If you’re an author publishing with a non-US house, you’ll want to pay close attention to this development. Richard Nash—former publisher at Soft Skull and known for his work at publishing startups such as Small Demons and Cursor—has teamed up with Emily Cook, the former marketing and publicity director at Milkweed Editions, to launch Cursor Marketing Services.
The mission of Cursor is to offer marketing and publicity support for international publishers distributing in the US who don’t have an on-the-ground presence in the US. Cursor’s client list already includes Canongate and Icon Books in the UK, Scribe in Australia, and Coach House Books in Canada.
We recently discussed with Nash the market need that drove him to create this offering, and he said that a UK agent buttonholed him at the Frankfurt Book Fair to tell him that English-language independent publishers were increasingly distributing (rather than licensing) in North America, and they needed help.
Nash says, “I knew immediately it wasn’t something I wanted to do on my own, but that Emily and I would be a great team—we’d admired one another’s book-slinging MO since the early 2000s. … Given Emily’s Anglophilia (she’s a dual national of the UK, and spent many summers as a kid in Australia), this was an even juicier opportunity.”
Cursor’s services emphasize a list-wide approach, and because Cursor is a publishing office, not just a PR office, they consult on areas such as backlist promotion. They also offer feedback on North American market opportunity for titles when the publisher is negotiating rights with the agent or when an agent is considering acquiring a book with a North American angle.
Bottom line: It’s unlikely most international authors would have the funds to hire Cursor directly if their publisher isn’t helping foot the bill, but Cursor can work to increase the North American sales of authors who are running an active business with significant existing global revenue. Nash says to keep an eye on the following Cursor titles—you’re likely to start hearing a lot about them in the coming six months: Emmanuel Macron’s autobiography, Revolution; Rick Gekoski’s debut novel, Darke; and Under the Lights and in the Dark, a nonfiction book about women’s soccer by Gwendolyn Oxenham.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
