Job Description

Who We Are: Girl Friday Productions is a women-owned and -founded book production and publishing firm committed to high-quality creative and transformative client relationships since 2006. Our team partners with publishers and companies looking for distinctive editorial production and design services, and supports serious self-publishers with top-shelf book publishing and launch plans tailored for the indie direct-to-reader market. In 2021, we launched three publishing imprints, meant to fuse the benefits of traditional publishing with the creator-centered power of independent publishing. We are a close group headquartered in Seattle and scattered across the country, fueled by our love of storytelling and a belief that the publishing industry should reflect a greater diversity of voices and experiences. We aim to be an active part of that change.

Who You Are: You’re a confident, detail-oriented project manager with a background in publishing and an appetite for tackling diverse book formats and all genres. You enjoy the challenge of architecting a well-thought-out development plan for the creation of books from concept to manuscript to final files, and ranging from simple pours to complex illustrated passes. As the hub of a project team, you are an excellent communicator with an innate understanding of who needs to know what and when. You take a lot of ownership in your work and have strong points of view, and you project that seasoned confidence from the starting gate when interfacing with authors and clients. Your copywriting is lively and flawless, and you know how to pick out a good editorial hook. You’re curious and open to learning new POVs and best practices, and you actively seek them out. You’re excited about the idea of bringing your skills to a small, women-owned and -led company that is poised to spearhead a monumental shift in the book publishing industry. And, at the end of the day, you love a good book just as much as we do.

Essential Responsibilities:

• Project manage a full load of book projects (~14 simultaneous projects) from kickoff to publication, designing intelligent schedules, monitoring progress against milestones to deliver the work on time, and keeping P&Ls updated and within budget
• Cultivate relationships with your projects’ authors in a confident, respectful, high-touch manner appropriate to and reflective of their relationship with GFP as paying clients
• Champion their books and authors, own all aspects of the vision for completed projects, and push the team to make the books the best they can be
• Coordinate project teams consisting of designers, editors, marketing specialists, print managers
• Communicate effectively with Girl Friday’s in-house publishing personnel to ensure coordinated vision for the project, consistent metadata across all channels, and necessary approvals from all parties
• Oversee design, marketing, and editorial deliverables to make sure they meet GFP’s high quality standards as well as the author’s vision, and give feedback to editorial and designer team members as necessary
• Identify key learnings and suggest improvements to our process with through postmortems of each project
• Stay abreast of indie publishing trends and platform changes to be able to provide the most up-to-date consulting, and share findings with the production team

Qualifications:

• 3+ years in-house book publishing experience, including author management, preferably in acquisitions
• Experience with illustrated/complex interiors
• Professionalism, diplomacy, and a natural ability to project authority when consulting
• Superlative people skills; ability to build rapport and an effective working relationship with a very diverse range of clients
• Strong communication skills—both internally and externally, written and verbal. As an editorial agency, it’s crucial that our communications are error free.
• Willingness to proactively take on whatever the book needs to push it to its highest level (dig into a developmental edit, rewrite text, compose captions, etc.)
• Strong organization skills with attention to detail and excellent follow-through
• Self-directed and able to work independently, while being comfortable collaborating and leading a cross-functional team
• Desire to work in a dynamic growth environment with a high degree of autonomy
• Proficiency or working familiarity with Chicago Manual of Style
• BA or equivalent
• Proficiency with Microsoft Word and Excel; experience with SharePoint and Dropbox a plus. Working knowledge of Asana is beneficial but not required.

Girl Friday Productions is a vibrant, progressive book-production company in business since 2006. Our company was founded by working mothers who believe all people do their best work when flexibility and balance are provided in abundance and without judgement.

What we offer:

• Competitive salary and benefit plans
• Healthcare including medical/dental/vision insurance
• 401K with match
• Paid time off
• Flexible hours
• A tight-knit team with very low turnover

How to Apply

Job Categories: Equal Opportunities. Job Types: Full-Time. Job Tags: books, editing, project manager, and publishing. Salaries: Not Disclosed.

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