How Emma Heptonstall turned divorce coaching into a business and a bestselling book
I love interviewing clients who have published their book, but sometimes success doesn’t happen quickly. But there’s always an exception to the rule! Emma Heptonstall’s book helped her to grow her business before she even published it. This new client case study explores Emma’s book writing journey and how her book has impacted on her business and her readers since publishing it in the summer of 2017.
Divorce coach Emma Heptonstall discusses her journey to publishing How To Be A Lady Who Leaves
Emma Heptonstall never set out to be a divorce coach and has never been married. In fact, she spent twenty years happily single and practising family law in her home town of York. But Emma couldn’t help noticing the fact that women did not have a level playing field when it came to divorce. Emma said: “The UK marriage laws were written in the late 1800s, and the language is riddled with misogyny; it definitely leans towards ‘witch-hunting’ the women who want to leave the family. 21% of women interviewed recently said they had considered and then rejected leaving their marriage, because it was too complicated, financially and legally. That’s a huge number of women stuck in hard, and some harmful, marriages.”
Smarter financial and emotional decisions
Emma wanted to help women take some control back. She continued: “A lot of women who came to talk to me about divorce didn’t seem to have a true grip on where they stood financially, emotionally or legally. I thought: it’s the 21st century! Can’t we do better that this? But there is still a huge stigma around a woman wanting to ‘break up’ her family. I saw my new job as working with women to help them decide if leaving is right for them, and if so, how can they do that in a family centred (Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin and their conscious uncoupling had a point…) and cost effective way.”
Grabbing a slice of a new market
Gwyneth and Chris’s ‘new age’ divorce statement went viral and how to divorce became a headline topic. Emma felt she could grab a slice of the market, and when she began to blog about her work, her natural empathy and razor sharp legal brain shone through.
As interest gathered, Emma realized that she had a lot of raw content forming and perhaps a book would be a great way to help establish herself in the market. Emma had originally met Karen Williams who had spoken at a local networking event. She quickly felt their styles would complement, and knew that Karen was the right person to help her with her book.
Writing made easy
“Karen and her Librotas team made writing a business book hassle-free,” Emma continued. “Karen has published five books herself, and she has done so whilst running and growing a business, so she very much understood my goals and how publishing this book was a way for me to gather pace and establish some unique selling points about my coaching,” Emma continued. “Karen also knows the dos and don’ts when publishing a book inside out, and she has a trusted and professional team with an editor, designer, typesetter, publisher and marketing support to call upon. This meant I could concentrate on my writing and that her team would take care of everything else.”
Karen and Emma spent a couple of intensive days up front to nail the structure and key messages of the book so that Emma was clear on what she wanted to convey, but the full manuscript was completed in a few months.
An Amazon bestseller and a unique sales tool
How To Be A Lady Who Leaves was launched in April 2016. It immediately reached the Amazon bestseller spot and an inventive PR campaign by Bookollective quickly ensured headlines were grabbed.
“I got PR in all the major newspapers, radio and women’s magazines in the UK and even hit New York!” Emma enthused. “The buzz really helped establish divorce coaching as ‘a thing’. It was great – the leads came flooding in. The coverage also meant I got a great profile on Google and climbed high up the search engine listings, which I am sure has helped continuous sales and profile. This helped me when I was building my online divorce coaching programme, talking to women all over the world and building support networks.
“Writing this book and making the move to divorce coaching has been life changing. It looks like UK law might be finally catching up with me too, if the ‘no fault’ divorce law is finally passed after Brexit. Let’s see. But I am here for my ladies, no matter what.”
Key business benefits to writing a book
- Emma’s book established her credibility in the market place and helped her grab a slice of a growing coaching sector.
- The book proved a great sales and marketing tool and helped Emma establish an online programme of paying clients.
- An inventive PR campaign about the book grabbed Emma news headlines around the world, which helped drive business and awareness before and after the book was published.
Find out more about working with Librotas at http://www.librotas.com.