I was going to be a waitress when I won a £1million contract for my first romantic comedy, reveals novelist Jenny Colgan

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

She had been laid off from healthcare and was about to start working as a waitress when, at the age of 20, she received an “exceptionally lucky” book deal.

Her bestselling romantic comedies now gross seven figures annually and are published worldwide. New readers are discovering the 38 books in her back issues, she tells Donna Ferguson.

She is now 52 and 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. They were both full-time teachers and my father also ran music shops part-time in Prestwick, Ayrshire. They swapped houses carefully and we ended up in a nice place on the coast – 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 mother came from nothing and was exceptionally good at cashing in on a little bit of money. She made our own couch cushions and all our clothes. Of course I was a spoiled brat and desperately wanted something trendy from C&A.

Have you ever struggled to make ends meet?

I had little money as a student, but I never found myself in a situation where I couldn’t work. I always knew I could come home to a loving family, where I would be fed well and have a roof over my head for as long as I needed it.

I have never been ill and have always worked. I have been a cleaner, a postman and worked in many bars and shops. At the same time I was a huge reader and writer. I have written a lot of bad poetry and sketches for the BBC that were not picked up. I have written a children’s story that was not 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 fired from my job as an administrator at a health policy think tank. I considered becoming a waitress, but then I sold that novel for a total of £1 million, including the film and foreign rights.

I was young and quite naive, so it took me a long time to realise 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 a ridiculously high salary?

Absolutely. I was once paid £5,000 to give a 40-minute speech on love stories to business people. Half the audience were not native English speakers and couldn’t understand my Scottish accent. They were just looking 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 came online and started publishing my books. That means new readers are finding and buying my backlist. I’ve written 38 books in 24 years and now my company is making seven figures every year.

What’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever bought for fun?

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

What’s your biggest financial mistake?

After my book deal I basically gave an apartment in London to an ex, assuming he would share the profits if he sold it, but I didn’t put that in writing. Huge surprise, he didn’t.

What’s the best financial decision you’ve ever made?

Paying off every mortgage as soon as we had the means has always given me enormous peace and pride.

Are you saving for your retirement?

Yes, I’ve been saving for retirement since I was in my twenties, although writers never retire.

My opinion: first sort out your mortgage, your pension and your tax affairs and then enjoy the rest.

My husband and I buy a kind of government bond – it’s not a huge return, but it’s compounded and means we’re not taking any risk. My husband is more careful with his money than I am, but we’re both very careful about taking risks with the stock market, which we don’t really understand.

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

Do you own real estate?

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

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

When the children have all left home, we will sell one house and buy somewhere abroad, hopefully in France. We spent many happy years there when the children were small.

What little bit of luxury do you allow yourself?

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

If you were Chancellor, what would you do?

I would offer support for childcare and housing for the young: it is madness that this country cannot pay its own families. And there will be some difficult decisions to be made about how we fund aged care and the NHS. Sadly, I suspect it will all collapse by the time I get old and need the NHS. But we have gone way too far on us older people – the ones who vote – and have left the young people behind.

Do you donate to charity?

Sure. But giving money is probably the laziest way to donate to a cause. I don’t think it counts unless you put in the hours, so I don’t feel good about what I do. I’m generous with my money and a terrible hoarder of my own free time.

What is your biggest financial priority?

I want my children to know the value of money and how to work hard. I am not a big fan of leaving money. I hope they can find their own way.

• Close Knit by Jenny Colgan is available now.