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Join Our Team

Want to join our team?

Paper Raven Books is completely changing the world of books, and our small but mighty team continues to grow steadily, as we support more authors who are successfully writing, publishing, and marketing their books.

If you’re interested in talking with us about an open position, you’re in the right place.

What is it like to work with the Paper Raven Books Team? 

  • We are a small, distributed team, which means that we are all working remotely across time zones, communicating through Slack, Zoom, and a web app called Basecamp.
  • We have 15 core team members and a few freelancers, who all work together consistently on multiple projects. We cultivate a high-trust, casual team workflow.
  • We do our best to provide clear requests for each other on what we need for a given project and by when, and then we go our separate ways to get the work done. No micromanaging or unnecessary meetings here!
  • We love supporting each other in coming up with new ideas, growing in new skill sets, creating streamlined processes, serving our authors at the highest level, and producing incredible books.

What type of person is a good fit for our team? 

  • Love to learn. Maybe you don’t know everything about books or publishing right now, but you’re eager to learn more. We will train you as best we can on all of our best practices, and you might find yourself figuring a few things out on your own, here and there.
  • Manage your own workflow. We are a dispersed team. There is no office. We work from home or wherever, as long as we keep up with our tasks.
  • Consistently meet deadlines. We work with authors who are launching books. There are real deadlines, and it’ll be up to you to hit your deadlines. If you miss deadlines, we will part ways, immediately.
  • Can be kind even when irritated. The truth is that we are serving clients during a stressful time in their lives—launching a book! Even when a client gets snippy, we are always kind in our conversations with them and with each other.
  • Respond well to feedback. We’re super encouraging, but if we need you to adjust the style or tone or work process, just know that it’s not personal, it’s just about finding the right support for our clients and our team.
  • Have a good sense of humor. We love sending each other gifs and cracking up at writers’ memes on Facebook. We want that light-heartedness to come through in all of our communication and content, too.
  • Want to grow with a team. When we find someone who works well with our team, we want to bring you in deeper for more projects and a variety of projects. We want to learn your strengths and interests and help your full potential to emerge in all of the work you do.

What’s required to work with our team?

  • You must have access to your own laptop and stable Internet.

If you’ve made it this far, then maybe you’re a good fit for our workflow and culture! Here are our current open positions:

OPEN POSITION: Project Assistant

Our publishing company, Paper Raven Books, is looking for a Project Assistant who enjoys interacting with people of all personalities, beliefs, and backgrounds, enjoys accomplishing the “backend business” tasks that make a company run successfully, and is eager to learn more about the modern publishing industry.

This is a growth position. To start, a Project Assistant will commit to 20 hours per week for the first two weeks, with the ability to grow into 40 hours, starting the third of working together, if everything is going well. The rate is $15/hour, which means $300 per week while working 20 hours, and $2,400 per month once working 40 hours per week. We love to promote internally, and there’ll be plenty of room to advance in responsibility and compensation.

In this role, you will:

  • Assist the Project Management team in initial project setups
  • Assist with scheduling and set-up of Facebook interviews, Zoom calls
  • Managing multiple calendars, call schedules, with various time zones
  • Manage file uploads/downloads of zoom recordings
  • Email sorting and responses
  • Voicemail sorting and responses
  • Assist with Review Team data tracking
  • Assist with prelaunch checklist (double-checking Amazon sales pages, scheduled promotions, etc.)
  • Posting team member messages (meeting reminders, announcements)
  • Capturing Amazon screenshots during launches
  • Call new clients for a quick “welcome”

Requirements to apply for this role:

  • Administrative and/or Assistant Experience
  • Complex Calendaring Experience
  • Laptop or desktop with a microphone and webcam
  • Reliable Internet
  • Availability during the business hours of 9am to 5pm in any US time zone, Monday to Friday

 

Interested?
>> Click here to start your application for our Project Assistant position. <<

 

OCCASIONALLY OPEN POSITION: Proofreader

Our proofreading happens in two main back-and-forth phases:

Phase 1: Proofreading the manuscript as a Word Document

  • Reference the style sheet that the copyeditor has prepared for this, particular manuscript, and add to the style sheet for any decisions you’re making around hyphenations, capitalizations, italics, etc, to make sure all decisions are consistent throughout the manuscript.
  • Track changes in Word, so the author can see all changes made.
  • Deliver a “tracked changes” version of the Word document and a “clean” version of the Word document, with all changes accepted. The author will read your tracked changes version and will work inside of the clean version.
  • Turnaround time is usually 30,000 to 45,000 words per week. If the manuscript is 90,000 words, you’ll have two weeks to proofread as a Word Document.
  • If there are any questions around your suggestions, you’ll be available to offer clarification or further suggestions via message in our project management system (Basecamp).

Phase 2: Proofing the PDF print file

  • After the book has been designed as a PDF, you’ll proof the full file before giving it back to the author.
  • You’ll be looking for:
    • Any lingering typos, errors, or inconsistencies in the text.
    • Visual consistency of chapter headings, subheadings, spacing, bullet points, widows, orphans, and any particular visual elements in the layout.
  • You’ll annotate the PDF with all of your suggested changes. The formatter will make all of those changes and send the print files back to the author.
  • If there are any questions around your suggestions, you’ll be available to offer clarification or further suggestions via message in our project management system (Basecamp).

There may be some other small tasks that we ask you to complete, as well, including:

  • Proofreading that back of the book copy, freebie included in the book, press kit, or other marketing materials and providing changes for the designer to implement.

You can see some sample files of what Phase 1 and Phase 2 look like here:
https://paperravenbooks.com/example_proofreader


In order to complete tasks as a proofreader, you will need a reliable Internet connection, laptop, Microsoft Word, and a PDF annotation software (like Preview or Adobe Acrobat).

You will also very likely be on multiple projects at once, so you’ll need to manage your own time and let our project manager know if the timing of the projects is doable for you when you’re brought into a new project. 

Interested?
>> Click here to start your application for our Proofreader position. <<

 

OCCASIONALLY OPEN POSITION: Formatter

Our formatting happens in several back-and-forth phases:

Phase 1: Chapter 1 Design in PDF and incorporate author’s changes

  • Take the front matter and first chapter of the book from the Word Document layout in InDesign. Take your design cues from the cover when choosing the typography.
  • Provide the PDF to the author to offer any feedback on the design you’ve suggested.
  • If there are any questions around your suggestions, you’ll be available to offer clarification or further suggestions via message in our project management system (Basecamp).

Phase 2: Full design in PDF and incorporate proofreader’s changes

  • After you have approval and have incorporated requests from the author, you’ll lay out the full book manuscript in a PDF.
  • Provide the PDF to the PROOFREADER (not the author, yet), so we can help catch any last changes in the text or visual layout.
  • Make all of the changes that the proofreader requests via annotations in the PDF.

Phase 3: Incorporate author’s changes

  • After you and the proofreader have made final round of changes, provide the PDF to the AUTHOR, so the author can make any final requests.
  • If there are any questions around your suggestions, you’ll be available to offer clarification or further suggestions via message in our project management system (Basecamp).

Phase 4: Convert to ebook

  • Convert the finished book files into .mobi or .epub

There may be some other small tasks that we ask you to complete, as well, including:

  • 3D mock-ups of the book cover
  • Simple visuals (circles, squares, charts) in the book interior

You can see some sample files of what these phases and tasks look like here:
https://paperravenbooks.com/example_formatter


In order to complete tasks as a formatter, you will need a reliable Internet connection, laptop, Microsoft Word, and a PDF annotation software (like Preview or Adobe Acrobat), InDesign, and Photoshop or similar.

You will also very likely be on multiple projects at once, so you’ll need to manage your own time and let our project manager know if the timing of the projects is doable for you when you’re brought into a new project. 

Interested?
>> Click here to start your application for our Formatter position. <<

 

OCCASIONALLY OPEN POSITION: Freelance Editor

We are often looking for good-fit freelance editors. We have a range of types of editing we do:

  • Manuscript reviews with high-level feedback
  • Developmental editing—sometimes called structural editing.
  • Copyediting—sometimes called line editing. We do heavy copyedits.
  • Proofreading, which includes the final proof of the PDF.

Our books are typically nonfiction, fiction, or memoir.

If we are looking for a new editor for our team, we’ll reach out and offer to start you on a couple of projects, where your work is reviewed by another editor on the team. We also ask our authors for feedback on their experience with you as an editor. If you receive good comments from the editorial team and the author, we’ll talk about moving you onto more projects.

This would be freelance, so you’d be able to take on the projects you want to work on and decline the projects you don’t want to work on. The more our team and our authors enjoy working with you, the more projects you’ll be offered. :)

Interested?
>> Click here to start your application for our next available Freelance Editor position. <<