with two very different publishers that illustrate either end of the range of vendor documentation. One may have been new to outsourcing page production, but had a manager who had worked with vendors before and was able to take their in-house guidelines and style guides and package those up in a way that removed the “inside voice” and made them actionable. We were handed a series of documents with everything from information about software versions, rules for bad breaks, proofreading/QC guidelines, rules for handling signatures for printing, and pretty much any question one could think of. These were things that were really well known internally, but they adjusted their documentation to make it more accessible to an outside party, to really process their way of working. They took time to review it as well.

For contrast, another vendor I can share as a case study is also a great partner but was starting from a different place. It was also their first time outsourcing, and they did not have great internal documentation. A lot of the rules were all in the head of the production director, production editors, and other staff. They had been working together so long and so effectively that it was like a ballet. Add another dancer to that ballet and it could have been a mess.

As their list was growing, they needed help and we were a trusted entity in the space. A two-way dialogue was needed in order to define requirements and build documentation. Along the way, there were a lot of, “Oh, hey, we haven’t thought about this in a while, maybe we should…” scenarios, which allowed for adjustment to how we both would work on their titles. Our team documented things in Dropbox Paper, and shared the documentation for review and approval. I’m sure their team may have further improvised from there, but it was a fantastic exercise to share each other’s needs and best practices, to make sure a book we produced would be consistent with the way their amazing titles had been produced for years. Long winded examples there, sorry, Rebecca!

REBECCA: Working with these very different production styles sounds both challenging and fun! Jumping off from what you've said about these differences, I'd add that day-to-day partnership can also be quite varied. Taking UMPH as an example, we produce a wide gamut of print publications and digital content—all with different specs and outputs, different audiences and use cases, and different production schedules. So, we tend to have this mix of fast-track publications targeted at specific market windows alongside longer editorial schedules that allow for more flexibility. An effective production partner will understand that these aren't just different timelines—they're fundamentally different workflows that require different resource allocation and communication cadences.
 
Doing the necessary daily tasks to keep both types of schedules on track is a balancing act, and good partners do that balancing together. It's important that both sides are proactive about flagging potential bottlenecks before they become crises, and it's the vendor-partner who we look to for the expertise here. As mentioned above, we value partners who demonstrate that they can guide us through complex production decisions. When an issue arises, we don't want to hear "we'll make it work" — we need the partner to walk us through exactly how they'll prioritize resources and what impact, if any, this might have on other projects.
 
I'll add that while having a partner who can continually adapt is key, being in a partnership, neither side should be adapting on the fly. This is where structured communication becomes crucial. We've found that regular check-ins head off those last-minute scrambles that can derail quality and timelines. Check-ins can be weekly status calls, daily stand-up meetings, shared project dashboards, or something else that works for both sides. What's needed is an underpinning structure that keeps both sides fully informed while building the habit of keeping in touch. This forms a reliable method to work through shifts and challenges together.

TYLER: I’m reminded of something that the CFO of one of our largest accounts once said to me after we secured a contract for all of their work. We were a known quantity in that we had been one vendor in their wider pool for years, but this was an inflection point—they had made the leap to make us their primary vendor. We’d be going from a few dozen titles a year to a couple of hundred, and scaling is where the cracks can sometimes show. He cautioned me, “Your team will be responsible for a lot more. You will make mistakes—that’s human nature. But, it’s how you address those mistakes that matters to me, not that you made a mistake in the first place. Our staff and our titles are critical to us.” That’s stuck with me. There’s a lot of trust—a leap of faith as it were—that comes with truly partnering with a vendor, rather than just having them in your pool for overflow or limited use cases. How about you, Rebecca—how does communication work from your side of the desk when a project goes awry? Any counsel you’d have to the publishers reading this?

REBECCA: The best partnerships I've seen have clear escalation protocols and participate willingly in both issue resolution and wider debrief. They make sure everyone knows who to call when something goes sideways and ensure there's no finger-pointing. Instead, we collaboratively solve the issue so that we can quickly get back on track.

Clear, quick communication is a key factor in crisis management. It's helpful when a vendor-partner has a pre-established crisis communication framework—that is, methods are in place before problems arise. They designate specific point people who have real decision-making authority, so that when an issue or delay arises, we're not waiting for messages to travel up and down the chain. In addition, helpful communication is specific: rather than a vague "we're looking into it," we get real details that help us understand both the issue and the implications.

After the immediate crisis passes, it's important to have a debrief. Small crises call for small debriefs—could be simply a few key people asking what went wrong and developing protocols for the future. Larger crises call for formal sessions where we work together to dissect what went wrong, why it happened, and what systemic changes need to be made. Although it's human nature, ideally, these aren't blame sessions and no one is falling on their sword; rather, it's a collaborative learning experience. Effective debrief sessions offer a place where both sides can take ownership of ways we need to change and together find ways to form a stronger partnership. When both sides are committed to continually improving, we build the kind of trust that makes future challenges much easier to navigate.

TYLER: So, Rebecca, us vendors and publishers really are more alike than folks would think, right? We are all hoping for clarity, feedback, and ownership, so that we can each partner with one another with clear expectations and any info needed to calibrate. Does that sound right or am I oversimplifying?  

REBECCA: Tyler, that’s spot on. When we have clarity on roles and expectations, along with reliable feedback loops, we build trust. When we trust that we can collaborate on outcomes we both value—that’s partnership.

TYLER: Thanks, Rebecca. And thanks, BISG members and publishing colleagues for taking the time to review this blog post. Any suggestions or feedback are welcome, as we both look to support our clients and vendors. You can reach us on LinkedIn, listed below.

REBECCA BURGOYNE has over 30-years experience in Christian publishing and retailing and currently serves as Executive Director of Business Systems Integration at the United Methodist Publishing House (UMPH). Rebecca can be contacted on LinkedIn and occasionally posts on Medium.

TYLER CAREY is the Chief Revenue Officer at Westchester Publishing Services, a U.S. employee-owned company with offices in the U.S., U.K., and India that serves over 600-publishers with editorial and production responsibilities on over 20,000 projects a year. Tyler can be contacted on LinkedIn.

Both Tyler and Rebecca are active members of BISG and its Workflow Committee.

Read the first post in our Workflow blog series, Adding or Improving the Workflow of a Digital Product? Start at the End. by Shelby E. Jenkins.

Enjoyed this post? Learn more about BISG’s committees here, and participate in the dialogue in our industry for your own personal growth and to help address industry challenges.