Cromwell Press AI Editorial Workflow
A London academic publisher automated copy-editing, fact-checking, and reviewer routing across 180 active titles.
Impact
What changed.
Deadline reliability
Catalog-deadline slippage dropped from 18% to 4%. The firm published every Spring catalog title on its committed date for the first time in eight years.
Reviewer quality
Peer review response time fell 41% as the fit model surfaced reviewers who were both qualified and likely to respond. Author satisfaction with review quality rose noticeably.
Editor leverage
Editors now handle 22% more active titles each without quality regression. Time previously lost to production-status chasing went into substantive editorial work.
The challenge
Before
Cromwell Press is a mid-sized London academic publisher producing about 280 titles a year across humanities and social sciences. Editorial workflow was a bottleneck — copy-editing rounds, fact-checking on cited references, peer-reviewer assignment, author correspondence, and production handoff were tracked across a project management tool, several email accounts, and a custom spreadsheet that one production manager had been quietly maintaining for years. Title slippage was endemic, and the firm was missing seasonal catalog deadlines for roughly 18% of its titles.
- 180 active titles tracked across PM tool, email accounts, and one heroic spreadsheet
- 18% of titles slipping past seasonal catalog deadlines
- Copy-editing rounds tracked manually with inconsistent style-guide application
- Reference fact-checking done by interns sampling rather than checking systematically
- Peer reviewer assignment by editorial-director recall of who was good at what
- Author correspondence scattered across editor email accounts
- Production handoff requiring three meetings and a checklist run by hand
- Reviewer database growing stale with no recency or response-rate signals
The solution
What we built
We built an editorial workflow agent that owns the production-tracking layer while respecting editorial judgment. Manuscripts move through structured stages — submission, peer review, revisions, copy-editing, fact-checking, typesetting, proof, print. The agent applies the firm's style guide consistently across copy-editing rounds and surfaces ambiguous decisions to the editor rather than guessing. Fact-checking on cited references runs against a structured citation database and flags items that cannot be verified. Reviewer assignment uses a structured fit model (subject expertise, recent response rate, current load, conflict-of-interest history) and surfaces three candidates for editorial choice. Author correspondence is tracked against the manuscript, so any editor picking up the file sees the full history. Production handoff is a generated checklist instead of a meeting. The editorial team retains full creative and strategic authority; the agent removes the production friction.
Core workflow connections
How the system flows.
- Manuscript SubmissionEditor AssignmentInitial Review
- Peer Reviewer MatchFit ModelThree CandidatesEditorial Choice
- Revision RoundAuthor CorrespondenceManuscript Update
- Copy-EditingStyle Guide ApplicationAmbiguity Surfaced
- Fact-CheckingCitation DatabaseUnverified Items Flagged
- Production HandoffGenerated ChecklistSign-off
- Catalog Deadline TrackerSlip Risk Alerts
- Reviewer Database with recency, response rate, and conflict history
- Editorial judgment preserved on ambiguity and strategic decisions
- Author correspondence threaded against manuscript record
Process
How we built it.
Manuscript Submission → Editor Assignment → Initial Review
Peer Reviewer Match → Fit Model → Three Candidates → Editorial Choice
Revision Round → Author Correspondence → Manuscript Update
Copy-Editing → Style Guide Application → Ambiguity Surfaced
Fact-Checking → Citation Database → Unverified Items Flagged
Production Handoff → Generated Checklist → Sign-off
Catalog Deadline Tracker → Slip Risk Alerts
Reviewer Database with recency, response rate, and conflict history
Editorial judgment preserved on ambiguity and strategic decisions
Author correspondence threaded against manuscript record
Start a project
Production workflow eating editorial judgment?
We build editorial agents that protect your style and your editors' judgment — they remove production friction, your team owns the creative work.
No retainer lock-in · Month-to-month · Full transparency
More work
Up next.
A Hamburg freight forwarder extracts and validates 13,400 bills of lading per week with a tuned OCR and LLM pipeline.
Nordlake Shipping AI Document Extraction
An Australian challenger bank rebuilt onboarding and home for a 24-point lift in app-store rating.