How did an 18-year-old college student in Maryland gain the trust of and get access to TV executives and anchors in New York? “By posting 10 or 15 posts a day meant that the industry knew it was a reliable consistent source,” says Brian Stelter, creator of our sister site TVNewser and now a media reporter for the New York Times and author of the just released book “Top of the Morning.”

As he neared graduation, Stelter had to make a choice: work in TV news, or cover it.

• Part I: Stelter on Being Matt Lauer’s “nemesis”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The journo wrote a feature story for the New York Daily News about how the relationship book The Rules wouldn’t work for black women and, by 3:00 p.m. that day, Millner had landed a book deal for that very subject. Since then, she’s penned 21 titles, including Steve Harvey‘s bestseller, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man.

“It opened doors for me for other projects, because when other celebrities are considering who should write their book, they’re going to see my representation and my reputation as a writer,” Millner told Mediabistro about the runaway hit. “You know, New York Times-bestselling writer and top-selling book of 2009 is a hell of a calling card. In some other ghostwriting projects, my name hasn’t even been on the spine or the title page, but I try my best to negotiate that so that somebody knows I wrote it besides my family. It opens a lot of doors for more work, which is kind of awesome. It’s all any writer can ask.”

For more, read So What Do You Do, Denene Millner, Co-Author of Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In the latest Mediabistro feature, she talks about her writing process and gives tips to fellow journos who want to write a book. Below, an excerpt:

You interviewed more than 1,200 individuals. What skills do you possess that made people feel comfortable sharing their stories and information?

I always go into interviews with a great sense of gratitude for the courage it takes to share one’s story, particularly one so painful and heartbreaking, things that they had deep within themselves and had just gotten to the point of being able to share. So I think being an empathic listener, someone who was truly wanting to understand what they had endured — those are things I think they could pick up and sense in me. I also think they felt I had a sense of connection with them.

For more, read Hey, How’d You Write a New York Times Nonfiction Bestseller, Isabel Wilkerson? [Mediabistro AvantGuild subscription required]

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

According to the press release:

This agreement enables Borders customers, for the first time, to enjoy the customized network of news, entertainment and topically-relevant local content available only through the Ripple network, as well as original Borders content.

You might know Ripple from such entertainment hotspots as Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Jack in the Box and Tully’s.

But this will be the first time that the network (which traffics in original content, as well as stuff from E! Entertainment, Yahoo! News and The New York Times) will broadcast their offerings from a bookstore.

A bookstore.

For anyone wondering what this will mean to people who look to books and periodicals as a means of escaping the constant din of the boob tube, look no further than this.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.