SINGLE AT HEART by Bella DePaulo (Apollo)

Bella DePaulo's SINGLE AT HEART: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life shows the benefits and beauty in single life and pushes back against the societal notion that being uncoupled is synonymous with unhappiness. More so than many books we work on, this one had a specific, clearly defined target reader: single people who are doing just fine being unpartnered. While we often try to expand a book’s potential audience, this campaign was all about relentlessly targeting the people we knew would be responsive to the message.

To that end, we placed many personal essays from DePaulo, knowing that her voice and experience as a fulfilled longtime single person would resonate. We also pitched extensively to media that skewed a little older and a little more female. The book struck a chord. We landed tons of media attention, the first printing quickly sold out, and DePaulo received dozens of heartfelt personal letters from readers who felt validated after reading her work.

The success of SINGLE AT HEART’s publication was spotlighted in Jane Friedman’s popular publishing-world website in a piece called “Agents and Editors Aren’t Always Right About Market Potential.” We were thrilled to see a nice shout-out to our work in the piece.