People from all walks of life have constantly come up to me on the street these past few weeks and said, "My goodness, I really enjoyed the campaign diary you wrote online for Metro magazine during the election. How I miss it! But if you wrote a new prologue and epilogue, and reshaped the text as a sort of non-fiction novel, and it was published as a book in time for Christmas, then life would once again have meaning."

I couldn't just sit by and thus Madmen: Inside the weirdest election campaign ever is in the shops from mid-November.

Luncheon Sausage Books, a new and pungent name in New Zealand publishing, was formed especially to bring the book to life.

Katrina Duncan from Auckland University Press masterminded the book's production, and Jenny Nicholls from North & South magazine designed the front and back cover. The cover image was painted by subversive Hamilton man Joshua Drummond and depicts the Prime Minister in a state of bliss.

The book was typeset, designed, illustrated, and proofed in three weeks.