Executive Director, Publicity

Macmillan Learning • Full-time • Hybrid in New York, New York, United States • $170,000 - $180,000 / year • 3h ago

Fast Facts

Henry Holt seeks an experienced Executive Director of Publicity to lead a team in executing high-profile PR campaigns and manage key media relationships, contributing to their critically acclaimed publishing program.

Responsibilities: Lead the publicity department, manage campaigns for 50-60 titles annually, cultivate media relationships, and collaborate with marketing and editorial teams.

Skills: Strong organizational, communication, and presentation skills; extensive media contacts; experience in book publicity.

Qualifications: 12+ years of book publicity experience, management skills, and the ability to handle complex author tours and media relations.

Location: Position based in New York, New York, United States; no travel mentioned.

Compensation: $170000 - $180000 / Annually

Henry Holt is seeking an experienced, creative, and enthusiastic Executive Director of Publicity with a track record of highly successful campaigns across a wide range of genres to lead our seven-person publicity department.

From breaking out literary/commercial crossover and book club fiction to elevating narrative, journalistic, and prescriptive nonfiction into the national conversation, our ideal candidate has extensive experience strategizing on and executing high-profile PR campaigns from start to finish, with the ability to pivot and be nimble in order to take advantage of opportunities created by the news cycle. They bring a well-established network of national broadcast, print, podcast and online media contacts, and excel in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.

This position will manage the department budget and assignments, coordinate seasonal media meetings, pitch national book clubs, and work closely with marketing, editorial, leadership, and internal Macmillan communications and events teams. They will develop top-level seasonal publicity plans, advise on positioning, collaborate with team members on campaign strategy, engage the team in creative brainstorming on specific campaigns across the list, and must have very strong communication skills.

It is essential that this person is comfortable with hands-on management of a tight-knit, hardworking and highly collaborative Holt publicity team. They are expected to coach and mentor publicity staff at all levels, fostering their professional growth and ensuring the team’s collective achievements.

In addition to directly handling 1-2 high-profile campaigns per season and managing the department, the person in this position also plays a key strategic role on Holt’s senior leadership team, lending publicity perspective to workflow process changes and imprint-level planning and creating opportunities for cross-departmental collaboration and problem-solving. As a relatively small imprint, Holt prioritizes a culture of respect, decency, and proactive collaboration, and welcomes new perspectives as we work to improve and streamline workflows.

This is an opportunity to contribute to a bestselling, critically acclaimed publishing program. For 160 years, Holt has published titles in the history, science and nature, journalism, memoir, politics, literary and upmarket commercial fiction, graphic novel, and poetry categories, among others. Our authors, who have ranged from Robert Frost and Toni Morrison to Edward Snowden, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Alison Espach to José Olivarez and Nathan Thrall, have won prizes and awards, including the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and many others.

This position reports to the VP, Associate Publisher.

What you’ll do:

Leadership & Active Management: Leads Holt publicity department, playing a key senior leadership team role at the imprint. Actively mentors and manages a team of seven, offering coaching, performance management, and setting expectations. Meets weekly with direct reports to check in on status, offer guidance and brainstorming, and ensure deadlines are being met. Offer support where needed in complex situations.
Strong Media Relationships: Cultivates, fosters, and maintains substantive relationships with key broadcast, print, and digital media contacts. Coordinates and participates in seasonal pitch meetings with key national media contacts to strengthen relationships and seed early coverage.
Honed Presentation Skills: Regularly presents internally at seasonal sales conferences, bi-weekly sales and marketing meetings, and department meetings.
Interdepartmental Collaboration: Liaises with key departments such as marketing, sales, and editorial to ensure a cohesive message is being delivered throughout marketing/publicity initiatives.
Strategic Planning: Oversees the creation of publicity plans, budget management, and effective campaign execution for approximately 50-60 titles annually.
High-Level Campaign Execution: Directly handles key high-profile publicity campaigns (1-2/season)—developing compelling and unique angles, writing dynamic pitch letters and press releases, coordinating galley and finished book mailings, booking top-tier national and local media, scheduling impactful author events (traditional bookstore appearances and bundled off-site events) and travel, and organizing publicity updates for imprint and sales teams, all while staying in close communication with authors and agents. Develops talking points with authors and briefs them on interview preparation along with light media training, accompanying them to interviews where appropriate. Supports authors in developing off-the-book page essays, feature ideas, and serial placement.
Imprint Representation: Represents the imprint at industry events, trade shows, and in-house.
Best Practices: Identifies opportunities for enhancing and improving both imprint campaigns and departmental best practices—new tools (including AI), platforms, partners, outlets, trends, etc.

What you’ll bring:

A college degree or equivalent experience.
Minimum 12+ years of hands-on book publicity experience, with an emphasis placed on booking top-tier media, handling complex author tours, navigating author/agent relationships, and securing national book club picks.
Management experience and an interest in hands-on coaching and mentoring of staff.
Extensive knowledge of the media and strong relationships with book reviewers, magazine editors, producers, and online editors.
Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail.
Experience working with sensitive material and high-profile authors.
Experience working on fiction and nonfiction with a proven ability to generate creative angles and pitches.
Demonstrated ability to work well under pressure and manage time effectively to meet tight deadlines and changing priorities (must be flexible and versatile), in a collaborative team environment.

This role will have an annual salary of $170,000 - $180,000

Macmillan Publishers is the U.S. trade company that is part of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, a large family-owned group of media companies headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. Holtzbrinck Publishing Group's publishing companies include prominent imprints around the world that publish a broad range of award-winning books for children and adults in all categories and formats.

U.S. publishers include Celadon Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Flatiron Books, Henry Holt & Company, Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, The St. Martin's Publishing Group, and Tor Publishing Group. In the UK, Australia, India, and South Africa, companies in the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group publish under the Pan Macmillan name. The German publishing company, Holtzbrinck Deutsche Buchverlage, includes among its imprints S. Fischer, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Rowohlt, and Droemer Knaur.

Macmillan is proud to be an equal opportunity employer consistently striving to foster a culture where everyone belongs. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and identities. Qualified applicants are evaluated without regard to race, color, religion, age, ethnicity, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability status, physical ability, neurodiversity, genetic information, protected veteran status, family and economic status and background or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. We prohibit discrimination of any kind and will provide reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities in accordance with applicable law.