JENNY COLGAN reveals ‘exceptional luck’ that remodeled her life at 26

Author Jenny Colgan was paid £1million for her first novel 26 years ago and has never looked back. 

She had been made redundant from a job in healthcare and was about to start work as a waitress when she landed the ‘remarkably lucky’ book deal in her 20s. 

Her romantic comedy bestsellers now bring in a seven-figure sum each year and are published around the world, with new readers discovering the 38 books in her backlist, she tells Donna Ferguson. 

Now 52, she lives in a castle in Fife with her husband Andrew, 59, a marine engineer, and three children, Wallace, 19, Michael-Francis, 17 and Delphine, 15.

What did your parents teach you about money?

To have a good work ethic. Both were full-time teachers and my dad also ran music shops part-time in Prestwick, Ayrshire. They traded up their houses carefully and we ended up in a lovely place on the seafront – a big house for people on a teacher’s salary. We didn’t go on fancy holidays or eat out, but we always felt well-off. 

My mum came from nothing and was exceptionally good at making a little money go a long way. She would make our own sofa cushions and all our clothes. Of course, I was a brat and desperately wanted something trendy from C&A.

Have you ever struggled to make ends meet?

I’ve been a skint student, but I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve been unable to work, and I’ve always known I could go home to a loving family and get a good feed and a roof over my head for as long as I needed it. 

I’ve never been sick and always worked. I’ve been a cleaner, a postie and worked in loads of bars and shops. At the same time, I was a massive reader and writer. I wrote a lot of bad poetry and sketches for the BBC that didn’t get picked up. I wrote a children’s story that didn’t get published.

In 1998, when I was 26, I started writing my first novel, Amanda’s Wedding. I spent so much time on it that I was made redundant from my job as an administrator for a health policy think-tank. I was contemplating waitressing but then I sold that novel for £1million in total, including the film and foreign rights.

I was young and quite naive, so it took me a long time to realise just how remarkably lucky I had been. My timing was really good. Helen Fielding and Marian Keyes had just had big hits, so publishers were looking for funny books by young women set in London.

Have you ever been paid silly money?

Absolutely. I once got £5,000 to make a 40-minute speech about love stories to business executives. Half the audience weren’t native English speakers and couldn’t understand my Scottish accent. They just looked at their phones.

The best year of your financial life?

The last five years have been amazing – a virtuous circle as more and more countries have come online and started publishing my books. That means new readers are finding and buying my backlist. I’ve written 38 books over 24 years and now my ­company is paid a seven-figure sum each year.

What is the most expensive thing you bought for fun?

My pianos. Like people who really love cars, I’m always looking at the next, bigger, better one. The most expensive is my Yamaha Baby Grand, which cost about as much as a secondhand car. I also have a Yamaha Clavinova and an Erard Upright. If you don’t play the piano, you might think I’m quite good. If you play seriously, it is immediately obvious that I am terrible.

What is your biggest money mistake?

After my book deal, I basically gave a flat in London to an ex, assuming he’d split any profit when he sold it, but not ­getting that written down. Huge surprise, he did not do that.

The best money decision you’ve made?

Paying off every mortgage as soon as we had the means to do so. It has always given me huge peace of mind and a lot of pride.

Do you save into a pension?

Yes, I’ve been saving into a pension since I was in my 20s, although writers never retire.

My view is: get your mortgage, your pension and get your tax out of the way and then have fun with everything else.

My husband and I buy into some sort of government bond – it’s not a massive return, but it compounds and means we have no risk. My husband is more careful with his money than me, but we both are very wary of taking risks with the stock market, which we don’t really understand.

I always assume if you don’t know who the mark is, it’s you.

Do you own any property?

We have a six-bedroom castle in Fife. It’s a really magical place, which we went to see as a joke and fell in love with. Jack Vettriano, the Scottish artist who painted The Singing Butler, used to live there.

It needed modernising – my husband has worked so hard to get it warm. We also have a four-bed flat in Edinburgh for work, and a two-bed flat in London, which we bought 17 years ago – my eldest son, who is 19, is studying in London and living there now.

When the children have all left, we’ll get rid of one property and buy somewhere overseas, hopefully in France, where we spent many happy years when the children were small.

What little luxury do you treat yourself to?

Travel. As a family, every October, we go to Martinique, a French Caribbean island, and it’s just heaven. We also holiday in Hossegor in south-west France and go surfing. I don’t know how much we spend – my husband is in charge of all that.

If you were Chancellor, what would you do?

I would offer support for childcare and housing for the young: it’s insane that this country can’t afford its own families. And some hard decisions are going to have to be made about how we fund elderly care and the NHS. Unfortunately, I suspect it will all come crashing down at the exact moment I become elderly and desperately need the NHS. But we’ve swung far too far towards us older people – who vote – and hung the young out to dry.

Do you donate to charity?

Of course. But giving money is probably the laziest way of donating to charity. I don’t think it counts unless you put the hours in and so I don’t feel very good about what I do. I am generous with my money and a terrible hoarder of my own free time.

What is your number one financial priority?

I want my children to know the value of money and to know how to work hard. I’m not too fussed about leaving them money. I’d hope that they could make their own way.

• Close Knit, by Jenny Colgan, is out now.