"You've got to be self-deprecating enough."

That's the professional advice that Emmy-winning funny lady Faith Salie recalls receiving when she sat down to write her humorous "Approval Junkie" book of essays. In a mocking tone, she recounts a conversation with an agent: "It's particularly important, as a woman, to be self-deprecating. You want to be sure you're relatable. You don't want to sound 'braggy.'"

It's an especially tangy memory right now, with Hillary Clinton's capture of the Democratic presidential nomination after decades of living with the double standards for professional behavior that women know all too well.

Salie, like Clinton, is getting the last laugh.

"Approval Junkie" is such a success, it will have a paperback edition next year — and her book authoring chops have been so well moistened that she's getting ready to write another tome — this one on envy. "Everyone can relate to wanting approval, and everyone can also relate to envy," she points out.

Salie's "Approval Junkie" is certainly self-deprecating — hilariously so. But not because the "CBS News Sunday Morning" and NPR ("Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!") stalwart was attempting to humble herself. No, it's simply part of her smart, zippy humor.

It's also inspirational — not that delivering an uplifting message to readers was on her agenda. And yet, her open-hearted disclosures about the disappointment, frustration and sadness she went through with fertility treatments and miscarriages before becoming a mother at age 41 have encouraged aspiring parents not to lose heart. She's heard from some of them, in person and by note, and says she's humbled and moved by their words.

Her painfully amusing — accent on the painful — account of a failed first marriage has given others on the labyrinthine love trail reason to believe it's worth it to try again. After all, even though her time with her "wasband" was hellish enough for her to attempt undergoing an exorcism at his behest — she wound up with a heavenly guy by her side. She and husband John Semel have a daughter, born in 2014, and a son, born in 2012.

As we speak, Salie informs, she is about to leave home to take her son to a babysitter while at the same time she is boiling water for spaghetti. Soon, she'll be jetting out on a whirlwind trip to Hawaii to interview Eric Fanning, the first openly gay secretary of the Army. It's all in a day's work for the indefatigable interviewer/commentator/performer.

Multitasking and super-achieving is certainly nothing new to Salie, who graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard, went on to become a Rhodes scholar and earn a master's degree in modern English literature from Oxford.

She recalls laboring away penning "Approval Junkie" in the conference room of her building between tending to her then-infant daughter and jealous 2-year-old son.

She notes how messed up "the whole day is if you can't get anything written that you like," and how joyous "when you have two or three sentences that crystallize."

When a colleague told her "you'll miss these days," she almost laughed. Now she gets it: the writing process, with all its challenges, is so much more of a soul-nourishing experience than the promotion and sales and traveling that must be done for a book to succeed. "Hustling to get attention — I'm not comfortable with that," Salie admits.

So what's up with the envy book?

Salie says, "It's percolating." As with a lot of her commentaries, she believes she'll know when she's ready to let fly. "I kind of know when a new project reaches critical mass in my head."

"Approval Junkie" has drawn the attention of several Hollywood production companies, and Salie had a deal for a potential movie with former NBC chieftain Warren Littlefield. That did not come to pass, but one gets the feeling there's a nascent movie in her poignant, funny stories — whether or not she's self-deprecating.