Senior Publicist (12 month FTC)
Who we are and what we do
The Orion Publishing Group, a division of Hachette UK, publishes a wide range of commercial, literary, and award-winning popular fiction and non-fiction and is home to bestselling authors such as Sir Ian Rankin, Adam Kay, Michael Connelly, Cathy Bramley, Noel ‘The Supervet’ Fitzpatrick, Veronica Henry, Santa Montefiore, Clare Chambers, Michael Palin, Malala Yousafzai, Gillian Flynn, Candice Carty-Williams and many more.
In 2021 we won the Publisher of the Year award at the British Book Awards, and our award-winning Communications team has a proud track record of creating high-impact, creative, sales-driving campaigns to help bring our books to readers.
This is a fantastic opportunity to work alongside a multi-disciplined, award-winning team responsible for a wide variety of publishing. You’d be working in a creative and dynamic environment, utilising a wide variety of essential publicity skills to reach the widest possible readership.
What you'll be doing
An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Senior Publicist to join our award-winning and dynamic Communications team, to cover a period of parental leave. As Senior Publicist you will be responsible for leading and implementing sales-driving and profile-building publicity campaigns, fully integrating all aspects of the media and events spaces to positively raise the profile and awareness of the author and book across our wide range of imprints. You will be working directly with some of the industry’s biggest brand fiction authors, exciting debuts, celebrity-led titles, music, humour, memoir, and headline grabbing non-fiction. You’ll be required to confidently present plans to colleagues in-house and externally to authors and agents, regularly updating key stakeholders on progress, as well as offering exceptional author care and maintaining excellent relationships with authors and agents.
Who we are looking for
We are looking for a passionate and driven Senior Publicist to lead on campaigns and strategy for a range of Orion’s key launches. You will have demonstrable experience as a senior publicist with a proven track record of creating industry-leading driving publicity campaigns across fiction and non-fiction that result in sales. A love of literary publishing as well as experience working with brand authors is desired. Alongside demonstratable PR experience, the ideal candidate will be extremely efficient, have a broad range of contacts across the media and events, and bring initiative, creativity, and passion to the role. The ability to multi-task, work calmly under pressure and be a strong team player are also vital.
What we offer
Our staff are our greatest asset, and our benefits reflect this:
- 28 annual leave days per year, increases to 29 days after 2 years' service and goes up to 30 days after 5 years' (+ bank holidays)
- Private medical insurance
- Generous pension schemes
- Rent deposit loans
- 2 community days per year
- Summer hours (finishing at 1pm on Fridays during the summer months)
- Retail discounts through Hachette rewards
- Cycle to Work scheme
- Eye care vouchers
- Wide-ranging training library
- Development programmes (including mentoring)
- Up to 70% off book purchases
- A charity bookshelf
- 12 Staff-led employee networks that are voluntary, including Gender Balance, Thrive, Pride, All Together, Wellbeing and religious networks
- Season ticket loans
- And much more!
This role can be based at our London or Sheffield office, with a blend of in-office (3 days) and homeworking (2 days) per week.
Our commitment
Hachette employs people on the basis of their abilities. We aim to attract and develop talent from a base as broad as the world of readers we want to reach, with a wide and representative range of age, faith, disability, race, gender, sexuality and socio-economic, regional and cultural backgrounds.
If you are shortlisted and need us to make any adjustments to help you attend for interview, please let us know.
The Book Trade Charity offers financial support to people looking to enter the book trade but who may struggle to afford the costs of attending interviews and undertaking junior roles. For more information visit www.booktradeentrysupport.org