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I started as kind of an outsider - freelancer working from home, building contacts from the ground up etc. - so I didn't have too many relationships holding me back.

So when it was my turn to start developing projects, I knew the writers I wanted to work with, and I had met every head of studio, every executive and a lot of producers. I started finding things, little crumbs off other people's tables that I would make my own.

As the years passed, and I was nine, 10, 11 years old, it became obvious I was going to start up a business of some sort.

For 10 years, I'd been working as a freelance writer and editor, making money but not a living. It was a good arrangement family-wise, allowing me to stay home with our daughter, but not so great financially or, sometimes, ego-wise.

Past success is no guarantee of future success, so I have learned to be an entrepreneur. I began to produce and direct my own projects.

I've got to be out doing a million things. That's how I find stories. That's how I get the relationships and get the projects that I get with the writers, the directors.

I was scouted at the age of 10 by a Hollywood agent. I was a really shy, geeky-looking thing, and started in the industry by doing 'extra' work on films.

From a relatively early age I got interested in business.

I think of my own work as part of a decades-long conversation about books and reading with people I will mainly never meet.