One other difference between jobs in educational publishing and those in publications that are aimed at the general reading public as a whole is that there may be a different focus as far as the background of those obtaining positions within the educational publishing industry. This difference of course is that one is much more likely to both be interested in a position in educational publishing as well as have a background in the educational field. This is for obvious reasons; there are specific criteria to which the publications produced by an educational publishing company must adhere, and grounding in the standards and practices of educational institutions is helpful. This is particularly true of certain departments within an educational publishing company. That said, much of the work of an educational publisher is by and large identical to that performed at any other publishing company.
Jobs in educational publishing include all of the positions one would expect at any publishing company: layout personnel, typesetters, graphic artists and editors, as well as various and sundry production positions. The following are some of the positions which educational publishers tend to have open.
Typesetters
These are the personnel whose positions concern the physical layout of books or other publications. They tend to work with industry standard publication software, such as Adobe InDesign or PageMaker and Quark (if the publishing company uses Macintosh-based systems for the production of their publications). Their duties include proper text wrapping and ensuring that graphics and photographs can be seamlessly integrated into the publications.
Editors
Much as in any other area of publishing, an editor's job is to (often) proofread and edit material for the publication, working to ensure clarity and (since this is often a concern in educational publishing) age-appropriateness. In education publishing jobs, editors may often have a background in education.
Project Managers
A position which is often somewhat nebulous in its exact duties, the project manager here, as in any other industry, has the task of breaking down a job into manageable pieces, assigning the pieces to different departments, and keeping track of the progress of the project to ensure that work is being completed in a timely manner and on budget. Their work is vital to ensuring that the publications are completed on schedule.
Graphic Designers/Graphic Artists
These people produce artwork for the publications of the educational publishing company by whom they are employed and are also in many cases responsible for the layout of graphic elements within the publications. Other than graphic design and image editing software, these personnel also use InDesign, Quark, and other layout tools in order to perform their duties.
Sales and Marketing Staff
No publishing company, regardless of their niche, could continue to be a viable business concern without a sales force handling sales and client relations. An educational background is very helpful to these employees in particular, since their work consists largely of communicating with education professionals and the administrative personnel of educational institutions at the local and state level. They need to be informed of the standards in place from school district to school district within their target market.
There are of course many other positions which are possible within the field of educational publishing, far more than there is room to describe in this article. The positions listed here do not go into more senior level positions within educational publishing, nor the many jobs in educational publishing which fall into the broad categories given here (for example, editorial assistant, editorial director, marketing director, web publishing jobs, etc.). Some educational publishing companies even employ in-house writing staff; these are great positions for skilled copywriters with a background or strong interest in the field of education. Positions available in educational publishing may also vary greatly from company to company. However, the positions listed in this article may give you an idea of where to begin when seeking employment in educational publishing and provide you with an idea of what to expect. The skill set required for most of these educational publishing jobs is much the same as that which would prepare you for a position in any area of the publishing industry, with the added factor of knowledge and interest in the world of education.
