By Joshua Kurlantzick in the New York Times:
"Like many aspiring authors, Marrit Ingman had a tough time convincing publishers that her big book idea—a wry, downbeat memoir of postpartum depression—could sell.
"I had to convince the publisher that an audience for the topic really did exist," said Ms. Ingman, a Texas-based freelance journalist. "The big publishers kept telling us that mothers only wanted prescriptive or 'positive' books about being a parent."
But Ingman had her own persuader: her Web log. She'd been writing it for two years and had attracted a following of mothers.
"I turned to readers of my blog," she said. "I asked them to comment on whether a book like mine would be relevant to them. Readers wrote back expressing why they wanted to read about the experience of maternal anger. I stuck their comments into my proposal as pulled quotes."
Her readers were convincing. She and her agent, Jim Hornfischer, sold her memoir, "Inconsolable," to Seal Press in August. "The blog showed publishers she was committed to the subject matter and already had an audience," Hornfischer said."
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