Digital Production Assistant

Job Title: Digital Production Assistant

Contract: Employee, preferably full-time employment

Location: UK based, at present working remotely

Salary: £23,000 - £25,000

This role is now closed.

The Booker Prizes have a unique place in the literary sphere, enjoying an enviable reputation as a cultural institution that is highly respected, much loved and hotly debated throughout the world. Over the past 50 years, more than 500 extraordinary books have been brought to the attention of the public, influencing reading tastes and transforming culture in Britain and beyond, along with the careers of hundreds of authors from around the globe. 

The Booker Prize Foundation is a registered charity, established in 2002, whose purpose is to promote the art and value of literature for the public benefit. The best-known way it fulfils this mission is by awarding the Booker Prize and the International Booker Prize. Other aspects of the foundation’s work include reading initiatives in prisons, writers’ visits to universities, the distribution of books to disadvantaged readers and the funding of Braille and audio editions of Booker Prize books through the RNIB. The UEA Booker Prize Foundation Scholarship is awarded annually to a candidate for the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia. Many past scholars have since met with acclaim as published authors. 

In 2021, we launched a new digital strategy at www.thebookerprizes.com to showcase ‘our’ nominated books alongside their exceptional authors in one unique online space. Called the Booker Library, it aims to be a unique and entertaining cultural destination that brings fresh attention to our books by combining 1) new content; 2) archive material from our authors, publishers and partners as well as our own physical archive at Oxford Brookes University; and 3) curated content from across the web. We’ve identified the concept of the Booker ‘Golden Thread’, a strand that runs through all our books, authors, themes and subject matters. We aim to bend and stretch this thread in many directions to help our audiences explore our world with the goal of encouraging more people to read more books. We believe that this blend of writing, audio, video, visual art, manuscripts and interactives will bring new insights and attention to the books, their themes, subject matter and the art of fiction writing itself. We are building a small editorial, marketing and partnerships team to take responsibility for executing this plan.

The Booker Prize Foundation is looking for a digital production assistant to be at the heart of our digital team; working in partnership with editorial, marketing, partnerships and publicity colleagues to deliver outstanding, distinctive digital content. The role requires someone who is exceptionally organised with a keen attention to detail. The successful candidate will be energetic and flexible; a quick-thinking and confident problem solver.

• Troubleshoot and provide support across all the digital activities of the Booker Prizes
• Working to the company secretary, be responsible for obtaining and tracking clearances from third party rights holders of material we’d like to use online
• Liaise with external agencies and individuals including freelance creatives, writers, film producers and photographers
• Communicate and coordinate with Booker Prize-nominated authors, agents, publishers and archives
• Be responsible for the Booker Prizes’ digital archive of images, video, audio, copy, archive assets and other materials to ensure they are catalogued and managed with the correct data and permissions
• Support the web producers and digital marketing manager to ensure content is produced on time, on budget and received ready to be published to an agreed schedule across our digital portfolio.

• Strong organisational flair with legal and financial acumen 
• Experience of working in a proactive problem-solving role
• Great computer skills and preferably the ability to use Excel as well as online organisational tools like Trello, Sharepoint 
• Comfortable in communicating in an appropriate manner with high profile individuals and institutions
• Ability to understand and champion the rationale for new ways of working and/or for adopting new production-related technology or processes 
• High level of integrity particularly when dealing with confidential and sensitive issues
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• An interest in contemporary fiction and literature is a plus
• Self-starter who can work on their own initiative and collaboratively within a team as well as with third parties or external individuals/companies
• Ablility to prioritise, handle multiple simultaneous tasks and work in a newly created team.