Rankin’s novels rake in another £1m even though he took a year off
REBUS author Ian Rankin saw his wealth soar by almost £1million last year, despite taking 12 months off.
The Scots writer boosted his coffers as royalties rolled in from the comeback of the hard-bitten Edi nb u r g h detective.
New figures from his firm John Rebus Ltd, named in honour of his literary creation, show its total assets have increased to more than £2.3million.
The accounts, filed at Companies House, reveal Rankin, 54, has an i nvestment portfolio worth £ 730,000 and around £1.6million in the bank.
That leaves the firm’s value at £2,302,980 – up from the previous year’s figure of £1,536,920.
The accounts also show that Rankin bought an investment property during the year for £291,000.
The author, who has sold more than 20million books, took a ‘sabbatical in 2014 after a busy spell which saw him bring back Detective I nspector Rebus following a five-year absence.
The no- nonsense detective appeared in the novels Standing In Another Man’s Grave and Saints Of The Shadow Bible.
The author confessed that, despite not writing a novel, he had remained busy during his year off by going on book tours and penning short stories.
Rankin, who lives in Edinburgh, set up John Rebus Ltd in 2001 to channel earnings from his books. The decision followed an investigation by the taxman i nto unfounded claims he was not declaring enough income when filling out tax returns himself.
He was forced to spend months searching for old paperwork to convince inspectors he was not lying about his earnings.
Fife-born Rankin is a director of the company, along with his wife Miranda Harvey. In a recent interview about his finances, he told how he sometimes regretted setting up the company as it took up a lot of his time.
He said: ‘My accountant persuaded me to go down that route. It is fine but it means more meetings, more bureaucracy, more rigmarole and more papers to fill in.’
The author also scoffed at claims that his total personal wealth was around £25million.
He added: ‘Where do they get their figures from? I have no idea where they get that figure. I doubt I am worth even half of that.
‘It took a good 12 to 14 years, and many books, before the money became a happy factor of my writing career.
‘If you think, my first novel was published back in 1986 and for that I had been given an advance of the grand sum of £200. I was pretty much 40 or in my early forties before I earned my first million.
‘I am more relaxed now about spending money. I used to be someone who used to think twice at taking a taxi somewhere if you could walk the same distance in 45 minutes.
‘My wife and I recently booked ourselves on to first-class flights for a holiday to South Africa, which was a nice luxury.’
The writer also revealed he had invested in a stocks and shares portfolio, investment trusts and had a pension.