Work in publishing

What kind of roles exist in publishing? And what do they involve day to day?

We’ve opened our doors to introduce you to some of our colleagues across the company who all work in the creation of books, from design to distribution. 

 Frankie, Publishing Director at Transworld, has been working here for 5 years, after joining as Senior Commissioning Editor, working on crime and thriller amongst other genres. Sharing her love of what she does, she talks through some of the aspects of being an Editor that people don’t expect, such as how much of the role is project management: from working with the author, to briefing designers on the book cover. 

 Junior Designer Marianne has been working at Penguin Random House UK for over a year after moving to London from Philadelphia. Sharing the process of designing a book, Marianne shows how a simple concept can drive the look and feel of a cover to connect with new readers. Collaboration is a large part of a designer’s role, with multiple teams involved in assessing different potential visual options before the book is sent to print.  

 Catherine, formerly Senior Production Manager at Penguin Random House Children’s (and now Head of Production at Ebury), has had several different roles after joining Penguin Random House as Production Assistant over 15 years ago.

Her job in Production follows the whole journey of a book, from the very beginning with a manuscript, all the way to the physical final product. It’s all about heightening the story and bringing that to life in every detail, from the illustrations within a story to the look and feel of the cover.  

 When people think of roles in publishing they don’t often think of technology, but technology enables absolutely everything we do here and is an intrinsic part of the whole process. From developers to engineers, and analysts to operational support, there are so many different and diverse roles which make up our technology team – which is in fact our largest department in the company. 

 Cat is Key Account Manager in the Sales team at Ebury, and has been at Penguin Random House UK for 8 years. Using their wealth of knowledge, research and data, Cat’s team can help steer the success of a book by understanding the book market and what readers are looking for – be that in design, marketing or where the book is sold. They know exactly how to access readers, and connect them to the kind of books they love. 

 Chloe, Marketing Director at Vintage, has been at Penguin Random House UK for 6 years. Her job is all about connecting potential readers to the best new books. Involved right from the acquisition stage (which is when we take on a new manuscript) through to publication, Chloe’s team know where and how to reach the right audiences for each book. From guerrilla campaigning to digital connection and outdoor advertising, marketing helps people find the new title everyone’s talking about. 

 Publicity Manager Tom works at Transworld, and has been at Penguin Random House for over 3 years, having worked his way up from Publicity Assistant. On a deep dive into Publicity, Tom takes you through his job and what it involves – which he loves because one day is always so different to the next. Meeting journalists, organising media appearances and going on tour with authors are all parts of his role, and are all instrumental in a book flying up the bestseller list.  

 Toby has been at Penguin Random House UK for 5 years as Distribution Operations Director. His team are the people who coordinate getting 80 million books every year to readers – an absolutely essential part of the publishing process. Storing over 21 million books at one time, the warehouse in Frating holds both the new and the most popular catalogue titles which are sent to retailers – around 375,000 a day.