Assistant Publicist

FLSA Status: Non-Exempt
Reports to: Publicity Director
Employment Status: Full time

Overview

The Assistant Publicist’s primary purpose is to support the IPG Publicity Team in its efforts to coordinate and execute a variety of book publicity campaigns for high quality trade non-fiction and fiction titles for both adults and children.

Working closely with IPG’s client publishers, the Assistant Publicist provides administrative support to the IPG team of publicists, including keeping online records current, researching and answering publishers’ questions via the IPG Freshdesk, and maintaining the group’s NetGalley account. The Publicity Assistant may also perform tasks in support of media campaigns, including creating media materials and carrying out a limited number of media outreach campaigns in support of frontlist titles. The position involves significant amounts of coordination between the publicity team and IPG publishers, while also requiring a developing knowledge of the media landscape. The ideal candidate is passionate about books, journalism, and public relations.

Responsibilities and Duties

• Bachelor’s degree in publishing, communication, writing or similar field preferred
• Provide administrative support for the Publicity team’s media campaigns, including upkeep of online filing system
• Responds to publishers’ inquiries via IPG Freshdesk email system
• Carry out up to 10-20 book publicity campaigns per season, largely C-list titles
• Respond to media requests for backlist titles if original publicist is not available
• Manage IPG’s presence on NetGalley
• Supports IPG publisher media requests through tiered program established by the publicity director in conjunction with the publicity team
• Work with publicity team to seasonally send out calls for information from TSP publishers
• Craft compelling promotional materials and pitches for publishers’ frontlist titles each season
• Regularly send out reports on all publicity results internally to sales and marketing departments and to publishers
• Attends select cross-departmental meetings at the discretion of the publicity director
• Salaried; exempt

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in publishing, journalism, English, or equivalent work experience preferred
• Solid Microsoft Office skills a must
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, solid organizational skills, the ability to prioritize and juggle multiple responsibilities at one time. Ability to be adaptable to an everchanging publishing and media marketplace, and enthusiasm around new projects.
• A passion for books and an interest in working with media and other outside parties
• Travel requirements: less than 10%

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

About the Company

In June of 2021, Independent Publishers Group (IPG) will celebrate its 50th anniversary. As the original North American distributor, IPG was founded specifically to represent titles from independent publishers to the book trade. Today IPG remains committed to reimagining distribution and has grown to provide its publishers with services ranging from pre-publication consultation, global sales, marketing & publicity, supply chain, print and digital distribution, data, and reporting, to print brokerage.

In the fall of 2006, Chicago Review Press, Inc., parent company of IPG, bought Trafalgar Square Publishing, Inc., the leading US distributor of such international publishers, as Penguin Random House UK, Penguin Random House Australia, Pan Macmillan UK, Collins UK, and Head of Zeus. International Specialized Book Services (ISBS), a premier distributor of over sixty publishers of academic, scholarly, and professional publishers was acquired in April of 2018. Continuing its trajectory of growth in August of 2018, IPG acquired Midpoint Trade Books, a full-service book distribution company that was founded in 1996 and whose distribution clients were made up of independent book publishers from across the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada.

With consistent growth year over year, IPG’s success has come from giving publishers broader reach into more markets, including general trade, academic, children's, Spanish, and special markets.