Work with us as a publishing assistant – Like the Wind Magazine

EDIT: Applications now closed.

Like the Wind is unique in the world of running magazines: it’s a title that, since its first quarterly issue more than nine years ago, has focused on long-form storytelling – enhanced by high-quality photography and illustration – to explore the culture of running. Initially a labour of love for founding husband-and-wife team Julie and Simon Freeman, the magazine was for many years propelled forward by volunteers who saw the same potential in its transformative power as the co-founders did in February 2014.

The vision was always to go beyond the magazine and into the community with events and products. With limited-edition prints, T-shirts and accessories, sold-out film nights, street art running tours in Europe and our yearly UTMB after-party, we’re keen to keep the momentum going and do much, much more. Alongside Julie and Simon, the team has grown to include a co-editor (Imogen, UK), a production manager (Laura, USA), a designer (Alex, Australia), and ad-hoc freelance marketing support.

With many exciting projects in store for 2023-2024, the magazine needs more hands and fresh energy to get to the next step. In March 2023, we’re recruiting:

Publishing assistant – part-time, remote

About the position:

We’re looking for a publishing assistant to support our editorial team and our operations. The role covers customer support, reporting, orders and supplier management – but also more creative work such as publishing content, supporting events, liaising with our contributors and helping with our merchandising. We also work with external clients, such as parkrun, The North Face and On, and those projects also regularly require support.

Currently the role is 8-12 hours per week, depending on the workload/projects/magazine schedule. To start with, we are looking for someone who can offer at least three hours, three times a week (during GMT/CET working hours), with some flexibility week on week, depending on workload.

This is what the role looks like right now, supporting our current projects and team members, but there is the scope for it to be extended.

• Day-to-day order management (processing customer orders, liaising with our suppliers and international distributors, processing refunds, answering customer questions)
• E-commerce management: updating and creating new products in our shops (WooCommerce, WooSubscriptions, Gelato, FB/IG)
• Customer enquiries (e-mail, Mailchimp, social channels)
• Monthly VAT returns and sales reporting (if you can create a new reporting dashboard for us, that’d be great!)
• Contributor management (keeping track of writers, photographers and illustrators), including payments
• Support for our editorial team: researching topics, organising interviews, co-ordinating sign-offs, liaison with contributors
• Content management: re-purposing magazine content for our blog, newsletter and social channels
• Occasional, ad-hoc work – which may include:
  • Managing our royalties and affiliate programmes
  • Support with events co-ordination
  • Support with market research
  • Support with merchandising (yearly subscriber gifts, new apparel/prints/merch, new brands/artists collaborations etc)
  • Support with client projects (we undertake publishing work for other brands, such as parkrun)

This position is open to people with varying levels of experience and the potential pay reflects this, ranging from £11.50 per hour for someone new to this work to £19.50 per hour for someone with a higher level of experience. LtW is committed to correcting industry pay disparities and providing opportunities for people from groups who are currently under-represented within the publishing industry. We will not ask for your current or expected salary during the initial application process. Instead, we will work with shortlisted candidates to reach an understanding of what is appropriate compensation based on their experience and training requirements.

About you:

This role is equally suited to someone at the start of their career looking to get a start in a sports business as it is to someone with experience, looking for a longer-term job. It is location-independent, but we do ask that you mostly work during CET (ideally afternoon) working hours, as we collaborate on Slack a lot as a team 🙂 Salary will be tailored to experience.

• You’re a runner 🙂 It doesn’t matter how (far or fast) you run, but we’ll definitely ask you why you run.
• You’re proactive and curious – you like looking for solutions
• You’re super-organised (we’ll occasionally need you to remind the rest of the team to do stuff!)
• You’re fluent in English and have impeccable spelling and grammar
• You’re passionate about attention to detail, you love numbers and you have a good command of Excel
• You’re experienced in online and e-mail support in a direct-to-consumer business
• You have experience in online content management (blog, socials)
• If you also have these skills, that would be a plus (but they’re not a deal-breaker):
  • Experience with WooCommerce
  • Experience with Mailchimp and Klaviyo

How to apply:

Please fill in this form by 8 March. But don’t delay… we will start organising interviews as soon as we receive the first responses.