Publicity Assistant

What you’ll be doing

As Publicity Assistant, you’ll join John Murray Press’s dynamic Communications Department. Reporting to the Publicity Director and taking a key role in the publicity team, the successful candidate will work on a wide range of fiction and non-fiction titles across all of John Murray’s diverse imprints, working closely with senior team members and with responsibility for some paperback campaigns.

From handling media enquiries to liaising with bookshops, festivals and other external partners, coordinating travel plans and schedules, creating press releases and devising mailings, providing administrative support, maintaining databases and working alongside publicists and authors on high profile campaigns, you’ll play a crucial role in every step of a book’s journey – from acquisition to publication and beyond. You will also be required to accompany authors to some events and literary festivals.

Who we are looking for

The ideal candidate will have excellent communication skills and be confident working across all levels, as you will work closely and effectively with the media, authors and agents, and a wide range of internal departments. A strong team player, you will be pro-active, curious about the media landscape and reaching readers, professional and able to use your initiative whilst remaining calm under pressure. You will relish being part of a team with clear strategic goals and will be eager to suggest ideas and initiatives to achieve them. We want someone who loves books and has a passion for media and PR.

What we offer

Our staff are our greatest asset and our benefits reflect this. In addition to 28 days annual leave days per year + bank holidays, we have an extensive list of benefits that include: a wide-ranging training library, development programmes including mentoring, Cycle to Work vouchers, Private Medical Insurance, eye care vouchers, up to 70% off book purchases, a charity book shelf, 2 community days per year, many employee networks to join, summer hours (finishing at 1pm on Fridays during the summer months!), season ticket loans, rent deposit loans, generous pension schemes and much more!

The role will be based at our London office, Carmelite House, 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

Who we are and what we do

John Murray Press is one of the fastest growing and most profitable divisions of Hachette UK. We have had over 10 years of continuous growth and have recently launched several exciting new imprints. We are looking to recruit a Publicity Assistant to provide administrative support to the Communications team.

Our Trade-facing imprints include John Murray, publishing the very best in literary fiction and upmarket non-fiction; Baskerville Books, publishing the most distinctive crime and thriller titles in the market; Two Roads, a proudly populist list of bestselling non-fiction; Basic Books, the home of heavyweight non-fiction with a global outlook across history, economics, science and philosophy; and JM One, a newly launched lifestyle imprint.

Our authors have won the Costa Biography Award, the Costa First Novel Award, the Royal Society Science Book Prize, the Women’s Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Encore Award, among others. We were short-listed for Publisher of the Year at the British Book Awards in 2019 and 2021, and John Murray won Imprint of the Year in 2017. We publish books of excellence and lasting value written by authors with passion and expertise. Our authors include Billy Connolly, Matthew Syed, Andrea Wulf, Akala, Mick Herron, Jen Sincero, Miriam Margolyes, Frankie Boyle, Fiona Mozley, Jonathan Freedland and Susie Dent.

This entry level role offers an exciting opportunity to join our award-winning and dynamic Communications team and gain invaluable experience, working across a wide range of titles, including both fiction and non-fiction