If you haven't actually read Amy Sutherland's "Modern Love" essay detailing "what Shamu taught me about a happy marriage," chances are you've at least heard about it, either when it was the most e-mailed article in America or when the book based on the article came out last month. Now, Sutherland talks to mediabistro.com about how that book deal came together after the article appeared that Sunday morning:

"Within the first week, I was getting emails from movie producers and editors. So by that Wednesday my agent, Jane Chelius, said, 'You better start working on your proposal.' ...I had to do the proposal really fast, though, because Viking [which published Sutherland's first two books] had the right of first refusal. And we suspected they would turn it down, because my editor had retired. So Jane wanted to get it to Viking as fast as possible so they could have their pass at it and we could get it out to other publishers... Jane wanted the proposal in editors' hands while I was on the Today show, which was scheduled for the first week of August."

After that, she adds, the tricky part was convincing editors that there could be more to the book than what had already appeared in the Times...

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