Mum Who Was Down To Her Last £20 Is Now A Millionaire Author

We all love a rags to riches tale. The literary world is full of them - from JK Rowling, the single mother writing in a coffee shop in Edinburgh to George Orwell, down and out in Paris and London, washing dishes and dreaming of the top.

Well, you can add Amanda Prowse to the list.

Her story is a much more modern tale of the trip from the breadline to the bestseller list, documenting her life working three jobs, suffering from cancer and trying to bring up two kids on merely her husband's salary.

She worked in a call-centre and in a recruitment firm while also moonlighting as a cleaner to make ends meet before she married, and afterwards was forced to give up work in order to battle cancer.

Credit: Amazon

Her and her husband Simeon were at their wit's end when the aspiring novelist finally got her big break. "We'd been visiting my parents in London and we didn't have enough petrol money to get home. I knew it was time to go back to work," she told the Daily Telegraph.

Just days after this stark realisation - she had just £20 in her bank account, not to mention £6,000 in debt on her credit card - she got the phone call from a literary agent to tell her that her first book had been accepted, with a five grand advance to boot.

After sending the manuscript around the houses, finally something had paid off. "If I hadn't got the deal I'd have been back to working three jobs," she admits.

Instead, her book, Poppy Day, was published in 2012 and established her career. Amanda was not yet out of the woods: "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."

She now produces several books a year, which invariably make the bestseller lists, and see her rake in a salary that tops £1 million.

Even with such a salary, she is still humble and works her backside off.

She writes for 10 hours a day, barely takes a day off and doesn't spend her money on fripperies. "My life is quite ordinary but it means it's manageable," she Prowse.

"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."

Topics: Books, UK News, UK Entertainment

Claire Reid

Claire is a journalist at LADbible who, after dossing around for a few years, went to Liverpool John Moores University. She graduated with a degree in Journalism and a whole load of debt. When not writing words in exchange for money she is usually at home watching serial killer documentaries surrounded by cats. You can contact Claire at [email protected]

@ClaireReid19