Jobs

Bookseller - Part Time & Full Time

You must have retail experience, live local to Oxford (less than 1 hour from the shop), and be a genuine lover of the Romantasy genre to be considered for this role.

đź“Ť 29 Walton Street, Oxford, OX2 6AA
đź“š Romantasy lovers needed!

My name is Starlin and I started Bad Girl Books, and I am so excited to grow the BGB team! Bad Girl Books is a place that is community-focused and completely judgement-free. We stock anything from monster smut to dark romantasy to YA to the classics like ACOTAR! I’m looking to build a team of Romantasy-obsessed book lovers who love chatting about Romantasy books with customers and each other, are super proactive and enjoy a very busy, fast-paced and hands-on environment. It's important that you enjoy interacting with and meeting new people all day long!

The vibe of the shop is the most important thing: I’ve worked very hard to create an environment that feels accessible, fun, bright, calm, light-hearted and has absolutely no judgement (from book taste, to race, disabilities, gender, or anything else, it’s important that everyone feels included and welcome). People can come and be themselves, ask for the craziest recs, and have a fun time shopping and yapping which is my main goal!

This is an amazing opportunity to grow with the BGB brand, explore your passions, and I’ll be here to support you whether you want to grow within BGB or use this role as a stepping stone to your dream publishing career. You’ll be joining a brand new small business at a super exciting time with so much potential to grow within different parts of the brand if you’re ambitious!

The Role

Day-to-day you might be:

  • Giving specific book recommendations to customers based on their reading interests
  • Working on the till to check customers out
  • Unboxing and processing new deliveries and stock arrivals
  • Updating inventory on the website
  • Processing online orders
  • Helping with bookbinding in the stockroom
  • Suggesting gift ideas to customers who are buying for their friends or partners (it may not be Romantasy related and it may be someone random walking in off the street getting a last minute present for someone)
  • Helping set up the shop for an upcoming author event
  • Putting together goodie bags for an event
  • Creating a warm, energetic and welcoming shop atmosphere
  • Organising merchandise and books beautifully on the shop displays
  • Filming TikToks, Instagram stories or coming up with fun shop content ideas
  • Keeping the shop looking pretty, tidy and fully stocked!
  • Taking notes of customer requests that we don’t have, and flagging them to me to get ordered in

Looking for…

✨ A People Person

You genuinely enjoy talking to people. You’re confident, friendly and naturally bring positive energy into a room. You’ll also be able to remember key customers' names who come in again and again, remembering what books you recently sold them and being able to make specific recs for them. You’ll be able to balance chatting with customers and being efficient in all the tasks that need doing in the shop (this is important as I know first-hand how difficult it can be getting carried away talking about Rhysand for 40 minutes)!

🧚 Romantasy Obsessed

You LOVE Romantasy books, know your tropes, you’re a fast learner when it comes to sub-genres and remembering where books should be shelved in their specific niche categories in the shop, and you read Romantasy books constantly in your free time! You feel comfortable talking about books you haven't read and giving recommendations of sub-genres you perhaps haven't even read yourself yet. You are happy to memorise the synopses of the books in the shop, and be able to ask customers questions to find the perfect book for them.

đź’ˇ Proactive

You spot things that need doing and jump in without waiting to be asked, and you like to be busy! This role would be best suited for people who are energetic and keen to get involved in lots of different things throughout the day.

🎉 Excited By Startups

This isn’t a giant corporate retailer like Waterstones or Amazon, and this bookshop will be striving to create experiences in both our physical environment and product offering that helps people choose us over the big, cheaper competitors, when it comes to Romantasy books. I’m so proud that we’re an independent bookshop, and even more proud to be supporting a huge range of indie authors alongside big tradpub names and products from independent makers and other small businesses.

📱 Social Media Friendly

You don’t need to be an influencer - but being comfortable filming or appearing in content, as well as designing social media graphics on Instagram would be a big plus. Canva experience is great!

🛍 Retail or Customer-facing Experience

You must have experience in retail OR any front-of-house role, even if that was in a corporate environment. We're looking for people who are professional, friendly, and comfortable spending a full day chatting to people!

Important Notes

  • Part-time and full-time positions available
  • Based in Oxford
  • Weekend and Christmas availability is a MUST
  • All contracts are currently zero-hours while we build our core team.

Perks?

Besides being able to be surrounded by Romantasy books all day (the dream hehe), you’ll get lots of other fun benefits including:

  • đź“š Unlimited free Romantasy books (yep, unlimited! You’ll be able to choose one paperback book at a time, and as soon as you’ve read it, you can take another! There is no cap, and the goal is to help all our booksellers get to know as many books as possible that we offer so you can give the best recommendations to customers. We have an excel spreadsheet where the team tries to try read different books from each other and cover as much ground as possible! There will be over 2,000 books in the bookshop so quite a lot for us all to get to know!)
  • 🧢 FREE employee uniform based on how many days a week you work (cap, sweatshirt, t shirt, etc.)!
  • 🏷️ Staff discount of 30% off the entire shop including books, special editions and merch
  • đź“– Access to ARCs (advance reader copies of books not yet released)
  • 🎉 Regular team socials including holiday parties and more
  • 🎟️ Access to all events at the bookshop (author signings, Q&A’s, festivals and more)
  • 🎀 Being part of a friendly, fun and passionate team!
  • ✨ Working closely with the owner (Starlin) where you can learn a LOT about the publishing industry and different aspects of a small business in the book world

SIDE NOTE: If you are a Type A personality, this would be a huge plus! It’s important that the BGB booksellers are super tidy, organised, able to multi-task without getting distracted, and be proactive. If you have these qualities, please mention this in your application.

To Apply:

Please fill out this application form to be considered: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdvpB4KYn4D6WkEPI0DPzvwmg-HV1yI_BODbMbTKNKFEjRFBg/viewform?usp=dialog 

 Apply now