The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Money
‘I’m proof – you can be a £1m-a-year author’
Many people dream of becoming a bestselling author but in reality most writers don’t make a living from their work. J K Rowling may be worth around $95m (£72m), according to Forbes, but the average author earns just £12,500 a year.
While being an author remains a dream job for many, the question remains: what makes a best seller?
Amanda Prowse has one answer. Her focus on the stories of “ordinary” women who “find their strength, courage and love while being tested in ways they never imagined” has made her a bestselling writer.
Back in 2011, when she began to write, she was just recovering from cancer and relied on her husband’s salary as a soldier to keep the couple and their two sons afloat.
Before she and her husband, Simeon, married in 2007, she was a single mother juggling three jobs – in a call centre, at a recruitment firm and as a cleaner – seven days a week for less than £16,000 a year.
“It was a struggle but when I managed to get it all done, it felt like a win,” Ms Prowse said. “The hardest times were when I was faced with a large bill or had to pay large upfront costs, such as my son’s nursery fees, which had to be paid quarterly in advance.”
Ms Prowse, 49, ended up relying on credit cards and found herself £6,000 in debt. Now she has 23 books under her belt in 22 different languages and makes more than £1m a year as a bestselling author.
Just before her first book, Poppy Day, was published in 2012, Ms Prowse said she and her husband were down to their last £20 and desperately needed a second income.
“We’d been visiting my parents in London and we didn’t even have enough petrol money to get home. I knew it was time to go back to work,” she said. Three days later she was offered a £5,000 advance after an agent was given her book by a journalist.
She’d sent a copy of the manuscript to “everyone” after buying a copy of the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook, a guide to the publishing industry that features thousands of media contacts and is updated every year. But she said all she’d had were rejections as “no one wanted to read a love story set between London and Afghanistan”.
“If I hadn’t got the deal I’d have been back to working three jobs,” she said. However, she said the family still had to rely on her husband’s salary for the first year.
“You tend to work a year to 18 months in arrears. It wasn’t until 2013, after I’d written two or three bestsellers, that I got my first big cheque of about £50,000 or £60,000,” Ms Prowse said.
She now produces three or four bestsellers a year, for which she is paid six-figure advances. Her working day is 10 hours and she writes seven days a week, including on Christmas Day.
Over the past five years her income has soared. With books sold in 22 countries, and most in the top-100 lists, Ms Prowse said her earnings quickly built up. Half of what she earns is kept in a separate account earmarked for tax. And most of the remaining income is put in pensions, savings and investments.
She and her husband “lodge” in a room in the house they bought for their two boys, who are both away at university, and Ms Prowse does not have a car or jewellery. “My life is quite ordinary but it means it’s manageable,” she said.
“Money has given us freedom of choice so we do travel a lot. In the future we might decide to invest in property but we will see.”
Jonathan Ruppin, a literary agent, said the majority of writers don’t make enough money to live on and those who “make it” were a rarity.
Some writers, even winners of esteemed literary prizes, may not be financially comfortable until the film rights are bought.
An advance of £5,000 for a first book is common if the deal is with one of the big publishers, such as Penguin or Harper Collins, but you might get £500 or nothing at all from smaller firms. Once you’ve made enough sales to cover your advance you can expect to earn royalties. The percentage depends on who you are and who your publisher is, but could be around 10pc of sales for hardback copies and 7.5pc for paperbacks. Mr Ruppin suggested buying a copy of the Writers’ & Artists’ Handbook (RRP £21.99) and researching the appropriate agents to send your book to.
Don’t give agents a reason to turn your manuscript down. Make sure there are no mistakes and the covering letter is brief – outline why you’re sending the book, what it’s about and what writing experience you have.
It’s fine to compare your writing style with other authors but don’t describe yourself as “like J K Rowling” because everyone does that and you probably aren’t.
Literary trends come and go so spend some time in bookshops to see what’s on the shelves and working out where your book would sit.
Mr Ruppin said: “Crime fiction is always popular but reinvents itself – it’s all about psychological thrillers at the moment thanks to books like The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl.”
Amanda Prowse once struggled to make ends meet, but turned herself into a successful writer. She tells Amelia Murray how ‘We didn’t even have enough petrol money to get home. I knew it was time to go back to work’