We call this role “Publishing Manager,” but the best way to think about this job is a mash-up of “Project Manager” and "Coach."
You're a Project Manager in that you are responsible for a book writing and publishing process. To do this, you will have to keep track of a complicated project with lots of moving parts, and you’ll manage a publishing team of talented freelancers. In short--there is a lot going on, and you have to stay on top of it.
You're a Coach in the sense that you will be working with authors who are usually very successful, demanding, and have lots of demands on their time. You'll have to use all different types of psychology to understand authors, manage your relationship with them, and help them to do things that may be hard, difficult, and that they are slightly resistant to--but ultimately must be done, and are best for them and the book.
The moment the author signs with us, you take over. You’re their main point of contact, and their leader through their book journey. You’ll do the positioning of the book with them and ensure the author has a clear understanding of who their audience is and how they use their book to advance their goals (business, social, personal), and you'll help them understand exactly how to frame the book so it will create the success they want.
Then you'll assemble their publishing team, and coordinate the entire process from both sides. You own everything, all the way to final result--which is ensuring we produce a book the author is proud of.
These are some examples of tasks you'll be doing every day:
Communicate the right expectations to your authors so they always know what to expect and what's needed from them.
Ensure your author’s book is always moving forward on schedule.
Work with the publishing team to ensure all work on the book (writing, design, etc) reflects the author’s voice and intent.
Help authors create their bios, headshots, and some ancillary marketing content.
Help authors choose a book cover and title.
Help authors solve any problems that come up on a day-to-day basis—questions about audiobooks, marketing, issues with cover design, print run delays, and any other problems that come up.
Sometimes you will even have to help authors address fears or anxieties that may arise. Publishing a book is a big deal for people, and sometimes that requires some emotional help, as well as publishing help.
Basically, you're the boss of the book process. You do everything necessary to make sure the author is proud of their book when it's done, and that we get it to them on time and on budget.
And it's important to note: you'll be doing this with dozens of authors at once (who are at all different stages of the process).
If you can nail the above, you're probably pretty awesome--which brings us to an important question:
We’re Book in a Box, and we've created a new way for people to write and publish a book.
Instead of spending years at a computer typing out a book, and then being frustrated by the confusing and arcane book publishing process, we do all the difficult and frustrating work for the author to turn their ideas into a book in about 7 months.
The author spends about 40-50 hours on the phone with us. We have a structured interview process that walks them through the entire process, from positioning to outline, then systematic interviews, transcribing those interviews, and editing that into a book. Unlike ghostwriting, this book is entirely their ideas, in their words and their voice. We do add not content, we only do the work to make it a book.
This video describes our process pretty well. You can see some press about us here.
You can see some of the impact we've had on authors in these stories.
And you can see some of the books we've already published (including many bestsellers) here.
Our company started because a frustrated entrepreneur wanted to put all of her incredible knowledge and ideas into a book, but didn't have the time to write it or the patience to deal with the frustrating publishing process. So we solved her problem. The whole origin story is here.
Her book became an amazing success for her, and we realized the world was full of these people--smart people who should write a book, but don’t.
They just want a solution to their problem, and that's why Book In A Box exists: we are the best way for experts and professionals to turn their ideas and knowledge into books that help the world.
Our process has worked for over 600 authors already, and we are growing fast. Our ultimate goal is to be the default publishing option for professionals, and if we do that, we'll help create thousands of books that would never have otherwise existed, changing the lives of millions of people.
That's really exciting to us. Here is our co-founder talking about why this is so important.
We're not going to try to pitch you a load of corporate speak crap about who we are. Instead, you can read real quotes by real tribe members about what it's like to be part of this tribe:
“You get to be part of building something that literally changes lives. This is work that matters.”
“On your birthday, it’s possible you’ll return to your desk to find a tower of La Croix and Beyonce singing you Happy Birthday. Not even my family knows me this well, and I’d been with the Tribe for all of a month.”
“Zero work theater and zero politics. I know, right? I didn’t believe it either until I got here.”
“You will experience true servant leadership. Our CEO took an apprentice's salary so that he could invest more money to get the right people in the tribe, and he never talks about it. Our co-founders probably put in more hours than you, and they'll send you home to rest if they catch you in the office at ungodly hours. You will at some point in your week get a message from the CEO asking how he can help facilitate your work, and he means it.”
“No decisions are based on scarcity or fear or bullshit. What will make us better? How can we serve each other and our authors better? That's what we do.”
“You are expected and encouraged to speak your truth and be fully you. Every. Single. Day.”
“You get to work with the most handsome man in publishing. I’m not kidding. Look up Mark Chait. It’s a real thing, it was on the internet.”
“You will see selfless loyalty. You will at some point have a crisis at an inappropriate time of night and someone will answer a phone call and help you (sorry Brittany). You might also invent a disgusting cocktail involving everclear and flat tonic water, and someone will drink it with you (sorry Meghan).”
“There are drawers full of meat at the office.”
“ZERO micromanagement, and open revisions to any policy that will improve existing workflows. Every process I’ve seen is thoughtful and reasonable. Anything that isn’t is up for revision.”
“You will learn a new language. The words “Thank You Sir”” will take on an entirely new meaning. I didn't even know #scooterlife was a thing before working here.”
“You will eventually get your own emoji in Slack (like the HalBomb). But it’s like a nickname: You can’t ask for it. You can’t pick it. You can’t give it to yourself. It is bestowed, based on who you are and what you do.”
“People will constantly ask you “What’s it like to work with Tucker Max?” Everyone will be disappointed when you say, “He’s nothing like you’re expecting.”
“You will be measured by results. True results. This is a culture and company that values EVERY Tribe member, has women in leadership, pays everyone equally and regardless if you are gay, mixed race or have no college degree, the measurement is results!“
“The coworker bar has been raised so high that I once described BIAB to my friends as, ‘Remember when we used to watch West Wing in college and we imagined that that’s how work would be when we grew up, and then we grew up and were profoundly disappointed? Turns out that tribes of insanely smart, committed, loving, passionate coworkers are real, and I found one.’”
“I get to bring my whole self to work every day, and no one ever tells me ‘that's not appropriate for work.’ Everyone here is fully human, all the time, both in their work and their lives.”
“This is a company that hasn’t taken any outside capital. The profit sharing isn’t just equity that gets paid off in 10 years when we IPO or get acquired. We get paid every quarter. I literally have never heard of a company like this.”
“I enjoy the work that I do and the people I do it alongside so profoundly that I still wonder if this is secretly a social experiment.”
Location
Remote: You can be located anywhere with reliable internet and phone connection.
Type of Employment
Full-time only
Necessary Skills & Qualifications
Here is the list of skills we believe are necessary for this job. Most importantly, we are hiring based on careful balance of relevant experience, cultural fit, and motivation:
You MUST BE VERY GOOD At Getting Things Done: This is an absolute must. You must be the definition of a doer. You cannot hide in this job, you cannot do things half-ass, and you won't have people picking up your slack. We will train you in all the specifics and details of course, but to apply you must have a long of history of getting things done (especially in work settings).
You Have Good Social Intelligence: This job will require you to work with a lot of different types of authors, clearly set expectations with them, and get them to do the work they have to do--even if they are resistant, or want to do it a different way. Sometimes you will need to have hard conversations with them, and even set limits with people who are not used to hearing "no"--but do it in a way that doesn't upset them or derail the project. It takes real social intelligence to navigate these situations. You must be able to understand and relate with people no matter what they are like. Again we can train you to some extent, but you should walk in already having experience with this.
You Are Organized And Task Oriented: This might seem redundant with "getting things done" but it's not. Some people get things done in a chaotic manner--that won't work. We have a detailed process that is very user friendly for you--but you’ll need to stay on top of a lot of stuff. You'll have a hundred to-dos every day, most very small and quickly done, but still--that's a lot. It’s not hard as long as you’re organized and task oriented and have a basic understanding of modern technology.
You Are Self-Motivated: We don't want people who have to be constantly managed. If you only work well with someone standing over you telling you what to do--DO NOT APPLY. You must be very self-motivated. There are no lifestyle roles here, and no easy days. We all work very hard every day, because we care about our mission, and what we do matters to us and other people.
NOTE: Hard work does not mean endless hours--it only means results. If you don't want to work hard and get results, this is not the right company for you. There is no coasting and no hiding here and you will be held accountable for achieving real results, which means getting authors through the process in a way that gets them a book they are proud of. If that doesn't excite you, this is the wrong tribe for you.
You Like Books And Reading: If you don't like books and reading and thinking about the ideas in books, this is probably a bad job for you, because you'll be doing that a lot. It is NOT necessary that you be a magician with words, but you should really enjoy writing and reading.
Salary & Benefits
Competitive Pay: 60k + real profit sharing
NOTE: The salary is not all you will make. All tribe members are entitled to profit sharing. When we say "profit sharing" we don't mean the BS "here's a tiny piece of equity that might be worth something in 10 years." We're already a profitable company, and 25% of the company profit goes to the Tribe. Every time we take profit distribution, you get a share of those actual profits.
Access To Full Benefits: Instead of spending our money on ping pong tables and beanbag chairs, we give you access to complete health care coverage, dental, life insurance, 401k, and pretty much everything else you could ever want.
Be Part Of A Tribe: You read the testimonials above. We see ourselves as a tribe of people who are working hard together to accomplish a specific mission (become the default publishing option for professionals), in service of a larger purpose (create books that help the world). We have a pretty cool set of principles that we live by as a tribe, you should check it out, because this is the operating system for our tribe, and everyone in our company lives the values and principles outlined in this doc.
Freedom: You can work from home, work while you travel, work in our office, make your own hours--we don't care. You can wear a three piece suit (like our CEO) or gym clothes (like our founders) or anything else--we don't care. We only care that you have reliable phone and internet connections and that you do your job well.
Make A Real Impact: We are a small company (still under 40 full time tribe members) and you will be a major part of our team, and help shape our growth. Not only that, you won't just impact the company, you'll impact the world. Books are one of the very best ways to influence other people and change the way they think--and you'll be helping to make them a reality.
Fun & Fast-Paced Work: We don’t have boring days. Some are hectic, some are hard, some are incredibly rewarding...but they are never boring and never exactly the same. That's what happens when you're solving real problems for people.
Meet Interesting People: You're not just working on any books. Past authors include major company CEOs, famous entrepreneurs, professional athletes, and people with amazing personal stories. These are books people read and used.
EEO Statement
At Book In A Box, we don’t just accept differences — we support them, celebrate them, and as a company, we thrive on them. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and we actively look for and hire people who bring new perspectives and experiences to our tribe.
Complete the application before 8am CT on Monday, October 9 by clicking on the "Apply To Position" button.
You can expect to hear back from us either way by Monday, October 16. To make sure we're able to give your application the careful attention and time it deserves, please do not follow up with us unless you don't hear back from us by then.
Note: If you're on an external job site, we encourage you to apply directly from our career portal at https://book-in-a-box.breezy.hr/
Bonus: If you aren't right for the job, but you know the perfect person, send them this job description.
If we hire them, we'll give you a 5k bonus.
Totally serious--every person we hire, we ask them who referred them to us, and we pay the bonus to the referrer. That could be you if you share this job ad with a friend who's perfect for it.