Cromwell Press AI Editorial Workflow

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.

How the system flows

1. Manuscript Submission→Editor Assignment→Initial Review
2. Peer Reviewer Match→Fit Model→Three Candidates→Editorial Choice
3. Revision Round→Author Correspondence→Manuscript Update
4. Copy-Editing→Style Guide Application→Ambiguity Surfaced
5. Fact-Checking→Citation Database→Unverified Items Flagged
6. Production Handoff→Generated Checklist→Sign-off
7. 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