She used to scrub toilets for $9 an hour. Now her book about it is a best-seller

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Five years ago, Stephanie Land was slumped over on her hands and knees scrubbing a bathtub. The single mom was a semester away from graduating college and pregnant with a second child.

She was broke. People cautioned her against it. But she decided to quit her job as a house cleaner and go all in on her studies with the hope of becoming a freelance writer after graduation.

"It was incredibly difficult to turn my back on paid work and have faith that my dream would pay off," she said.
It did. The former cleaning woman has written a rags-to-riches story that's long on rags before finally offering a hint of riches.

Her memoir about her years cleaning houses, "Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother's Will to Survive," debuted two weeks ago at #3 on The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list.

The book is an illuminating window into the mundane, low-paid service work that much of America never notices or chooses to ignore.

And now, after years of grueling poverty, its sudden success is changing Land's life.