Sales executive, open markets

Closing date for applications: 14 August 2025

Salary: £28,500 per annum

Are you detail-oriented and passionate about books? Join a former Exporter of the Year and help bring outstanding titles to international readers while building your knowledge of commercial sales.

This sales executive position will provide admin support to the open market sales team and act as a point of contact for our customers including providing regular flow of information and sales materials. This role will cover the HarperCollins Children’s Books, HarperFiction, HarperNonFiction, William Collins & 4th Estate, Harlequin and Farshore divisions. The role covers the Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, Caribbean and Latin American markets. This is an exciting opportunity for someone who is looking to secure their first role in publishing, working in the British Book Awards 2023 winner of Exporter of the Year team. This role will provide the opportunity to build commercial sales knowledge and gain exposure to multiple publishing divisions. This role may involve attending book fairs and supporting across wider sales-based projects from time to time.


Responsibilities

• General sales administration including answering customer queries, raising proformas and liaising with customer services to support both the UK and overseas based sales managers
• Produce and maintain sales material including order forms, sales presentations and the schools and libraries catalogue. This will include building strong relationships with the publishing divisions to ensure information and images are correct and up to date
• Running reports to share with the team (and/or customers where appropriate) including subscription and sales, supressed titles, regular schedule change notifications so they are aware of the latest pub dates, prices, formats, and additions etc.
• Work with European sales manager on provision of material for customer trade catalogues
• Assisting with preparations and planning for London Book Fair and Frankfurt Book fair
• Assist sales managers with trip preparation and follow-up as required
• Create and send email blasts and newsletters to customer base on a regular basis
• Work with each divisional contact to request, allocate and send marketing materials to customers including proofs, point of sale material, giveaways etc. Then alerting customers to what is available and tracking their requests. This will also involve maintaining customer mailing lists and either providing details to external mailing house or carrying out mailings from the office
• Work with marketing & communications manager and sales exec to put together sales catalogues for Bookfairs
• Collate and share book assets with sales managers and customers

Knowledge, skills and experience

• Experience of working within an office environment
• Administration experience
• Knowledge or experience of customer service practices (desirable)
• Interest and passion for books and keen to develop knowledge of the industry
• Organisation and time management including being able to multi-task and prioritise
• Communication and inter-personal skills both written and verbal
• Good eye for detail
• Creative thinking and suggest new ideas with ability to use initiative
• Problem solving skills
• Literate in Microsoft Office

Benefits

• Hybrid working model (3 days in the office)
• 28 days holiday plus bank holidays (option to buy and sell holiday days)
• Enhanced pay for maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave
• Private healthcare cover and life assurance
• Summer hours
• Free access to HeadSpace, employee assistance programme (24 hour helpline), mental health first aiders, and a wellbeing portal
• Season ticket loans (from day 1 for entry level) and cycle to work scheme
• Relocation rent support loan
• Employee networks: HC All In (open forum), Elevate (for ethnic minority colleagues), HarperParents, Menopause at Work, Pride at HC, Social Mobility Network and Neurodiversity at Work
• Unlimited training on our Learning and Development portal, management courses (up to MA level) and mentoring programmes
• Virtual GP and eyecare vouchers
• Gym membership discount
• Onsite physiotherapy (London only)
• Charitable donation matching and 2 volunteering days
• We're a certified Carbon Neutral company
• Green Electric/Hybrid Car Benefit Scheme (salary sacrifice)
• With Trees for Life we plant a tree in the Highlands of Scotland for every permanent hire
• Free e-books and audiobooks, digital newspaper subscriptions and discounts on books
• Subsidised canteen and retail discounts
• Onsite prayer room

Additional information

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 internships or entry level positions. For more information visit https://www.btbs.org/

If you wish to discuss anything regarding this position and/or your application to this role, please reach out directly to the email listed via the 'Apply' button with subject heading ‘Vacancy Query’ plus the job title and we will aim to get back to you within 5 working days. Please note, if you are interested in the role you would need to submit your application through Applied via the 'Apply' button.

At HarperCollins, we value authenticity and integrity in our recruitment process. To ensure a fair and accurate evaluation of all applications, we ask that all responses to assessment questions reflect your own thoughts, experiences, and capabilities. This allows us to fairly assess your knowledge, skills, and experience to determine how they align with the role. We value diverse perspectives and genuine contributions, even if answers are not perfect. The use of AI tools or external assistance to generate responses is discouraged unless explicitly permitted for specific tasks.

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