Actor Sonali Bendre Behl, 40, never kept a baby scrap book when her son was growing up. So, there are no records when her son, Ranveer, walked his first steps or lost his first tooth.

But Behl did find time to pen some “wise nuggets” in a notebook about growing up and the pangs associated with it. She also picked what she thought were interesting points from online TED Talks on children, magazines and also some lessons she learnt first-hand watching children from close quarters while hosting and judging reality show, India’s Best Dramebaaz, on TV.

For seven long years, she wrote something or the other in her notebook, which her friends used to call her Bible. “Now, suddenly I have a book,” she takes a long breath and laughs. Her first book, The Modern Gurukul–My Experiments with Parenting, published by Random House India has just been released recently.

Behl is just one of the Bollywood glamour girls who’ve added their names to publishers’ catalogues. And they aren’t necessarily writing on what we might expect them to be writing on. These yesteryear female actors have picked up subjects as varied as parenting, fitness, food, memoirs and, yes, acting too.

There are no rules about which actor might decide to sit before their screen and start writing a book. You have the super-svelte Shilpa Shetty Kundra writing, of course, about how to keep perfectly trim. Other thespians turned authors include Anu Aggarwal, Twinkle Khanna, Maria Goretti and Tisca Chopra.

Press the rewind button back to December 2013, when Kareena Kapoor became one of the earliest actors to try out her penmanship skills. Kareena’s book, The Style Diary of a Bollywood Diva, was launched with great fanfare and was on a subject close to her heart.

More recently, Twinkle Khanna’s Mrs Funnybones is a laugh-a-minute volume full of satirical takes on almost everything under the sun and takes off from her stint as a popular newspaper columnist. The book has been one of the runaway hits of 2015.

“Released in August, we’ve already reprinted Mrs Funnybones seven times,” says Aman Arora, senior manager, marketing and publicity, Penguin Random House.

Actresses are picking subjects they are comfortable in rather than writing only — as they might be expected to do — about acting, fashion, glamour or grooming. For instance, Kundra, 40, a fitness icon, recently released her book The Great Indian Diet. “I’m very passionate when it comes to the subject of health. My aim with the book is to shun fad diets and food taboos. Everyone talks about how great olive oil is, but very few know that to Indians, coconut oil and ghee have more benefits than olive oil as they suit our climate and bodies better,” she says. Kundra has co-authored her book with Luke Coutinho, a nutrition expert.

Anu Aggarwal, 46, who made her debut in Aashiqui in 1990, considered one of the greatest hits of all time, released her book recently called Anusual–Memoir of a Girl Who Came Back from the Dead. Published by HarperCollins, Aggarwal talks about everything from modelling and her acting career and even Yoga, but the core of the book revolves around her experience after a car accident in 1999 that left her in a coma for 29 days.

Aggarwal enjoys writing and finds it therapeutic. “It started as writing diaries first,” says Aggarwal. In her book, she shares many personal experiences and even talks about tantric love-making. “Confessional writing is my style in this book. It was certainly difficult. And the private moments were my roadblocks. In my writing, I was going forward two steps and going back four. It, therefore, took longer. But it is amazing how when you wholeheartedly admit to something it loses its effect on you. In fact, this helped in my speedy healing,” says the actress.

Aggarwal’s memoir has also been a success. “We reprinted Anu’s book in three months,” says Shantanu Chau-dhuri, managing editor, HarperCollins Publishers India.

VJ, model and actor Maria Goretti, 43, a regular food blogger (mariagorettiz.blogspot.in) released her book on recipes called From My Kitchen To Yours which was published by Om Books International. It offers a wide variety of recipes for different seasons.

To be sure, actors like Kundra and Khanna have donned many hats over the years. Kundra has a stake in IPL team Rajasthan Royals and she released a Yoga DVD in 2008. Khanna, 40, is a businesswoman with her own interior décor store, The White Window in Mumbai.

But can these Bollywood divas pull in the readers on the strength of their names? “Yes,” says Coutinho, “they can be huge crowd-pullers for any subject.” He adds: “Shilpa is a fitness icon so I thought who better than her to join hands with in writing this book. She’s a fine example of walking the talk and, of course, Bollywood has the power to influence the masses. And why not, when there is a message of good health going out?”

The publishers are clear that celebrities are attracting people to pick-up a book as their names are familiar.

“However, what makes people stay with the book is the quality of the content and strength of the voice,” says Arora.

It goes without saying that publishers love dealing with recognisable faces. Bendre admits candidly that few publishers would have bothered with her if she hadn’t been a celebrity. Nevertheless, she insists that there must always be more to it. “I might have got the initial platform from the publisher, but people can like or dislike me depending on what I write. Once I turn an author, me being an actor or not can’t help me," she says.

“It's a win-win situation,” says Tisca Chopra, the actress who has written Acting Smart–Your Ticket To Showbiz, a guide to acting for aspiring actors released by HarperCollins last year. “Actors get published because people want to read their books and publishers have a successful book on hand,” Chopra adds.

But not every book can be sold just because it has been written by a recognisable face, admit publishers. “It is difficult to actually sell cinema books in India because we, as a nation, love watching cinema, not so much reading about it. Unless of course, like Twinkle Khanna, you build up a readership through a popular column and then convert that into a book,” says Choudhuri.

The bottom line is that the type of subjects the actors pick to write about matters a lot. “Autobiographies or biographies work better. Our biography of Rajesh Khanna, Dark Star, was reprinted within three months and has done close to 8,000 copies. There’s an interest in star lives,” says Choudhuri.

Of course, writing books is not easy and Chopra says that acting’s a walk in the park compared to it. “Acting’s a breeze compared to writing, for me anyway. Writing needs concentration of the kind that you have to have the whole book in your head, whereas in acting you have to know the shot you are doing at that point,” she says.

Agrees Behl: “Writing needs a lot more discipline, especially when you are working from home. There are hundreds of things on your mind, and yet you have to take time out for writing.”

Chopra devised a drill to write her book. She would get all decked-up and sit in front of her laptop. “I wore a nice dress, put on my earrings, heels and sat at my table and wrote, just so they that nobody at home would disturb me,” she chuckles. But she was interrupted all the time. “The moment a genius idea hit me, the domestic help would turn round and say, ‘Didi aaj bhindi banayein ya beans?’” she laughs.

Chopra is already coming out with her next work. An Australian publisher is bringing out a book on stories about Indian women and Chopra is one of the authors.

Interestingly, social media has had a considerable role in turning these actresses into authors. “In early 2000, nobody wanted to know what I was reading or doing beyond films. I was known as a sexy actress. I was okay that my fans had that image in mind. Now people follow me on Twitter and Facebook and want to know my opinion. We must move on with the times,” says Behl.

For actors, writing is a new field to venture into and try their luck, says Madhuri Banerjee, a film writer and columnist who was Karisma Kapoor’s co-author for her non-fiction My Yummy Mummy Guide in 2013. “They’re attempting something new all the time which is very inspiring,” she says.

Take a look at the new kid on the publishing block, Juggernaut Books, which recently released its catalogue for 2016 and has actors like Khanna, Sharmila Tagore and even Sunny Leone as authors — so it’s clear we can expect many more books by Bollywood’s top divas in the coming years.”