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Associate Publisher
HarperCollins
Grand Rapids, MI, United States
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Overview
The Zondervan Trade Books Team seeks to discover, develop, and publish Christian content for readers in search of real faith for a real world. We work with a broad range of authors, including Rick Warren, Ann Voskamp, Henry Cloud & John Townsend, Shauna Niequist, Lee Strobel, and Christine Caine. We are looking for an Associate Publisher who will become a vital part of our team and bring life-changing content into our program.
The Associate Publisher assists the Publisher in managing the imprint’s full publishing program, creating extra departmental management capacity and redundancy in the leadership role. The Associate Publisher helps carry out the publishing division’s mission and values, revenue goals and strategies, and consistently displays leadership and management ability, initiative, humility and problem solving. Day-to-day responsibilities include author acquisitions, sales and marketing vision casting and cooperation, publishing schedule development, financial oversight and staff management and development. The Associate Publisher assists the Publisher in developing, overseeing and managing the editorial process, creating ancillary products, and managing the brand. The Associate Publisher leads special projects and represents the Publisher in key meetings.
Responsibilities
Essential Responsibilities:
1. Author/Book Acquisition:Acquires and personally completes and/or oversees developmental/macro edit of 10 books annually set to a predetermined revenue goal; identifies and pursues potential author targets; creates book concepts and targets authors; works with freelancers; evaluates platform strength and helps initiate marketing plans; makes initial author/agent contacts and sets meetings; presents concepts at Acquisitions Meetings; prepares proposals and makes presentations at Edit Pub Board and Sales Pub Board; negotiates terms through a deal memo and works with Contracts Manager; contributes to cover design and copy creative strategy, makes presentations at Sales Conference; maintains long-term author relations and backlist maintenance.
2. Department Planning: Participates in leadership team meetings with publisher and VP of marketing regarding pipeline review; analyzes fiscal year financial impact combining frontlist and backlist titles, ensuring we are publishing to revenue goals; analyzes sales conference line up, pipeline by editor and marketer, and annual title performance lookback; join in review of department overhead and marketing budgets; monitors current sales and tracks progress to budget throughout the year.
3. Process Management: Oversight of copy process with Assistant Editor, along with metadata implementation. Monitors work of the production editors in conjunction with Managing Editor. Initiates tune ups for departmental processes, smoothing out persistent problem areas.
4. Backlist Curation:Plans for ancillary products including derivatives and format conversions for entire list of authors; oversees and directs Assistant Editor’s work on backlist review, especially top backlist titles for previous year.
5. Publisher Support:Meets regularly with Publisher to monitor individual acquisitions. Maintains the profile of the department by joining key meetings or representing the Publisher: Author Meetings, Editorial Pub Board, Sales Pub Board, Marketing Staff Meetings, Business Review, Publisher’s Forum; helps implement and stress department mission statement, revise mission statement document as needed under supervision of Publisher. Helps make the brand known in the industry. Assist Publisher in special departmental initiatives to analyze, strengthen, and growth the business.
6. Staff Management:Develops, oversees, and manages some editorial staff. Holds regular one on one meetings and helps other acquisitions editors as necessary; conducts annual employee performance evaluations; facilitates Acquisition Meeting; prepares team for our preliminary run through with the sales team for sales conference; helps develop annual departmental retreat.
Qualifications
Knowledge and Skills:Good conceptual development of a strong felt-need topic and an approach to titling that will compel readers to purchase; strong macro editing skills, an understanding of book structure, the use of story; mastery of the English language; ability to understand and analyze financial documentation; proficiency in Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; aptitude for proprietary and industry software applications; file management and the efficient use of shared drives; management, leadership, and professional development experience; efficient task management; efficient product development management; can lead meetings with specific desired outcomes; public speaking.
Work Experience:
Minimum. 8 years in publishing or related field with supervisory experience.
Target. 10 years in publishing with 2 or more years in a leadership role
Education:
Minimum. Bachelor’s Degree in the Humanities from a four-year university
Target. Master’s Degree in the Humanities with additional training in business management.
Industry Knowledge:Understanding of the Christian and broad market book marketplace, including consumer demand, retail environment (physical and online), and competition; well read in Christian and general market nonfiction books; understanding of style guides and understanding of the Chicago Manual of Style.
HarperCollins Christian Publishing is an Equal Opportunity Employer.