Commissioning Editor

Artech House is an independent nonfiction publisher, with offices in London and Boston, delivering highly technical future-facing books for working engineers and scientists, helping them solve the practical problems of today and tomorrow.

The Role:

Artech is seeking a seasoned commissioning editor, publishing professional to join its London office.

As part of the Artech team, you will have the opportunity to manage and contribute to some of the most important subject areas in Electrical Engineering. As commissioning editor, you will be responsible for signing 15 to 20 new titles per year and managing overall list and subject area financial performance.

The role has supervisory responsibilities over one assistant commissioning editor. The assistant commissioning editor focuses on subject matter expert/peer review and manuscript development, preparing final manuscripts for transmittal to production and marketing, allowing the commissioning editor to focus on recruiting new authors, reviewing, and developing new projects, and preparing proposals for the Artech Editorial Board. The commissioning editor works collaboratively with series editors, SMEs, and authors around the world and with Artech acquisitions, production, and marketing staff in London and Boston. The commissioning editor is a valued member of the Artech House management team.

Responsibilities:

Commissions 15 to 20 new books per year and ensures titles meet revenue goals.
Champions titles and authors throughout the publishing process, developing a vision for the work under contract, partnering with marketing and production to support them in helping the title realize its full potential.
Collaborates with acquisition colleagues, series editors, and SMEs to refine ongoing commissioning strategy, year over year, performing market research, monitoring sales, suggesting new projects and sub-subjects.
Communicates diplomatically, respectfully, and enthusiastically with all departments, authors, series editors, and partners to keep projects on track.
Monitors trends in Electrical Engineering, especially in the UK and EU, staying abreast of future growth areas of interest (next-gen problems to solve)
Manages the manuscript review and development processes.
Owns project schedules and follow up with authors, from proposal to hand off to production.
Handles all author inquiries and prospective author contact.
Attends scientific meetings, represents Artech at industry conferences.
Contributes to the year-to-year budget to support London/EU commissioning efforts and author recruitment, researching and identifying meetings to attend.
Manages relationships with Series Editors and SMEs, reviewing performances, recruiting new series editors as needed, developing and implementing forward-looking multi-year plans for growing each subject area.

Required Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree.
Two years’ experience in publishing, specifically in commissioning.
Demonstrated mastery of publishing best practices, systems, and cycles.
Demonstrated ability to evaluate potential authors, ideas, and projects, developing them for a specific audience.
Advanced project management skills, working with multiple competing deadlines, tasks, and agendas, moving publishing projects smoothly from start to finish.
Advanced interpersonal communication, relationship management, and diplomacy skills.
Excellent written and oral communication skills; the ability to be persuasive with tact and brevity.
Self-starter, innovative, generous, and kind.

Preferred Qualifications:

A background, track record of success in the hard sciences.
Experience in publishing, commissioning background preferred
A bachelor’s or advanced degree in electrical engineering or related field is a real plus