Description

Closing Date: 11-Apr-2024

Are you ambitious and entrepreneurial, hungry for the chance to build and manage a high-growth list in the non-fiction market? We’re looking for someone commercially minded, with a genuine interest in consumer and market trends who will deliver standout non-fiction publishing across lifestyle, entertainment, memoir, humour and topic-led books. This role will not focus on cookery or self-development titles.
Reporting to the Head of Non-fiction, this role could be appointed at either Commissioning Editor or Senior Commissioning Editor level.
We’re eager to hear from those who are currently in editorial, as well as candidates interested in transferring from other publishing departments, or with relevant skills from outside of the industry.
About Penguin Michael Joseph and the Non-fiction Team
Penguin Michael Joseph are the publishers of a focused list of the UK’s best-loved fiction and non-fiction writers, from Marian Keyes to Raynor Winn, Stephen Fry to Jojo Moyes.
In non-fiction, Michael Joseph are home to some of the UK’s biggest authors, as well as some of the most exciting new voices. Ranging from across a broad spectrum of genres, our recent bestsellers include Dr Julie Smith’s Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?, Raynor Winn’s Landlines, Dame Judi Dench’s Shakespeare, Dawn French’s The Twat Files, Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat series, James Norbury’s Big Panda and Tiny Dragon, Roxie Nafousi’s Manifest and Nadiya Hussain’s Simple Spices.
The Opportunity
You’ll have a wide remit to commission actively across a wide range of topics – to succeed in this role you should be fascinated by what consumers are interested in. Supported by our brilliant publishing team with its extensive track record of success, your job will be to find the bestsellers of the future, manage relationships with those authors and help them develop their careers, and project manage each publication with a keen eye on finding the widest possible audience.
We are looking for candidates who have managed creative projects, whether this be in book publishing, magazines, journalism or the media industry more widely.  What’s important to us is that you can identify talent for the next bestseller, and work with them bringing the rest of the team at PMJ along with you.
Candidate profile
Entrepreneurial and ambitious, comfortable to acquire a high number of titles
Excellent awareness of non-fiction market and consumer trends
Confidence to act quickly in pursuit of opportunities
Engaging communicator, able both to pitch books in a way that hooks a reader, and also to present themselves as a partner for authors and agents
Great author care, to ensure writers feel supported at every stage of their publishing
Confident project manager, capable of building trusting relationships with colleagues from sales, marketing, publicity and foreign rights; providing the leadership to make each book a success