Susie Arnett is a writer and producer in Los Angeles, CA and contributed to our newsletter with 6 Tips on the Yoga of Making Media. Here she shares how she was able to publish yoga book, Born Yogis.

"The yoga market is completely saturated," the literary agent said over the phone. He had just taken a look at my book proposal for a coffee table book filled with pictures of babies doing yoga. The pictures that my partner, Doug Kim, had taken were charming. There was no doubt about it. I reminded myself that even Casablanca was repeatedly rejected before it sold.

The idea came to me about 8 months before that phone call. My 7-month-old was learning how to crawl and spent most of his day in Cobra pose. And when I looked around at my friends' children, they were also doing yoga poses that varied depending on their stage of development. It was true. We are born yogis!

Within a week, I had organized a test day where we would photograph 6 kids. Doug came out to Topanga, CA and we traveled from house to house and Doug took pictures. They say that babies and puppies are the toughest models and Doug found this to be true. Some wanted a nap, some cried the whole time, one alternately cried and squinted under the hot, California sun as we waited for him to do down dog, something his mother assured us he "always" did. Not that day!

My son came through for us. When we got the proofs, Doug had captured a perfect picture of Ely in Cobra pose. As soon as I saw that picture, I knew the idea would work. Doug and I decided to go for it. We would need 5 "rock star" pictures for a proposal to sell the idea.

We started shooting. Everyone I knew and all the babies Doug ran across at the mall became test models. At first, I thought every picture should be taken at a yoga studio. But Doug insisted, "No, it will get boring. Break it up, shoot some in homes, let's see if I can catch the pose in the middle of their day, in bed, on the floor, in the yard." He was absolutely right.

Having never been to a yoga class, Doug didn't know the poses at first so I'd point them out if a child did one. "Down Dog, now!" I'd yell and Doug would shoot and shoot. Pretty quickly, he caught on and Doug can now be spotted himself working up a sweat at Golden Bridge Yoga Studio in Los Angeles.

The book proposal took about 7 months to create.

There was all the time we spent shooting to get the perfect handful of pictures. I come from television and in that business, a proposal is an approximation of an idea but in publishing, the proposal needs to be perfect. What is in the proposal should be the best of the book you are pitching. And ours was beautiful. We spent a lot of money on it, too. We got a graphic designer and spent almost $1,000 on 5 copies that included 3 of our top pictures plus text, Doug's and my bios, and a query letter, which is a one-page overview of the concept plus demographic information. They were gorgeous. So when the agent, a friend, gave us this hopeless assessment, we were upset. "I'll try," he said and generously sent it out to Random House and a few other top publishers. They all rejected the idea. The yoga market was saturated, they agreed.

Doug and I went back and forth, debating the benefits of self-publishing or just walking away. On a whim, I sent our proposal to a friend in NYC who was a publicist at Simon & Schuster and she happened to know the editor at Rodale Press, the top independent publisher with a focus on health. A couple of months had passed since we began sending the proposal out and we were losing steam. My family and I went to Ireland for a month and during that trip, I had decided to walk away. We didn't have the money to self-publish at that point and that was it.

When we got back home from this trip, there was a message on the answering machine from the editor from Rodale Press. I called her NY number immediately. Although I was exhausted from jet lag, I had to know. She said the magic words, "We want to publish your book." If I wasn't on the phone with her, I would have squealed and done cartwheels across the living room. We had sold the book. We made a deal with her within a couple of weeks and went into production on the book immediately.

Although other books had come out about doing yoga with babies, nobody had gone the coffee table book route. Others also had published calendars with pictures of children doing yoga, however nobody had tried to photograph babies and neither did any of the other products have the quality level we did in our pictures.

Compared to other books, our experience was very quick and easy. From the day of our first shoot to selling the book was approximately one year. I attribute this to the idea being unique and beautifully executed but who knows. Ideas have a life and karma of their own. I called the first agent we had spoken to who couldn't find interest for the book and told him the good news. "Oh of course," he said, "that editor loves yoga." Go figure.

NAMASTA thanks Susie again for contributing this article and sharing her story of perseverance. To buy Born Yogis or for more information, click here.

For yoga teachers interested in buying Born Yogis, multiple order discounts are available by calling Integral Yoga Distribution at 800-262-1008.

NAMASTA members also receive 5% off custom prints - perfect for yoga studios. For more information, contact Susie at 310-729-3888.