Commissioning Editor Vacancy June 2012

Zed Books has an exciting opportunity for a Commissioning Editor to oversee our successful gender, environment, development, Middle East and Asia lists. You will bring a sense of enthusiasm and creativity to commissioning new books for our forward list, develop excellent relationships with existing authors and have the ability to balance a large and varied workload.

Role Profile

Job Title: Commissioning Editor

Department: Editorial

Reports to: The senior commissioning editor and the Zed Books co-operative

Responsible for: Gender, Development, Middle East, Asia and Environment lists

Overall Aim Commissioning new titles, seeing manuscripts through to the production department and ensure the continued successful development of Zed Books’ frontlist

Key Responsibilities

• Achieve commissioning and financial targets
• Active list development: identifying and evaluating key markets, publishing priorities and authors
• Assess and take forward or reject as necessary unsolicited proposals
• Provide the company, in liaison with the production manager, with initial costings for every proposed project
• Negotiate and agree with authors contractual terms and ensure a fully signed contract is on file
• Ensure the timely delivery of contracted manuscripts
• Work with authors from receipt of proposal through to finished manuscript, giving them such advice as is required on their book’s structure, scope, arguments, style
• Provide a full handover document for each manuscript as it enters the production stage, such a document providing vital production / sales / marketing / rights and financial information for each team member
• Campus call and attend conferences in the UK and internationally, within a given budget
• Brief sales and marketing teams on future titles with accuracy and enthusiasm
• Lead and develop, with the senior commissioning editor and in accordance with the business plan, Zed’s editorial strategy
• Develop close relationships with authors of contracted and published books
• Build and develop relationships with a network of international publishing partners and other organisations
• Liaise with sales and marketing regularly
• Report on the marketing and sales benefits of the forward list to Zed’s UK, EU and US sales representation every six months
• Write and communicate catalogue copy and other bibliographic details in a timely manner
• Commission book covers, with the editorial assistant’s support
• Regularly meet with the production manager to communicate possible delays in workflow
• Maintain understanding of key industry developments, including and especially ebook and digital developments, and to incorporate this where appropriate into the editorial commissioning strategy
• Report monthly at the members’ meeting on editorial targets
• Manage, with the senior commissioning editor, the work of the assistant editor – ensuring reader reviews, author questionnaires and endorsements are administrated in a timely way

Key Results

1. Commission a minimum number of titles each year that meet set revenue and profitability criteria (based on current targets, this equates to 30 titles per year)
2. Ensure handover to production of sufficient number of manuscripts each year to meet publication targets (based on current targets, this equates to 26 titles per year)

Please also be aware of and follow the organisation’s policies and procedures, with particular attention to equality and diversity. To further your development and knowledge you will be expected to attend training as necessary.

All employees in the organisation are expected to display a high standard of teamwork. This includes co-operating in undertaking work of absent colleagues or assisting others where the workload is particularly high. Accordingly there may be a requirement, from time to time, to undertake other duties.

The organisation reserves the right to amend this role profile as necessary, after consultation with the postholder, to reflect changes in or to the job.

Application Forms

Download a copy of the full Job Description here

Download a copy of the Application Form here

Closing date: 13th July