EUP Publishing Internship

Job description

Edinburgh University Press (EUP) is delighted to announce the ‘EUP Publishing Internship’ – an internship run with the purpose of widening participation in the publishing industry. If you are someone with neither publishing experience nor a postgraduate degree, we invite you to apply for this year-long opportunity tailored to help you learn the ropes of academic publishing! We particularly encourage applications from school leavers, people with an undergraduate degree who were in the first generation of their family to attend university, people with an undergraduate degree who received scholarships and/or bursaries to support their studies, and people from communities that are currently underrepresented in the publishing industry.

Starting in October 2024, the EUP Publishing Intern will be based in EUP’s books editorial department. You will have the full support of 3 experienced members of staff who will lead and guide you as you get to grips with working in an office setting. For the first month, you will spend most days of the week in our Edinburgh office to facilitate learning and development. After that you will be on our standard hybrid working plan (2 days per week minimum in our Edinburgh office and the option of working from home otherwise).

On a day-to-day basis, your main tasks will involve organising contracts for people contributing to our books; making sure our records are up to date when new books are contracted; ordering copies of books for authors, editors, contributors and peer reviewers; getting books ready for paperback publication; helping to secure permissions for illustrations; and answering general queries about our books.

To ensure that you learn as much about academic publishing as possible, you will also have rotational placements in other EUP departments throughout the year. This may include journals, marketing, sales, rights, production and finance. You will spend 1 to 2 days a week working in each department to gain further skills and see which area of publishing suits you best!

You must be 16 or over and have the right to work in the UK. For more information on who has the right to work in the UK, please follow the link: www.gov.uk/prove-right-to-work
As this is an opportunity with the purpose of widening participation in the publishing industry, we will not be able to consider you as an applicant if:
- You have been employed in the publishing industry before
- You have a postgraduate degree

Please apply by sending an email containing the following to Caroline.Danks@eup.ed.ac.uk in our HR team. When you apply, please include “EUP Publishing Internship 2024 – Application – [Your Name]” in the subject line of the email.

- Your CV, including details for one person we could contact for a character reference (their name, email address and phone number)
- Your answers to the three questions below (please feel free to write out your answers in the email or attach them in a Microsoft Word document):
- What was it about this internship that encouraged you to apply?
- Look through the books on the EUP website. Tell us about one that interests you and why! It can be from any subject area.
- Tell us about a time when you solved a problem. What went well and what could have gone better?
- A sentence confirming that you have completed our anonymous demographic survey. Please confirm in the email that you have not been employed in the publishing industry before and that you do not have a postgraduate degree. If you feel comfortable to do so, please also detail if you were in the first generation of your family to attend university, were in receipt of a scholarship/bursary, or feel that you come from a community that is currently underrepresented in the publishing industry.

Please see full job information at the application link.

We’d love it if you had…

Desirable Background
- Interested in academic publishing – Do you enjoy reading and want to learn more about how books are made? Are you interested in how universities function and want to work with academics?
- Administrative experience – Did you perhaps study Administration or Business Management in high school, or learn administration skills in another subject? Have you ever kept a record of something?
- IT skills, particularly using Microsoft Office and writing emails
- Experience of working as part of a team
- Ability to organise and prioritise different tasks and see them through to completion
- Ability to work towards and meet deadlines
- Ability to think creatively

Desirable Behaviours
- Eagerness to learn
- Eagerness to communicate with a range of different people
- Open-mindedness
- Empathy
- Attention to detail
- Commitment

Employer details

EUP focuses on the Humanities and Social Sciences, publishing books and journals on a range of topics from Literary Studies and Law to Politics and Film Studies. We publish around 300 books and over 50 journals a year! Our ambition is to create a community of authors, editors and advisors committed to publishing world-class academic research that shapes the way we think about global and local issues.

Our office is in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town, a couple of minutes away from the Royal Mile, Blackwell’s Bookshop and the National Museum of Scotland. It is easily accessible by bus/tram and a short walk from Edinburgh Waverley train station.