Editorial Assistant

Job description

We’re looking for a diligent editorial assistant to join our dynamic team at our offices in historic Somerset House in central London. This is an exciting opportunity for a bookworm with a strong interest in global current affairs, in the early stages of their publishing career.

The chosen candidate will play an essential role in helping editors get manuscripts into production, working closely with them on a wide range of books at different stages of the editorial process. As we are a small team, there will also be ample opportunity to gain insight into and work closely with other departments, from Sales to Publicity. You will be reporting directly to our Commissioning Editor and will play an essential role at every stage of editorial, assisting on both general-interest and academic books.

The role can be fully office based or hybrid. The candidate must be based in the UK with a minimum of 2 days per week in person at our central London offices. The role will require some flexible hours to attend book events in the evenings or weekends with time off in lieu.

Key elements of the role will include:
• Editorial skills (proofreading, copy-editing, typesetting preparation)
• Assisting with academic peer review & jacket copy
• Author management
• Metadata skills
• Editorial research for commissioning (diversity projects, reading proposals, etc)

We’d love it if you had…

Skills required:
• Demonstrable knowledge and interest in history and global current affairs
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, and a good eye for detail
• Outstanding levels of organisation and capacity for independent work
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to learn fast in a small team
• Familiarity with Microsoft Office

Qualifications required:
• Undergraduate degree (BA or equivalent level)
• Foreign-language proficiency would be beneficial, but is not essential

Employer details

Hurst is an independently owned and run non-fiction press based in London but publishing globally. We produce approximately 90 new titles per year in the fields of history, politics, sociology, war studies, and religion, building on our strengths in African, Asian, East European, and Middle East Studies. We aim to publish books that add meaningfully to conversations, or start new ones. Although we are a small publishing house, we consistently achieve coverage for our books in mainstream outlets including the BBC, The Guardian, Financial Times, and The Sunday Times. In the past year, our titles have been shortlisted for the following prestigious international awards: Orwell Prize, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Financial Times Best Business Book Award, André Simon Food & Drink Awards, Bread & Roses Radical Publishing Award, Gladstone History Prize, and the Templer Book Prize for Military History.