Senior Commissioning Editor

Are you passionate about children’s publishing? Do you have creative thinking and an eye for detail, and want to work on some of the biggest Children’s authors and brands?

We have an opportunity for a Senior Commissioning Editor to join our Non-Fiction and 6+ Fiction Team to work across fiction from early chapter books through to young adult and crossover titles. This opportunity is offered on 12-month contract, covering a period of parental leave.

Changing lives through words - this is what we do. By entertaining and educating, we aim to publish for every child everywhere, and take young people on an incredible journey from their first independent reading experiences right through to their teen years and beyond. From Tom Fletcher to Malorie Blackman, Adam Kay to Karen McManus, our team works with some of the biggest names and brightest new authors and illustrators to bring stories to life.

**The Opportunity**

We’re looking for an experienced, commercially minded, and creative editor to join our team.

Reporting to one of the Publishers, this role is responsible for managing a key list of authors and titles including established names and exciting debut talent. You will bring an unrivalled understanding of today’s sophisticated young consumers, knowing what and how they want to read to your work in editing, publishing and acquiring. Day to day you’ll need to work across the division; with sales, marketing, publicity, design, production, finance and rights to ensure a joined-up and commercially savvy approach, alongside the editorial team.

This role is varied, but responsibilities include:

- Line management of 1 Assistant Editor.
- Soliciting, evaluating and acquiring manuscripts and book proposals.
- Editing acquired titles and writing editorial notes regarding plot, structure, character development etc.
- Maintaining and developing relationships with authors, agents and other external partners with a view to future acquisitions. This role is an ambassador for the team and expected to provide excellent external partner care at all times.
- Project managing previously edited books and preparing them for successful publication and beyond.
- Monitoring trends in the book market and popular culture and generating publishing opportunities to capitalise on them.
- Negotiating contracts which are consistent with commercial objectives.

**What you’ll bring**

You don’t need to have worked in Children’s publishing specifically to succeed in this role, but you’ll need broad fiction experience within a trade publisher, editing, commissioning books to commercial successes, and feeding in to team and list strategy.

You’ll also bring:

- An unrivalled passion for your books and authors.
- The ability to work autonomously, make decisions and be constructively challenging when required.
- Creativity combined with sound commercial judgement and business sense.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to communicate effectively to a wide range of people and to influence others.
- Excellent market awareness, showing a demonstrable understanding of the marketplace, readership and competitors.
- Strong and proven negotiation skills.
- Leadership skills including self-confidence, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence and resilience.
- The ability to multitask and handle competing priorities.
- Scrupulous attention to detail.
- Visibility within the division and the wider company.
- A strong network of industry connections.

If this sounds like your next role, please submit your CV and a Cover Letter by midnight on Sunday 19th March.

**What you can expect from us**

**Salary**: c.£43,000 dependent on how your skills and experience align with the role, plus 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 Embassy Gardens. 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 pe