The Company

Usborne is an independent, family business, creating books which spark curiosity in children of all ages. These range from books for babies such as the bestselling That’s not my… series of touchy-feely books, to YA fiction from acclaimed authors such as Holly Bourne and Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé – with everything from Magic Painting to Politics for Beginners in between.  In the last five years Usborne fiction titles have been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, the Costa Book Award, the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the National Book Awards, the Books Are My Bag Readers Award, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Diverse Book Award.

Whilst the company is now a market-leader in children’s publishing and one of the best-known brands in children’s books, the company retains a friendly and familial feel. If you want to work somewhere close-knit enough for people to know your name, which has a first-class reputation around the world, Usborne is the place for you.

The Team

The Fiction Editorial Team is a close-knit, committed and busy team of five. Passionate about children’s fiction we all work on a list of thirty-five titles per year, across 7+ illustrated fiction, middle-grade fiction and YA publishing as and when needed, ensuring that we all have a strong grasp and working knowledge of our list and the titles within it.

The Role

We are looking for an organised and creative individual who can adapt well to working in a fast-moving department who is enthusiastic, a confident communicator and possesses excellent time-management skills and attention to detail for a maternity cover contract. The successful candidate will provide support in all aspects of the book production process, including keeping systems and records updated, proofreading, maintaining schedules, and liaising with authors, agents and internal departments.

The key tasks of the role:

• Providing support to the fiction editorial team on a wide range of editorial tasks including, checking print pdfs, listening to audio recordings, administration on audio publishing and ebooks and proofreading layouts.

• Logging and managing submissions for the department.

• Managing and organising diaries for meetings internally and externally.

• Taking minutes and writing meeting reports for circulation accurately and in detail.  

• Overseeing reprints which might include reformatting, updating or refreshing endlims.

• Working on catalogues and writing copy for Advance Information sheets.

• Managing invoices.

• Inputting data into Biblio.

• Communicating with stakeholders both internally and externally including with authors and agents.

Experience

• You will need to have an excellent eye for detail.

• A good working knowledge of Office 365 including Outlook, Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

• Knowledge or previous use of Adobe InDesign would be an advantage.

• Great written and verbal communication skills as well as strong numerical competence.

• Excellent time management skills and the ability to prioritise and manage multiple tasks.

• Possess a genuine passion for and knowledge of children’s and YA fiction books and the YA environment.

• Ideally have some experience or knowledge of working in a publishing office, with an understanding of proofreading and proofreading marks.

Location and benefits:

We offer a 35-hour working week from our Farringdon office in London, where after a successful induction period we offer a hybrid working mode of 3 days in the office and 2 days working from home.

In addition to our transparent salary grading structure, for this role we also offer a range of benefits including:

• 25 days paid holiday entitlement plus bank holidays

• Healthcare Scheme for you and your dependents

• Comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme

• Free Fruit in the office

• 50% Discount on Company Books 

• Industry leading Pension Scheme and Life Assurance

We particularly encourage applications from Black and minority ethnic candidates who are currently under-represented within this area.