Editorial assistant (12 month FTC)

Closing date for applications: 5 October 2025

Salary: £27,000 in London; £24,840 in Sheffield (+bonus +benefits)

Location: This role can be based at our London or Sheffield office, with a blend of in-office (3 days) and home working (2 days) per week

Are you a fiction lover looking to take your first steps in publishing? Join a collaborative team where your organisational skills will help shape standout stories.

At Orion, we believe every story matters. Open, agile, passionate and innovative, our mission is to bring the best publishing to the greatest variety of people. Ambitious to continually raise the bar, we believe good stories can come from anywhere and so encourage and value contributions from everybody here. Orion is a division of Hachette, one of the largest publishing groups in the UK, with 11 publishing divisions and over 60 imprints. Everyone here is proud to be in the business of opening doors and minds. As the publishing home of Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly, Santa Montefiore, Joanne Harris, Lorraine Kelly, Chris Whitaker, MJ Arlidge, Jessa Hastings, Samuel Burr and Kirsty Capes, Orion Fiction is a commercial fiction powerhouse. We are an imprint that celebrates its history of brand publishing and uses our award-winning expertise to build new blockbuster brands for future generations. We pride ourselves on putting the reader at the heart of everything we do.


What you'll be doing

Reporting to the editorial director, you will work across the list and facilitate the smooth running of the fiction department, working with colleagues in different departments across the division. Responsibilities will include:

• Proofreading, checking permissions
• Reading and reporting on manuscripts/proposals
• Working on advance sales materials, creating keywords, writing copy
• Taking minutes at meetings, including editorial meetings
• Writing cover briefs and completing title information sheets (TIs) (under supervision)
• Generating costings
• Collating proofs, checking copy edits
• Ensuring accurate and timely database records
• Drafting author and agent correspondence
• Organising meetings and travel
• Liaising with internal/external contacts to ensure adherence to critical path
• Researching sales and statistics, looking for new opportunities
• Being the first point of contact for queries
• Creating, sending and tracking author and freelance contracts where appropriate
• Managing purchase orders and payments
• Maintaining file libraries
• Processing reversions and remainders
• Sending out advance copies

Who we are looking for

This role is ideally suited to a highly organised and detail-oriented person with a love for commercial fiction across genres. Strong communication and time-management skills are vital, as well as the ability to work to deadlines and prioritise tasks efficiently. We're looking for a voracious reader with some awareness of trends within the current commercial fiction landscape, as well as genuine enthusiasm for the Orion Fiction list. Previous publishing experience is not required.


What we offer

Our staff are our greatest asset, and our benefits reflect this:

• 28 annual leave days per year, increases to 29 days after 2 years' service and goes up to 30 days after 5 years' (+ bank holidays)
• Generous pension schemes
• Rent deposit loans
• 2 community days per year
• Summer hours (finishing at 1pm on Fridays during the summer months)
• Retail discounts through Hachette rewards
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Eye care vouchers
• Wide-ranging training library
• Development programmes (including mentoring)
• Up to 70% off book purchases
• A charity bookshelf
• 12 Staff-led employee networks that are voluntary, including Gender Balance, Thrive, Pride, All Together, Wellbeing and religious networks
• Season ticket loans
• And much more!

Our commitment

The Book Trade Charity offers financial support to people looking to enter the book trade but who may struggle to afford the costs of attending interviews and undertaking junior roles. For more information visit www.booktradeentrysupport.org

Hachette employs people on the basis of their abilities. We aim to attract and develop talent from a base as broad as the world of readers we want to reach, with a wide and representative range of age, faith, disability, race, gender, sexuality and socio-economic, regional and cultural backgrounds. If you are shortlisted and need us to make any adjustments to help you attend for interview, please let us know.

Please state in your application that you found this role through Creative Access.