What you’ll be doing

Responsibilities will include planning, presenting and implementing campaigns to deliver industry-leading publicity for title allocations across the John Murray Press list, achieving maximum exposure and sales through all channels and markets through a wide range of PR functions including media relations, stock signings, influencer work and bookshop, library and festival events.

The Press Officer/Senior Press Officer will maintain high quality relationships with authors, agents, partners and the media and help promote John Murray more generally. 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, knowledgeable 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.

• You’ll have proven experience in publicity
• You’ll be able to plan, prioritise and manage a varied workload
• You’ll be able to communicate and build positive working relationship with contacts at all levels
• You’ll have an understanding of and good relationships with media and influencers, including across traditional, online and social media
• You’ll have experience in events
• You’ll have a can-do attitude and the ability to work collaboratively as part of a team
• You’ll be highly efficient, with a meticulous eye for detail
• You’ll know your way around Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams, Zoom etc

What we offer

Our staff are our greatest asset, and our benefits reflect this:

• 28 annual leave days per year, increases to 29 days after 2 years’ service and goes up to 30 days after 5 years’ (+ bank holidays)
• Private medical insurance
• Generous pension schemes
• Rent deposit loans
• 2 community days per year
• Summer hours (finishing at 1pm on Fridays during the summer months)
• Retail discounts through Hachette rewards
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Eye care vouchers
• Wide-ranging training library
• Development programmes (including mentoring)
• Up to 70% off book purchases
• A charity bookshelf
• 12 Staff-led employee networks that are voluntary, including Gender Balance, Thrive, Pride, All Together, Wellbeing and religious networks
• Season ticket loans
• And much more!

This role can be based at our London or Sheffield office, with a blend of in-office (3 days) and homeworking (2 days) per week.

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 Press Officer/Senior Press Officer (FTC 12 months) to work on a range of junior campaigns, support on the amplification of other high-profile publicity campaigns and provide some 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 role offers an exciting opportunity to join an award-winning and dynamic Communications team and gain invaluable campaign experience, working across a wide range of titles, including both fiction and non-fiction across all of John Murray’s diverse imprints, working closely with senior team members.

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

Hachette UK