How two sisters built a book coaching business – Booksmith Academy | A Creative Life
Sisters and book coaches Kate Beddow (right) and Jen Moore (left).
A Creative Life is an interview series looking at the road less travelled. You’ll hear from artists, writers and other creative practitioners and learn about their paths to discovering a new sense of freedom through a creative project or business.
Learn how book coaches Kate Beddow and Jen Moore built Booksmith Academy to inspire people to write their own nonfiction books
Throughout their adult lives, sisters Kate Beddow and Jen Moore have always been close, even when they’ve lived far apart. Kate is a writing coach and former teacher and Jen is a copyeditor and content writer – both with decades of experience running their own businesses as sole traders.
Over the years, Kate and Jen often toyed with the idea of working together. For a while, they thought about opening a bookshop together. Other times, they flirted with the idea of a craft shop and cafe.
But the possibility of building something together never went beyond idle daydreaming. That was until they stumbled upon an idea that would combine both their strengths and give something truly valuable and joyful to other people too.
In 2023, they founded their company Booksmith Academy.
Booksmith Academy is a book coaching company where Kate and Jen host group programmes, workshops and online writing challenges to help people hone their craft and – finally – write their own books.
What did you do before launching Booksmith Academy?
Kate first began her career as a primary school teacher. “I suppose I was helping people to write but in a much more simple way,” she says.
“Then I took a very long, meandering path and eventually became a journal therapist. I’ve always used writing to heal myself and didn’t realise that it was something I could do for a job. So, it seemed like the perfect combination of all the things I’m passionate about. I wanted to help people with mental health challenges and processing emotions using words, books, poems and journaling.”
Since then, Kate has been featured in magazines, interviewed on national radio and even gave a TEDx Talk on how a lack of creative writing can affect children’s wellbeing.
Kate Beddow giving a TEDx Talk.
Jen, on the other hand, graduated with a language and linguistics degree and initially planned on becoming a journalist. “Then I realised that it was actually quite formulaic and prescriptive. I did some work experience and I was just like, ‘Nope. This isn’t for me.’”
She realised that another path into working with words would be to get her foot in the door in the publishing industry. After working in a production team at a publisher, Jen started dropping hints that she wanted to train to be a copyeditor. She had the opportunity to do just that at a small publishing house in Leeds.
“I haven’t put a number on it for a while but that was 20-odd years ago. So, I’ve been primarily copyediting for that time and, for the last 13 or so years, I’ve been doing it on a self-employed basis and brought in the content writing side of things a couple of years ago.”
Jen Moore headshot.
How did the journey to Booksmith Academy begin?
Before the sisters launched their business, Kate was with schools, delivering wellbeing and writing workshops to children, and then the pandemic hit.
“It was actually a friend of ours — a clairvoyant and medium — who sparked the idea…”
“The world was turned upside down and I started looking at other ways that I was going to work,” she says. “I’d been offering journal therapy and coaching and that sort of thing for a couple of years and it was actually a friend of ours — a clairvoyant and medium — who sparked the idea.”
“She was talking to me one day and she just said, ‘Why do you and Jen not work together?’ And I was like, ‘How would we work together?’ And she said, ‘It’s so obvious to me that you and Jen need to create something where Jen does the sort of technical writing side and helps people with the writing style and you help them with the wellbeing and the blocks and the mental struggles.’”
What Kate’s friend had just described was a book coaching business.
This conversation struck a chord with Kate. She was on holiday with her family – as was Jen at the same time – and she couldn’t shake this new idea.
“I got in touch with Jen and I said, ‘I know you’re on holiday but can we just have a really quick chat? Because there’s something that I can’t get out of my head.’ And I thought she was going to say no. But to my surprise and joy, she jumped at the chance and said, ‘Yeah! Why not? It's about time I push myself out my comfort zone.’ And within six months, we had created the programme and had our first intake.”
The idea appealed to Jen so much because it involved coaching people on how to write their own book and “it had overtones of teaching and that’s something has Kate done – something all our family had done but I didn’t seem to get that gene. It’s something that I feel I have had a very quick course in during the last few months. But it has been good in that sense. And yeah, it made sense for us to come together in a way that we hadn’t before.”
Jen says this wasn’t the first time someone spiritually-minded had suggested the two sisters should collaborate professionally.
“We’d actually been to a holistic reiki healer years and years ago. She said at some point we were going to work together. Ever since, we’d been thinking about how that might be but we just couldn’t connect the dots. Nothing clicked until the idea for Booksmith Academy came along.”
What’s it like working with your sister?
There can be lots of pros to having a family business. When you work with people you love and trust unconditionally, it can make communication and problem-solving a lot easier. But challenges can occur too when the dynamic changes from being just siblings to being siblings and colleagues. I was curious to know how the experience had been for Kate and Jen.
Jen says, “So, it’s great. It really is great. And there are things that we have decided on that we thought would take ages when in fact, because we know each other so well, they’ve been resolved really quickly. We really work together as a team. We haven’t always – you know, we’re sisters, we’re two years apart and there have been ups and downs in our lives, for sure – but we’re probably at the stage where we get on the best we ever have and that’s not changed or been spoiled because we’re in business together.”
Where the sisters sometimes struggle is that they’ve both run their own businesses and sharing that responsibility can be difficult, Jen explains.
“There’s still sometimes that big sister-little sister dynamic. Personality-wise, Kate’s always been the more maternal and protective and that falls onto me in our relationship a bit as well because I’ve not had the confidence, like she has, to push myself with this particular venture from the off. It’s been something that’s grown for me. I have needed to have my hand held a bit by her. So, in that sense, that dynamic hasn’t changed.”
Kate admits she and Jen had spats when they were kids. “But from leaving home, we’ve always been really close, even though geographically there’s a distance now. But I think it’s great because we can almost read each other’s thoughts.”
Quite often, one sister will suggest something that the other has already thought of. In that way, Kate and Jen are very in sync and complement each other well. Kate is the yin and Jen’s yang and vice versa.
“We just want to help each other and grow something really special.”
Kate says, “We tend to do things in a similar way and there’s not that awkwardness you can sometimes get in partnerships. We’re both quite people-pleasing in our approach to life. But we know that we’re not going to upset or offend each other when we have an opinion on something. If there’s something that one of us does and the other one doesn’t like it, which doesn’t happen often, there’s no worry about broaching the subject. We just want to help each other and grow something really special.”
Jen adds that deciding on the company name is a prime example. They agreed on Booksmith Academy almost immediately. They both knew they wanted to include Smith, with that being their family name, and it clicked instantly.
How did you start building the business?
From the initial idea, things took off quickly.
Kate says that when she called Jen to first discuss the idea, she had only been away on holiday for three days during the Easter break. By the time she got home, they’d bought the domains, set up social media pages and started building their website. Everything snowballed from there.
“By the time we got to the summer,” Kate says, “we'd got the website all set up and we were starting to talk to people about the course that we were starting in October. Looking back now, I don’t know how on earth we did it. And we were really lucky. We got six people for our first intake and we’ve got just the best group of people.”
“We’re absolutely loving working with them all. And now we’re starting to have a little bit of breathing space to think of other ideas. So, we've got a new accountability group and we're starting to have a bit of time to play with it and more time to have a bit more fun with the business now.”
What’s been the most rewarding part of running this business?
“I think, for me, the most rewarding part so far has been watching Jen grow – which probably sounds really patronising,” Kate says. They both have a chuckle at this. “But watching her go from saying, ‘I don’t know if I can teach people’ to being really confident on the live sessions and talking onstage at York Literature Festival, seeing that side of her that I always knew was there, has just been great.”
Jen agrees and says that pushing herself out of her comfort zone has been one of the best parts for her. “And the fact that we’re creating something really special between the two of us – that’s definitely number one – but on the more personal side, it’s been facing my fear and doing it anyway.”
Watching the community form and relationships build between the people in The Book Forge has also been a huge highlight for Kate and Jen too. “Bringing people together and seeing their confidence grow in their writing has been lovely,” Kate says.
Kate and Jen onstage at York Literature Festival.
What is the Book Forge?
Jen says, “We have a signature book coaching programme called The Book Forge which is open to anyone who wants to write a nonfiction book, whether that be life writing like a memoir or biography or a how-to or self-help book.”
This programme lasts for a full 12 months but Jen explains it’s completely flexible. Every month, there’s a live session run by Jen on language, writing and technical-based content and a live session run by Kate on wellbeing, overcoming mental blocks and mindfulness writing.
“There are three different levels of membership so that you can find the level and the type of commitment you want,” Jen says. “And we run writing challenges and visibility challenges on social media for writers as well. We also recently started an accountability group so people can start prioritising a particular project.”
What are your plans for the future of Booksmith Academy?
Jen explains that they’d like to create an evergreen on-demand version of The Book Forge, in addition to the live 12-month programme. “It’ll take time to build the content but that’s definitely on the wish list.”
“My daughter’s certainly hoping that we’ll branch out into doing fiction,” Kate adds. “She’s going into her final year of a creative writing degree next year. She’s thinking she might be able to step in and help if we start doing more creative writing things. So, maybe one day we’ll offer a fiction version of The Book Forge as well.”
What is your piece of Creative Life advice?
As I ask everyone I talk to for this interview series, I asked Kate and Jen what piece of advice they would give to anyone who is toying with the idea of starting a creative business or passion project.
“If it’s something that you feel strongly enough about for it to keep coming back into your head, you’ve just got to do it,” Kate says. “I think from being a really young child, I’ve known that I wanted to write a book and it seemed like a totally unachievable dream. But I know now that I’m gonna do it.”
“…what car you drive, where you go on holiday, how big your house is – all of that doesn’t matter if you don’t enjoy what you do. You can’t live for the weekend.”
She says, “Life’s too short and I think everything that’s happened in the world in the last few years has made a lot of people realise that it doesn’t matter what car you drive, where you go on holiday, how big your house is – all of that doesn’t matter if you don’t enjoy what you do. You can’t live for the weekend.”
“I would add to that: do it for yourself but do it with other people,” Jen says. “Even though we’ve both been self-employed for years, I think we both probably would’ve gone mad if we hadn’t had a community of similar-minded people who we could talk to, share ideas with, problem solve with and be inspired by, both online and in-person. It can be lonesome stepping out on your own, so it’s nice to know there are other people in the same position.”
If you have a nonfiction book inside you that’s desperate to get out onto the page, Kate and Jen are welcoming the next intake for The Book Forge in October.
Where to find Booksmith Academy
Wanna learn more about Kate and Jen? Or explore the book coaching options on offer with Booksmith Academy? Here are all the links you’ll need:
Website: https://booksmithacademy.com/
Instagram: @booksmithacademy
TikTok: @booksmithacademy
Kate’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/katebeddow/
Jen’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jen-moore-3a35b736/
Reading list
Check out the Booksmith Academy book recommendations:
Kate’s choices: Writing as a Way of Healing by Louise Desalvo (nonfiction) and The Book Thief by Marks Zusak (fiction).
Jen’s choices: Strong Female Character by Fern Brady (nonfiction) and The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne (fiction).
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