48 Shades of Brown is the Children's Book Council of the Year award-winning story of 17-year-old high school student Dan who goes to live with his hip, bass-playing aunt during his final year of high school. There's romance, there's vomiting, there's pests and, best of all, there's Brisbane. This novel, like most of Earls' work, unfolds in downtown Toowong but revolves around those universal themes of unrequited love, secret crushes and big fat lies.

I know how you're feeling. You're still feeling a bit burnt by Praise, a novel set in Brisbane and a movie set in Brisbane but shot in Sydney pretending to be Brisbane, with more subterfuge than at Les Girls. But the really good news is, thanks to some recent State Government initiatives, Queensland stories are more likely to reach a worldwide audience - both on screen and in bookstores around the world.

Last year the Department of State Development and Innovation, under the department's creative industries strategy, organised its first US Writers Showcase which saw Earls divert from a US book tour to "pitch" a variety of Queensland novels to 20 film and television executives in Los Angeles. The meeting resulted in interest in a range of those stories - including Earls' book 48 Shades of Brown being optioned by a US producer for film rights.

Building on this success, this week Nick Earls is in New York City (eating hotdogs and dodging flying phones) presenting the second Writers Showcase. Between strategising ways to sneak on to his own film set, on Thursday Earls was pitching the work of nine Queensland authors to more than 40 of the leading publishers in the US, literary agents, editors and booksellers in the hope of getting them American publishing deals.

Importantly, he's been pitching the work of authors with US rights available or looking for New York representation. So it's an exciting career opportunity for respected Australian writers Gary Crew, Allison Rushby, Pam Rushby, Karen Brooks, David McRobbie, Natalie Jane Prior, Sally Freud and Pat Flynn.

The US represents the largest export market for English-language young-adult fiction titles and it has the potential to generate considerable financial returns for Queensland authors. Which is important when you keep in mind that the average earnings of published authors in Australia has been estimated to be $3,000 a year.

So an overseas publishing deal can make the difference between continuing as a writer and throwing in the towel.

Back to 48 Shades of Brown. It will interest Muriel's Wedding fans to know that Daniel Lapaine, who played Muriel's South African swimmer husband in the film, is the person who wrote the adaptation. Lapaine also will direct the film in August.

Finally, for the big question. Is there room for me to have a walk-on role? I confess to the film's producer, Rob Marsala, that I have the acting capabilities of a ham sandwich but that I am nothing if not enthusiastic. "Mate, I'll have to shoot you down in flames," he says to me over e-mail. "My family has asked me for cameos and I've had to say no to them. And they're blood! Look for a cameo from Nick Earls, though."

Typical. So I e-mailed Earls instead. Can't he just sneak me on to the set and let me wander around in the background of a scene? "I think you're in luck. I think there's a picnic scene where you could, you know, maybe play the ham sandwich."