Publishing: most sought-after jobs

A publishing house is a company dedicated to editing and publishing books. As with any business, a publishing house requires a variety of professionals to fulfil all the services offered, and depending on the size of the company, there are more or less job vacancies.

You may think that working in the publishing sector is something reserved only for lovers of reading and people whose professional careers are related to the humanities, but this is not the case. Digitalisation has been incorporated into publishing processes and has become very important, which is why there is a diversity of profiles that enter the publishing sector. For this reason, in Buscoresi we are going to mention which are the most demanded jobs in the publishing sector. Maybe one of these is ideal for you.

Required skills

Working in a publishing house sounds very exciting, but at the same time it requires hard work, in which important knowledge and skills are required. Because a publishing worker must be knowledgeable about the publishing industry, have a good understanding of copyright, distribution and the printing of books.

Furthermore, workers must have an understanding of writing, knowledge of editing and book production, and knowledge of the culture and market of publishing.

In addition, they need to have communication and public relations skills, to be able to deal with publishers, authors and other members of the industry. And to know how to organise and manage time in order to meet targets and deadlines. They need to know how to use various tools such as: Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign.

Book editor

The book editor is the professional in charge of editing a work destined to be published. Nowadays, this person is also in charge of managing and coordinating each of the phases or steps taken by the original until it becomes a book or publishable content.

There are several figures related to this profile. Such as the editorial director, the contract negotiator, the one who studies publishing proposals and the one who acquires the rights to other works. There is also the desk editor, who is the person in charge of editing a text. Being the one who reviews the original writing, assesses it, edits it and prepares it for its development with all that this entails. Which is the summary, the author’s reviews, illustration, printing and more.

Translator

These are usually freelance collaborators of the publishing house, and are not professionals as such who become part of the staff. In addition to being paid for the translation of a book, which can be on a per-word or per-page basis, they can take a percentage of royalties if a certain level of sales is exceeded.

Proofreader

The proofreader is an essential professional in editorial projects and written texts. The proofreader’s job is to improve an author’s text so that it communicates in a better way what the author intended when writing it.

It can be said that the proofreader is the one who standardises, unifies and cleans up all the errors within the texts, always respecting the author’s style and ensuring that the text is of the highest quality and linguistic accuracy.

Rights management – intellectual property

Every publishing house needs to have professionals who are specialised in Intellectual Property Law, as well as in International Law. Due to the fact that on many occasions we work with companies or authors from other countries, so the work regulations must be very clear and everyone must take responsibility for the acts carried out. Both the owners of the publishing house and the authors of the books.