Transworld is looking for a confident, curious and passionate individual with a track-record of acquisition success to take on the newly-created role of Deputy Publishing Director for Bantam Fiction.
The Deputy Publishing Director will be responsible for designing and driving the publishing strategy for Bantam fiction, alongside the Publisher, as well as overseeing the crime thriller list within that, ensuring growth, profitability and quality of publishing. The key focus is to acquire books and publish them in the best possible way. The Deputy Publishing Director is an integral member of the Editorial team and works closely with key authors and agents and other departments internally. They will also play an important role as a people manager, and as partner to the Publisher and wider team.
The Deputy Publishing Director will report to the Publisher, and will initially have two direct reports, with scope for growth.
About Transworld and Bantam
Home to many bestselling authors, Transworld Publishers is one of the most successful book publishers in the UK. We seek to make the biggest commercial fiction brands ever-bigger and to launch debut talent to the greatest possible heights. The stellar fiction list includes Dan Brown, Lee and Andrew Child, Shari Lapena, Jilly Cooper, Sophie Kinsella, Ruth Jones, Paula Hawkins and Stuart MacBride.
Core Responsibilities:
- In conjunction with the Publisher contribute to the overall management and direction of Bantam fiction
- Working with the Senior Commissioning Editor for crime thriller, plan the strategy and development of the crime thriller list to meet growth and profitability targets, and subsequently drive this forward
- Being an ambassador for the team and representing the team's books and range of interests too, not just their own.
- Deputise for the Publisher when required
- Maintaining and developing relationships with authors and agents with a view to future acquisitions
- Developing and acquiring IP projects, as well as helping drive this initiative within the team.
- Negotiating, or being accountable for the negotiation of, author contracts which are consistent with commercial objectives
- Attracting and retaining the best authors by providing excellent author care and being fully accessible
- Working with the Sales, Publicity and Marketing teams on the development of pitch plans to support acquisition of new projects
- Ensuring the team maintain constructive relationships with other departments and that books have the required and appropriate focus of publicity, sales and marketing efforts
- Planning workloads and supervising the quality of work delivered by the team
- Recruiting, training and developing all team members and conducting performance appraisals and regular reviews
Candidate Profile:
- Significant editorial and negotiating experience
- Demonstrable love of books and a voracious reader
- A demonstrable understanding of the marketplace, readership and competitors
- Experience of interpreting financial information / data
- Previous line management experience, committed to creating an inclusive, supportive, and high-performance team culture
- The ability to multitask and handle competing priorities
- A strong team player with interpersonal sensitivity
- An individual who is comfortable working autonomously and confident making decisions
- Creativity combined with sound commercial judgement
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to communicate effectively to a wide range of people and to influence others
- A confident negotiator who is not afraid to constructively challenge when required
- An individual who presents well and delivers with self-confidence and emotional intelligence
- A delivery focus combined with experience of managing projects and strong personal organisation and time management skills
Please apply with your CV and cover letter (addressed to Frankie) by midnight on Sunday 11th September.
What you can expect from us:
Salary: circa £60,000 - £75,000 dependent on how your skills and experience align to the role, plus bonus and benefits.
This role will be based at our Embassy Gardens office. We’re currently experimenting with hybrid working and involving colleagues across the business to shape our future ways of working. We’ll be happy to discuss this with you as part of the recruitment process.
Our employees are the heart of our business. We have a range of benefits to reflect our commitment to our employees, some of which are:
• 27 days paid holiday entitlement in year one (plus bank holidays), increasing a day each year up to 30 days
• Medical cover
• Life assurance
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Discounted gym membership
• Generous pension scheme
• Summer working hours (role dependent)
• Volunteering policy and charity matching
• Employee Assistance programme
• Mentoring programme
• Extended gender neutral parental leave
• Access to books and eBooks across Penguin Random House UK
• Each site has trained mental health first aiders
• We plant a tree for every new employee to our business
Our creativity is inspired by different perspectives, so we want our culture to be one of belonging, where everyone feels welcome and where differences are celebrated.
As a Disability Confident Committed organisation, we’re part of the offer an interview scheme. This is where disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role can opt in to get to the next recruitment stage. There may be some situations where volume of applicants means we can’t take all eligible candidates to interview.
We want to make sure disabled applicants can be their best at each step of the recruitment journey. If you need adjustments during the application process, we encourage you to get in touch with us at http://PRHCareersUK@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk.
Remember, you only need to share what you are comfortable to for us to support your adjustment request. Find out more about our approach here: www.penguinrandomhousecareers.co.uk/applying-for-roles-with-a-disability
We partner with The Book Trade Charity, who provide financial assistance for people looking to get into the publishing industry; you can find more information and talk directly here: http://booktradeentrysupport.org/
Please note, we are not able to accept agency CVs for this role. Any CVs sent speculatively will not be eligible for a fee.