Want to Write a Book?

In a survey done about ten years ago, 81% of Americans said that they wanted to write a book. But the publishing business is struggling more now than ever before and the chances of getting anything published are becoming bleaker.

However, I have noticed a trend that I think deserves mentioning.

If you want to have your book published, start writing a blog. If you can attract a huge online crowd to your blog every month, advertisers will come knocking and a book deal just might be in your future!

One of the first to be successful at this was French blogger Clotilde Dusoulier, whose cooking blog, Chocolate & Zucchini, has led to two books--and retirement from her computer software engineer job.

Check it out {here}.

And {here}.

And it might lead to a movie deal, too, as Julie Powell discovered. (In this unusual case, the movie was truly better than the book or the blog, in my opinion.) If you are interested in the book, Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously you might want to have Legacy's friend edit it first with her black marker.

Most people have heard of the Pioneer Woman.

She's published three books!

--a cookbook

--her true-life love story with her husband, the Marlboro Man

(It had to be good to convince her to give up her big-city ways and move to a ranch in the boonies.)

--a picture book about her dog, Charlie

Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl by Ree Drummond {here}.

The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels--A Love Story {here}.

Charlie the Ranch Dog {here}.

Her love story has been optioned for a film. Reese Witherspoon has signed on to play the lead. Yay!

There are quite a few food bloggers who have been successful:

Julia Parson, a British self-taught cook. Her food blog, A Slice of Cherry Pie,  led to her book by the same name {here}.

And Molly Wizenberg's blog led to something even better than a book deal. One of her fans became a friend and then a husband! Here they are in the restaurant they started together.

A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg

I liked this book! I've found that I like reading about cooking more than I like actually doing it, though I enjoy that sometimes, too.

You don't have to be a fabulous cook to have a fabulous blog (and book). Christina Haupert's expertise is healthy living.

Carrots 'N' Cake: Healthy Living One Carrot and Cupcake at a Time

And Shauna Reid is an expert at losing weight and keeping it off. (And I've heard she's very funny.)

Amazing Adventures of DietGirl by Shauna Reid {here}.

Serena Thompson is one of my favorite people that I don't actually know. Her blog came after her Farm Chicks Antiques Show became wildly popular in Washington--a little different road to success.

She grew up in a hippie gypsy wagon, traveling around the U.S and then settling in a tiny cabin in the California woods. She had no electricity, no running water, no refrigeration. She learned to cook on a wood stove and sew on a treadle sewing machine. She learned to use her own creativity and ingenuity to make something special from ordinary items.

I like her sunny attitude, her deep appreciation of life, and how she finds beauty in the simplest things.

Her two books:

The Farm Chicks in the Kitchen: Live Well, Laugh Often, Cook Much by Serena Thompson and
Teri Edwards {here}.

The Farm Chicks Christmas: Merry Ideas for the Holidays {here}.

She was featured in this book:

Signature Styles: 20 Stitchers Craft Their Look by Jenny Doh {here}.
She was featured in this magazine (where you can see a picture of the hippie gypsy van her father built):
Where Women Cook {here}

One of my favorite blogs is 71 Toes. The author, Shawni Eyre Pothier, is a talented photographer and a lovely mother of five children. She named her blog 71 Toes because her youngest child was born with an extra toe--and a rare genetic syndrome which leads to blindness. She wrote a beautiful book about mothering with her own mother:

A Mother's Book of Secrets: Keys to Making Motherhood Memorable, Meaningful, and Magnificent by Linda J Eyre and Shawni Eyre Pothier {here}.

This list of books by bloggers is not comprehensive. If you're interested in learning about more bloggers-turned-published-authors, Stephanie O'Dea, a blogger at A Year of Slow Cooking and author of two cookbooks, wrote a post about blogger books {here}.

So for you would-be authors: get blogging!