The idea for an average person’s advertising agency had been percolating in one form or another for years. I actually devised a TV show in 2002 called Any Idiot that explored the concept of average people making TV ads. The Seven Network took an option and shot a pilot, but in the end decided it wasn’t strong enough to make a show.

A few years later I tweaked that idea and made it a kids’ agency. I started writing it as a novel.

About 10,000 words into it, I had a confidence crisis and wondered if I was wasting my time. I Googled one of my favourite writers, who I had never met but seemed nice from the tone of her books and the column she writes. I told her the idea and said something like ‘I don’t know if it’s worth finishing – should I do a course? Join a club?’

As luck would have it, this particular (and very generous) writer said she liked the premise and would be happy to read a few chapters. I sent them to her and she said they weren’t complete crap and she would pass them on to her publishers at University of Queensland Press.

They became my publisher too. Then all I had to do was finish the book …