Applications for this job are now closed
Kingfisher are a small yet mighty team creating nonfiction titles for children of every age, all around the world. Our award-winning, beautifully illustrated books amaze and inspire fact-hungry children. We work closely with the US and International teams to create books relevant for their trade and custom markets. Reflecting our ambition to create accessible and innovative titles exploring science, our world and space, we are nimble and agile in our approach to publishing the best books for our readers.
Your role
This is a busy, stimulating and wide-ranging role. You will be working with Kingfisher’s Publishing Director and Senior Commissioning Editor to create highly illustrated, colour nonfiction titles for children aged 5 plus.
On a typical day you may find yourself: helping to project manage a freelance team working on new books; checking layouts before books are printed; developing new ideas for global markets; updating existing books for reprints; undertaking picture research; creating sales presentations; writing title information sheets and back cover copy; updating title records on our publishing management systems; and much more.
Your key responsibilities
- Assisting in the development of new, reissue, and re-used titles as part of the publishing strategy, including maintaining and updating Biblio records and pricing, and ensuring key milestone dates are met for the project.
- Researching and spotting trends in children's nonfiction and suggesting new book ideas, along with a responsibility for managing Americanization and proofreading of these titles.
- Administrative duties include providing support for the team, being the first point of contact for administrative queries, processing advance payment forms and contracts, and maintaining an updated database of contacts and house style sheets.
- Undertaking some design tasks such as updating barcodes and logos, as well as carrying out picture research, and organising picture usage requests and contracts.
- Creating PowerPoint, Google Slides, or PDF presentations for book launches.
- Processing queries, organising meetings, and maintaining the Kingfisher library.
- Handling reprint responsibilities such as assessing reprint titles for updates/corrections, logging corrections, and approving revised covers and inside PDFs from production is also part of the job.
About you
- Highly organised, with the ability to prioritise and manage workflow
- Excellent knowledge of English language and grammar
- Knowledge of the contemporary children’s book market
- Colour publishing experience
- Thorough and detailed approach to checking words and images
Desirable skills
- Confident with Biblio, MS Word, Powerpoint, and Excel, the Adobe suite, and the Google suite
- Evidence of working with bespoke in-house systems and/or willingness to learn
- Willingness to contribute ideas
What you’ll get in return
In return we can offer you a range of great projects, a supportive and collaborative working environment, as well as a competitive salary and benefits package.
Some of the benefits we offer:
- 25 days annual leave increasing with years of service + bank holidays
- Generous pension scheme
- Discounted private medical insurance
- Group income protection scheme
- Enhanced family pay and leave
- Flexible working hours and summer hours (early finish on a Friday during summer months)
- 2 volunteer days per year
- 75% off all Macmillan books and regular staff book sales (highly reduced rates)
- Season ticket loan/advance
- Cycle to work scheme
- Discounts on shopping, Tastecard+ and gym memberships; Christmas club savings
- Daily free breakfast and monthly company lunch
This is a full time, permanent role, and will be based in our offices in Farringdon, London, with some flexibility to work from home each week.
All applicants must be able to demonstrate the right to live and work in the UK in order to be considered for this role.
