Senior Commissioning Editor/Editorial Director

What you’ll be doing

We’re looking for a Senior Commissioning Editor or Editorial Director to take charge of the entire Virago Modern Classics list – including actively acquiring new titles – and to be a confident, energetic champion for the VMCs both within Virago and outside it.

Who we are looking for

You'll have a hunger to discover underrepresented or marginalised voices – including books by people of underrepresented genders – and be full of ideas of how to make connections between the classics of the past and the concerns of today with the purpose of keeping the list dynamic, inclusive and relatable to a modern audience of both booksellers and readers. You’ll have a proven editorial instinct as well as a deep and authoritative knowledge of classics and a wide-ranging knowledge of contemporary literary fiction and non-fiction. You’ll have a keen eye for design, with a visual flair for great and original covers; you’ll be at ease with your aesthetic opinions and know what you think looks good.

Agent, author and estate care, and the longevity of those relationships, are extremely important to us so you’ll need the ability to maintain and manage relationships of all kinds within the industry. The role will involve developing strategy and publishing plans for the classics list, and we will expect you to have excellent communication and influencing skills and show experience in negotiation and pitching. We’re also looking for someone who has a strong commercial awareness and can demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of the marketplace, retailers, audiences and competitors.

What we offer

Our staff are our greatest asset and our benefits reflect this. In addition to 28 days annual leave days per year + bank holidays, we have an extensive list of benefits that include: a wide-ranging training library, development programmes including mentoring, Cycle to Work vouchers, Private Medical Insurance, eye care vouchers, up to 70% off book purchases, a charity book shelf, 2 community days per year, many employee networks to join, summer hours (finishing at 1pm on Fridays during the summer months!), season ticket loans, rent deposit loans, generous pension schemes and much more!

This role can be based at our London office, or at any of our new regional offices in Edinburgh, Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield or Bristol, with a blend of in-office (3 days) and homeworking (2 days) per week.

Our Commitment

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.

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

Who we are and what we do

We are immensely proud of our Virago Modern Classics list, with their iconic green spines, which have influenced and inspired countless readers and writers over the past 45 years. Founded in 1978, the list’s aim was, and is, to celebrate women writers, to demonstrate the existence of a canon of women’s writing and to redefine the often narrow idea of a ‘classic’.

On the Virago Modern Classics list we publish some of the great American writers, including Nora Ephron, Willa Cather, Ann Petry, Edith Wharton, Gayl Jones, Grace Paley and Zora Neale Hurston, alongside wonderful British authors such as Angela Carter, Daphne du Maurier, Rosamond Lehmann, Patricia Highsmith, Elizabeth Taylor and Rebecca West.