WHEN RESEARCH IS A MONSTER
If you get a kick out of playing detective, like to probe the unknown, are imaginative and persevering, then your chances of successfully researching offbeat subjects are excellent. And it is the offbeat that sells. For if a subject has been published in depth, and written about at some length, it is hardly likely an editor is going to give the topic more than passing attention. But let an odd theme come along, one that has not been beaten to death, and it is an immediate attention grabber.
However, a great gulf exists between having the insight to select an offbeat subject and possessing the know-how to research it into being. Suggesting an untrammeled topic is merely the formation of
