Forget everything you've heard about the travails of the freelance writer. In Damn! Why Didn't I Write That?, Marc McCutcheon contends that "you can learn the trade and begin making a respectable income much faster than most people think possible." To illustrate, McCutcheon lists 17 pages of bestselling titles, including Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance (150,000 copies sold) and Golfing, a humor book (525,000 copies sold). McCutcheon himself wrote a few well-chosen titles and claims to be "easily support[ing] a family of four, working part-time." How? Think niche, says McCutcheon. Think backlist. Think about perennially hot topics like dieting/weight loss, relationships, parenting, health, low-fat cooking, sex, spirituality, money/finances, cats, career and leadership, and computer and Internet. McCutcheon is quite helpful about things like contract negotiation, agents, proposals, and promotion. He also confers a real can-do attitude on his readers. "In the corporate world," he says, "tall, beautiful people rule. In the writing world, even Yoda can climb to the top of the success ladder." --Jane Steinberg