Publicity Officer - Ebury

Are you passionate about the power of books to make life better?

Ebury, part of Penguin Random House, is the UK’s leading non-fiction publisher. We are a dynamic and agile team, constantly discovering new talent, creating bestsellers, and growing author brands.  We have an exciting opportunity for a Publicity Officer to join the team and work across our wellbeing publishing

About Ebury, and the Self-hub

This role will be working on publicity campaigns for our Self publishing imprints – Vermilion, Rider and Happy Place Books. These lists have unrivalled expertise across personal development, health, wellbeing, parenting and spirituality. We publish books that inform, empower and spark new directions from an incredible list of inspirational authors including Brené Brown, Yung Pueblo, Fearne Cotton, Wim Hof and Oprah Winfrey. 

The role and key responsibilities

As part of the Ebury Communications team and our Self Hub, you’ll secure attention-grabbing media for our books, working closely with authors, agents, editors, marketing, sales and international to deliver creative and impactful publicity campaigns.

Key responsibilities include:

• Plan and implement fully integrated publicity campaigns for books across our list by liaising with the journalists, producers, event programmers, bookshops and digital platforms.

• Maintaining good relationships with the media and regularly meet with key contacts on behalf of the team to pitch the list

• Keeping abreast of trends and topics in the news that you can hook our books to as well as feeding into new projects and acquisitions meetings

• Supporting senior communications colleagues on major platform and headliner campaigns  

• Being a team player across the Self hub team and assisting with cross-functional team activities and events

• Representing the Self hub list internally and externally, generating buzz around our books

• Building and developing excellent relationships with authors, agents and retailers as well as liaising with key internal stakeholders – marketing, sales and editorial – to communicate the publicity support needed to achieve sales targets.

What you’ll bring

We’re looking for a confident, enthusiastic, and well-organised person who wants to launch our books  with a splash. A cool-headed self-starter, you will be able to react and prioritise quickly and effectively in an environment with fast-changing demands, with a clear vision on how to problem solve and deliver results.

We are looking for someone with outstanding communication skills, both written and spoken, who can create and implement outstanding publicity campaigns across all media channels. The role includes writing press releases and campaign plans, organising and attending events and festivals, landing impactful coverage for your books , and building strong working relationships with authors, agents, journalists and producers, as well as colleagues in sales, editorial, rights and marketing.

The role will suit someone with experience working in a publicity department – although not necessarily in publishing -, and an understanding of the key role PR can have in driving book sales and raising authors’ profiles. You must also demonstrate how you would deliver exceptional author care as well as a real desire to broaden your contacts into new areas and to engage and inspire the widest possible audience. Of course, you’ll also have a real passion and interest in the types of books we publish.

If you are someone with proven experience within a publicity department or agency, either at Press Officer level or as an experienced assistant looking to take the next step, and able to demonstrate your flair for publicity and a solid network of established contacts across the media, we would like to hear from you!

How to apply

If this sounds like your next role, please apply with your CV and cover letter by 11:59pm on Sunday 11th June

As part of your cover letter, please answer the following question (in no more than 200 words): Tell us about a publicity campaign you have recently seen and why you think it was successful. The example you give doesn’t have to be publishing specific.

What you can expect from us

Salary: circa £30,000 dependent on how your skills and experience align with the role, plus bonus and benefits

While our offices are places to connect, collaborate and celebrate with colleagues, we recognise that flexibility about where you work is just as important for doing your best work and for your wellbeing. For this role, there are meetings and activities that you will need to attend in person at our offices in Pimlico. We operate with a combination of days working from home alongside regular days in the office every week and can discuss this with you during 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: http://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: https://btbs.org/grants

Please note, we are not able to accept agency CVs for this role. Any CVs sent speculatively will not be eligible for a fee.