Publishing Sales Representative

FlatWorld Publishing Sales Representative - Western/Upstate New York

FlatWorld · Buffalo, United States (Hybrid) · Full-time · Posted 2026-09-09

Salary: USD 55,000–65,000

Workplace: hybrid

Department: Sales - Higher-ed

Description

We are FlatWorld and we are disrupting the Higher Education textbook industry.

About the company

Our mission is to bring textbook prices back down to earth. College faculty and students are our customers. We make their lives easier by ensuring that students have access to our high-quality, digital-first textbooks, at prices they can afford. 

Adoption of FlatWorld’s affordable, high-quality digital-first textbooks and the online Homework system has grown tremendously: we have been the fastest growing publisher in our market for the past five years. We want you to join our sales team as we continue to grow by helping instructors provide engaging digital products to their students.

About the job and team

As a Sales Representative, you are critical to persuading faculty in your territory to make the move to FlatWorld textbooks and the Homework system. Great relationships depend on great people and you are the face of FlatWorld.

Starting with a clear strategy and an effective plan for maximizing your time, energy, and resources, you will uncover opportunities and identify who’s making the textbook decision. You will use Salesforce to create and update account and contact information. You will search College and University websites to find teaching assignments for upcoming semesters, and faculty information. You will also search College and University bookstore websites to determine products currently in use for the courses you target as sales opportunities. 

You will follow-up with Instructors teaching targeted courses using email, calls, and Google Meet or Zoom to close the sale. During the course of the sales process you will be demoing FlatWorld’s assessment platform and associated suite of products using a consultative sales methodology.  You will then work with Instructors who adopt FlatWorld products and our Customer Success team, to ensure that everything is in place for students to purchase our textbooks at the start of the semester.

We are committed to providing our customers with A+ service. Relationships with existing FlatWorld faculty in your territory are an important way to find new prospects and to generate referrals. Your highest priority, however, given our rapid growth, is driving new business: You will be compensated generously based on new revenue generated, with no cap on commissions earned.

Requirements

About you

You will be a good fit for this job if you have some prior sales skills and higher education experience (we would also encourage transitioning teachers to apply).  You absolutely have:

· Strategic skills to triage a large territory

· Relentless hunger for new business

· Tenacity to see a sale through to the end

· Motivation to reshape an industry

You will initially join a team of Publishing Sales Representatives, and you will work remotely during training and your ramp period. You need to be comfortable working autonomously, while maintaining a strong sense of urgency.

After the initial training and working with your manager, you will have an opportunity to begin working in the field on campus.  You will need to be prepared to spend 2 to 3 days a week traveling to the top institutions in your territory during the sales seasons, which are typically 8 to 12 week periods in the fall and spring . After these primary sales seasons you will continue to work from home as you look to handle administrative tasks and prepare for the next sales season.

Critical Functions

· Create and execute a territory plan, focusing on larger, Tier 1 accounts in your territory.  Maintain good relationships with current textbook adopters. 

· Work to uncover opportunities, both by responding promptly to marketing-led, inbound inquiries, and by directly identifying Opportunities at Tier 1 Accounts, and communicating our mission, value proposition and solutions to prospective customers

· Attain and surpass your sales goal, by building relationships, growing and expanding awareness of FlatWorld as an alternative, listening for faculty friction points and issues with their current textbook choice and diagnosing and persuading those faculty to make the move to FlatWorld

· Develop your skills and refine your selling approach independently: synthesize and apply information and input from peers, management and sales tools and reports, to identify ever-better approaches to drive new revenue in your territory

· Manage company resources with compliance to standards, including company laptop, additional equipment as required, and marketing collateral

· Client facing role

· Required to live in territory

· Requires 40+ hours per week (Monday - Friday)

Qualifications

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

· Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited four year college or university

· Superior listening, oral and written communication skills in English

· Excellent organization and follow through skills

· Accomplished range of skills from strategic thinking to creative and detailed execution

· You should be very comfortable with technology and learning new tools. We operate in a Mac environment and you will be using sales tools, systems and software such as Google Meet, Zoom, Salesforce, Slack, Google Suite. 

· Ability to forge relationships internally and externally

· Ability to work with and maintain a sense of urgency

Start Date: Open

Annual Base Pay: $55,000 - $65,000

Supplemental Pay: Uncapped Commissions

Benefits

• 401(k)
• Dental insurance
• Disability insurance
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Mileage reimbursement
• Paid time off
• Travel reimbursement
• Vision insurance
• Remote role

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