Publishing Operations Coordinator

Publishing Operations Coordinator — Remote, Philippines

Full-time | Long-term | ?50,000–?70,000 per month

About us

We are an established UK independent publishing business with a portfolio of more than 50 books.

Our primary focus is practical and entertaining books for children, tweens and teens, including life-skills books, activity books, drawing books, educational readers and curiosity-led fact books. We also publish a smaller collection of humour and gift titles.

We work with writers, editors, researchers, illustrators, cover designers and formatters around the world. We are now building a long-term Philippines-based team to help us operate the business more effectively.

The role

We are looking for a highly organised Publishing Operations Coordinator to manage the day-to-day movement of books through our development and launch pipeline.

You will ensure that every active book has clear tasks, owners, deadlines, files and next actions. You will coordinate freelancers, maintain our project-management systems and identify problems before they delay publication.

This is not a general virtual-assistant position. It is an operations role for someone who enjoys bringing structure to complex creative projects.

Your responsibilities

• Maintain the master book-development pipeline in ClickUp, Asana or other management tool
• Create project plans, tasks, deadlines and checklists for new books
• Coordinate writers, editors, fact-checkers, illustrators, designers and formatters
• Monitor deliverables and follow up on missed or approaching deadlines
• Organise files and maintain version control in Google Drive
• Ensure feedback is passed clearly between contributors
• Track manuscripts, illustrations, covers, interiors, metadata and marketing assets
• Maintain launch-readiness and quality-control checklists
• Prepare files and information for KDP and IngramSpark uploads
• Run weekly production meetings
• Produce a concise weekly status report covering progress, blockers, risks and decisions required
• Document and improve standard operating procedures
• Identify repetitive processes that could be automated
• Escalate important issues without passing every routine decision to the founder

Required experience and skills

• At least three years of experience in project management, content operations, creative operations, e-commerce operations or a similar field
• Experience managing several projects and external contributors simultaneously
• Strong working knowledge of ClickUp, Asana, ---------- or a comparable system
• Advanced Google Drive and Google Sheets organisation
• Excellent written and spoken English
• Strong attention to detail
• Ability to create clear checklists, workflows and reports
• Confidence following up with contributors and holding people accountable
• Good judgement about what to resolve independently and what to escalate
• Comfortable learning and using AI tools
• Reliable internet connection and remote-working environment
• At least four hours of overlap with normal UK working hours

Desirable experience

• Book publishing or digital-content production
• Amazon KDP or IngramSpark
• Working with editors, illustrators and designers
• Canva or Adobe tools
• Building SOPs and operational dashboards
• Working for a small, founder-led business

What you will not be responsible for

• Writing complete books
• Making final decisions about which books we publish
• Managing Amazon advertising
• Producing social-media videos
• Making final cover or product-positioning decisions

What success looks like after 90 days

• Every active book is represented accurately in one master pipeline
• Every project has clear owners, deadlines and next actions
• Production risks are identified before they become major delays
• Files and feedback are organised and easy to locate
• Weekly reporting is accurate and produced without founder involvement
• Routine production questions no longer require the founder’s attention

Compensation and working arrangement

• Full-time, remote position
• Philippines-based
• ?50,000–?70,000 per month, depending on experience
• Long-term role with the opportunity to develop into Publishing Operations Manager
• At least four hours of daily overlap with UK working hours
• Shortlisted applicants will complete a paid practical assessment

How to apply

Please submit:

1. Your CV.
2. A short Loom video introducing yourself and explaining why this role interests you.
3. An example of a project tracker, operational report or workflow you have created. Confidential information may be removed.
4. Your expected monthly salary.
5. Your availability and notice period.
6. Details of your internet connection and backup arrangements.

Please also answer these questions:

1. Tell us about the most complex project you have coordinated. How many people and deliverables were involved?
2. What would you do if an important contributor repeatedly missed deadlines?
3. How do you prevent teams from working from outdated file versions?
4. Which project-management tools have you used most extensively?
5. Give an example of a process you improved or documented.

The recruitment process will include an initial interview, a paid practical exercise, a final interview and reference checks.