Microcosm is hiring a Marketing and Publicity Coordinator!
We are looking for someone who is excited about books to join our marketing team, handle some light publicity duties, and potentially shine on our social media accounts. If you are a detail-oriented, organized wordsmith who can write sparkling copy, wrangle a spreadsheet, follow detailed instructions, and look at any book and immediately understand who the ideal reader is and what they’ll love about it, please consider applying. The ideal candidate will be able to balance brief bursts of creative brilliance with long, focused bouts of massaging data.
Microcosm publishes and distributes reader-oriented, brightly-colored empowering books and zines on a wide range of topics including mental health, punk music, bicycling, gardening, witchcraft, feminism, healthy relationships, travel, cookery, humor, and herbalism. In our marketing department, we combine highly non-traditional methods with publishing industry standards, with successful results—we have grown substantially every year for the past decade. Come grow with us!
Hours: This is a full-time, 40 hour per week position.
Location: This position can be either fully remote or based fully or partially in our Portland office. At this time, we can only hire new full-time employees who live in Oregon, Ohio, Washington State, and California. If you live elsewhere in the US and are open to full-time contract work please apply anyway and let us know.
Experience: This is a junior- to mid-level position that requires some background (professional or otherwise) in writing marketing copy, selling books, publicity, social media, and/or managing data. Some professional experience is helpful, but we are ready to train someone with equivalent non-traditional experience and an affinity for the work involved.
Core job duties:
- Wrangling data—keeping it correct, up-to-date, and discoverable on our website and 3rd party platforms
- Writing book descriptions
- Pitching our books and news to trade publications and the media
- Working closely with the marketing manager on strategies and campaigns
Potential job duties:
- Conducting more intensive publicity campaigns for our key titles
- Coaching our authors on how to promote their own books
- Doing social media outreach, including text, visual, and video posts
Requirements:
- Enthusiasm to speak and write compellingly about our books and mission
- Ability to quickly produce good-quality copy about any book in our catalog
- A nit-picky eye for details and data
- Strong writing skills
- Ability and willingness to work with topics that may be sensitive to some, including trauma, abuse, recovery, religion and spirituality, various marginalized identities, drugs, anatomy, sexual instruction, and erotica
- Ability to meet or exceed deadlines without operating in a state of last-minute urgency
- Ability to stay organized, prioritize between multiple projects, and work independently
- Ability to take feedback and implement it for future projects
- Strong work ethic and desire to continually learn and improve
Preferences:
- Bookselling, library, or book publishing industry experience
- An understanding of how to write for different audiences (e.g., knowing how you would pitch a book to a trade publication vs to the author’s local paper)
- Strong social media skills, particularly visual and video skills
- Ability to represent Microcosm at events (involves heavy lifting, a cool head under pressure, and much extroverting)
Pay and benefits
Starting wage for employees is $16.50-$20.75. Starting pay will depend on skillset and level of responsibility in previous work of this type.
Employee benefits include:
- All company profits are distributed to staff in the form of profit-sharing
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
- Remote work option
- Flexible work hours and holidays
- Employee ownership program after five years
- Transparent compensation and clear metrics for advancement
- Meaningful work at a growing company
To apply: Fill out this application.
Please do not send a cover letter, resume, or other supplemental materials.
Application deadline: December 4, 2023