Positions Available: updated March 2026

Opportunity to Join the Guildford Book Festival Board of Trustees

The annual Guildford Book Festival has a mission to  celebrate the best writing, encourage new authors and share a love of reading.  We are a registered Charity and deliver an outreach programme to local schools involving over 5000 students. 

The Festival faces challenges to drive tickets sales and deliver a sustainable Festival in an increasingly competitive marketplace. We now need 2 Trustees with expertise and enthusiasm in one of two main areas. 

Firstly, to strengthen our capacity in areas including marketing, fundraising/income generation projects.

Secondly we rely on a wonderful team of Volunteers and need a Trustee to become a central point of contact.

The Board meets monthly for 2 hours.  Preparation and follow up take about half a day and longer at certain times of the year or to achieve deadlines.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please email:

Volunteers@guildfordbookfestival.co.uk

Please include in the subject line ‘Board of Trustees Position’.

Marketing & Audience Development Assistant Freelance Opportunity

Guildford Book Festival (GBF) is a registered charity. To ensure our sustainability and impact, we need to increase ticket sales, build new partnerships and diversify our audiences. We are looking for an experienced professional to work with Alex Andrews, Festival Director, and the Trustees to implement the Guildford Book Festival Marketing Strategy and Plan and provide admin support to Alex in the main festival in October. Our goal is to increase ticket sales by 30% (2,100 tickets sold compared with 1,600 in 2025).

Services required:

·       Update and maintain the GBF website www.guildfordbookfestival.co.uk, including information about the book festival events and our schools outreach programme.

·       Populate festival templates (which will be provided) to use in posts, ads and newsletters.

·       Produce and distribute copy and content for social media posts.

·       Send out festival marketing emails using Mailchimp.

·       Increase subscriptions to GBF’s mailing list (by competitions/collaborations).

·       Create and exploit a database of contacts for multiplier communities (e.g. book club newsletter editors).

·       Provide admin support to Alex in the main festival as required.

Essential experience and skills 

• Online marketing experience, ideally linked to events, including running paid-for advertising online. 

• Knowledge of digital marketing and social media tools and best practice to engage and drive sales. 

• Ability to create engaging and creative content using tools such as Canva and CapCut. 

• Ability to use Mailchimp, Eventbrite, Squarespace, MetaBusiness and Google Forms. 

• Effective IT, organisational and administration skills to meet timelines and deadlines. 

This role will suit a positive, proactive and flexible person who is creative and solution-focussed and can meet tight deadlines while working with attention to detail. Someone who is passionate about marketing and the arts and enjoys working across multiple projects and with a diverse range of stakeholders.

Location and Key Dates:

• This is a flexible, remote working opportunity but the consultant will be located close to Guildford.

• The required commitment is March to the end of October 2026.

• The main activity will be July to September, driving prospects to the ticketing site for the main festival in October. Some engagement will be required in the first half of October to maintain momentum for ticket sales, including admin support for Alex at events.

• The role will also support ticket sales for a small number of events in April, May and June while developing content for social media distribution and building databases.

To apply:

Please email an application to alexandrews@guildfordbookfestival.co.uk by 15th March 2026

• Your interest in this opportunity, relevant prior experience and an outline of how you would structure a campaign over this timeframe to meet the brief (max 500 words).

• Please include your CV.

• Provide links to relevant example of your marketing work.

We offer:

·       An estimated hourly rate of £18 paid by monthly invoice up to £3,600 - £4,000 (equating roughly to 200 hours) over the course of the engagement. We are open to paying this in the form of a monthly retainer with an agreement that variations in hours worked will average out over the course of the assignment.

·       The consultant will be responsible for his/her tax and NICs.