Publicity Director, Cornerstone (12-month FTC)

Do you love working across science fiction, fantasy, romance, crime and platform-led non-fiction? Can you create stand-out campaigns to capture attention and drive sales? An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Publicity Director to join the award-winning, dynamic and collaborative Cornerstone publicity team to cover a period of parental leave (from June 2025). This role reports to the Divisional Director of Publicity & Media Relations.

About Cornerstone

Cornerstone is a division within the iconic publisher Penguin Random House, our home. In turn, Cornerstone is home to seven imprints: Century, Del Rey, Inklore, Hutchinson Heinemann, #Merky Books, Cornerstone Press and Evermore, each with its own specific focus and remit. Every Cornerstone book also goes on to become a Penguin paperback.

Within publishing, Cornerstone has an enviable track record of bestsellers, prize winners and culture-shaping books, working with many of the world’s most interesting voices, often throughout their entire career. Our books span genres, categories and marketplaces globally.

The role

We are looking for an experienced, commercially minded book publicist for a 12-month contract to cover a period of parental leave. In this role you will work across the Del Rey, Evermore and Century imprints.

You will get to work with some of the most creative publishing colleagues in the business, learning from a team of experts in a friendly and inclusive environment that values individuality, champions creativity, and celebrates individual and team successes. You will be involved in every stage of the publishing process from early acquisitions meetings to devising and executing campaign plans and much more. You will represent a strong voice in the division and will need to establish yourself as a trusted expert for colleagues and contacts both within and outside the organisation. You will build strong working relationships with authors and agents to provide the highest level of author care.

Key responsibilities:

• Independently create, plan and drive strategic media and events campaigns for major titles.
• Play a key role in the acquisition of new books, providing PR feedback and contributing to and attending pitches to acquire new talent.
• Contribute to the company’s strategic priorities and work closely with its editorial team.
• Communicate effectively with internal departments, including sales and marketing, editorial, rights and international colleagues.
• Work closely with other communications colleagues to strategize and execute the most effective outreach campaigns for booksellers and influencers to build excitement and noise around our key titles across social media, especially TikTok, Instagram, GoodReads and beyond.
• Maintain and develop excellent relationships with high-profile and influential stakeholders, such as authors, agents, journalists and global publishing partners.

What you’ll bring

Essential criteria:

• Experience planning and delivering meticulously organised and highly impactful brand author campaigns across science fiction, fantasy, romance, crime and commercial non-fiction.
• A strong track record of planning and delivering well organised and sales impacting international author visits to include media appearances and public events, liaising with multiple stakeholders, agents and management companies to great effect.
• Extensive knowledge of the science fiction, fantasy and romantasy market, including established relationships with relevant genre reviewers, convention organisers, bookshop event managers and beyond to deliver high impact SFF publicity campaigns across brand, debut and breakout authors.
• Extensive knowledge of the contemporary romance market, including excellent relationships with book reviewers across magazine and newspapers, event organisers and beyond.
• In-depth knowledge of the social media communities who enjoy science fiction, fantasy, and romance, and the trends and titles working in this space.
• Experience developing plans for brand authors, mapping out routes to building authors profiles and sales across the long term.
• Have excellent communication skills and be confident pitching and presenting internally and externally.
• Be highly organised with excellent time management to juggle concurrent campaigns with different lead times.

Application instructions

Please apply with your CV and cover letter outlining why you are the right candidate for the role by 11:59pm on Sunday 23rd February.

Please ensure you include a cover letter, as it is a crucial part of our assessment process. The cover letter offers an opportunity to show how your experience and interests align with the role requirements. Typically, we expect the cover letter to be no more than one or two pages in length.

Salary

£44,000 - £52,000 dependent on how your skills and experience align to the role, plus benefits.

What you can expect from us

Our people are the heart of our business, and we work hard to support a culture of responsibility and recognition.

Our benefits include:

• Financial – income protection, life assurance, childcare allowance
• Wellbeing – healthcare cash plan, critical illness cover, health checks
• Lifestyle – enhanced parental leave, tech scheme, free and discounted books

For our full benefits list please visit: https://www.penguinrandomhousecareers.co.uk/what-we-offer/

Hybrid working

While our offices across the UK are places to connect, collaborate and celebrate with colleagues, we recognise that flexibility around where you work is just as important. For this role we expect that you will work from the office 3 days a week. Cornerstone’s core office days are Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Given the nature of the role, there will be times where you will be required to work outside of usual office hours, such as evenings and weekends. We’re happy to discuss this further through the recruitment process.

About Penguin

We’re the UK’s largest publisher; made up of some 2,000 people and publishing over 1,500 books each year. Our doors are open to all kinds of talent. In a constantly evolving industry, we work hard to stretch the definition of the word publisher. Here, you’ll work with a breadth of talent who all play their part to make each of our books a success. Together, we make books for everyone because a book can change anyone.

The recruitment process

You can read about our recruitment process at https://www.penguinrandomhousecareers.co.uk/how-we-hire/

As a Disability Confident Committed organisation, we offer interviews to candidates with a disability who meet the essential criteria for the role, and opt-in on their application form. The essential criteria for this role are listed as part of the ‘What you’ll bring’ section. There may be times when the volume of applications means we cannot take all eligible candidates to interview.

We encourage you to tell us about any reasonable adjustments you may need by emailing PRHCareersUK@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk. Remember, you only need to share what you are comfortable to for us to support your request.

Please note, we are not able to accept agency CVs for this role. Any CVs sent speculatively will not be eligible for a fee.