Key account manager, special sales - 12 month FTC

Closing date for applications: 23 January 2026

Salary: £35,000 - £38,000 per annum

Steer sales strategies, build relationships, and drive growth across bestselling authors and brands in this exciting role.

The key account manager will contribute towards our ambitious growth strategy for the special sales channel working across all Bloomsbury publishing divisions to sell our extraordinary list of bestselling authors and brands. Our list encompasses Children’s, Head of Zeus, Adult Trade, Cookery and Lifestyle including the following authors: William Dalrymple, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Johan Hari, Elodie Harper, Dan Jones, SJ Maas, Madeline Miller, Poppy O’Toole, J.K Rowling and Katherine Rundell. The candidate will have responsibility for sales made to a range of special sales accounts with a specific focus on driving backlist strategy in close collaboration with publishing teams.

Responsibilities

• Manage a varied portfolio of accounts, creating and ensuring best practise is followed at all times
• Contribute to strategies to maximise turnover and profit of Special Sales department, selling across the Children’s, Adult Trade, Lifestyle, Head of Zeus and Special Interest divisions whilst working towards group sales strategy and targets
• Actively identify new business opportunities in the non-trade and non-traditional retail sector
• Demonstrate commercial awareness and an in depth understanding of P&Ls in order to build bulk print runs working closely with the UK Sales and Export teams to maximise ROI for the business
• Represent the Special Sales team at relevant internal meetings, providing market insight, contributing to and shaping sales strategy
• Feed into internal reporting across all publishing divisions, including, but not restricted to business reviews, acquisition discussions and weekly sales updates
• Work closely with the publishing, production and operations teams and senior stakeholders
• Support sales team colleagues when necessary

Knowledge, skills & experience

• Strong oral and written communication skills and the ability to communicate with stakeholders of different levels
• Excellent time-management and organisational skills, experienced at multi-tasking and prioritising work-load
• Demonstrate excellent client relationship building and development skills
• Self-starter, able to use initiative with excellent problem solving skills
• Strong negotiation skills with a clear understanding of the commercials
• Creative, flexible and agile approach to sales
• Good attention to detail
• Knowledge of Biblio, Vista, Nielsen and Cognos would be advantageous
• Skilled at Word, Excel and PowerPoint

Additional information

The role is a full-time, 12 month fixed term contract position, due to begin in April 2026. The role is based at our London office 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP. On a hybrid-working pattern of 2 days office based / 3 days home based (or fully office based if preferred). Allocated office days for this role are: Mondays & Tuesdays

Please apply with a CV and covering letter addressed to Human Resources (Word or PDF format only) via the 'Apply' button how you meet the requirements outlined above for this role by 23:59 on Friday 23rd of January 2026. For best results, please use a desktop to apply as some mobile browsers may not fully support the application portal. Bloomsbury reserve the right to close the role early if we exceed the required number of applications. Applicants must have the legal right to work in the UK.

Bloomsbury benefits

As well as a fantastic opportunity to join a global award-winning organisation, Bloomsbury offers the following competitive benefits package:

• Hybrid working pattern of: 2 days office based / 3 days home based (or fully office based if preferred
• 25 days holiday and 3.5 days Christmas company holiday
• Two paid Personal Wellness Days
• Flexible Fridays – take Friday afternoon off by working an additional 3 hours and 30 minutes earlier in the week
• Work Anywhere Fortnight - For two weeks of any calendar year. The minimum period for Working Anywhere is one week, the maximum period is two weeks.
• Season Ticket Loan
• Learning & Development - Free access to LinkedIn Learning, BookMachine Campus, InRehearsal & IPG Skills Hub
• Share Save Scheme
• AXA Healthcare Plan (Private Medical Insurance)
• Ride to Work Scheme
• Peppy Health App
• In-house Doctor
• Eye Care Voucher Scheme
• EAP Advice and Counselling

Company culture – Employee Voice Meetings, Staff Networks (Bloom, Accessibility, Mental Health, Pride, and Parents, Guardians and Carers, Multi-Faith) and Mental Health First Aiders trained across the UK offices, Publishing Events and access to free Publishing Resources

Bloomsbury is a place where anyone of any background, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, gender identity, age, ability, or socio-economic status can thrive, feel comfortable, and be heard and accepted. We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all sections of the community. We are willing to make any reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process, please flag to the recruitment team if required

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