There are many routes to becoming a full-time writer, but I want to share with you what I did to earn a sustainable full-time income from my fiction.

It’s notoriously difficult to make a sustainable living writing fiction. Or, at least, it was.

I don’t have a agent. I’m not signed to a corporate publisher.

But I am an independent author with my own publishing company.

I write commercial fiction. I’m not going to win any literary prizes or please critics, but I make more money than the average author and I get to spend most of my days writing stories.

My mindset changed from the idea of producing works of art, to producing assets that can bring in a sustainable recurring income.

I wanted to find the sweet spot between the types of stories I wanted to tell and the types of books that sold well, but were also underserved by the corporate publishers.

I came up with three genres: post-apocalyptic fiction, medieval fantasy, and space opera.

Because these are assets I can sell for the rest of my life, I didn’t want anything that would date.

So, I struck space opera from my list. I’m sure a post-apocalyptic wasteland or medieval fantasy will feel the same in fifty years as it does today.

Even though I’d read widely in those genres, the next step of my research was about trying to understand what the readers wanted.

I read reviews, hundreds of them, and got a feel for the types of things readers enjoyed and the things they did not.

So, in June 2017, I launched my first novel, Wizard of the Wasteland. It’s a post-apocalyptic tale about a reformed drug addict trying to rebuild his life.

I wanted the book to be indistinguishable from those released by a corporate publisher.

It has a professional cover, professional formatting, and professional editing and proofreading.

When I launched the book, it did well, but after a few weeks it dropped to making £7 per day and kept selling at that level.

For some, this might be a disapointment.

Indeed, I would have had my book dropped by a corporate publisher and would ti would be no doubt out of print and impossible for me to get a second book deal.

But after almost five years, this same book still brings in around £7 per day.

There are four books in that series, all bringing in recurring income.

And the omnibus of that series has earned double in one year than the entire series combined.

And that’s not my bestselling series by any means.

At present, I have eight novels, twenty-one novellas, and three series boxsets all bringing in multiple streams of income.

Of course, when you’re a full-time writer, you’re also a marketing company.

So, even though I try to write every weekday, I also have to get my books in front of the right readers and getting them to take a chance on my work.

Indeed, I have a prequel novella for each of my series that I give away for free.

A lot of authors are against the idea of giving away their art, believing it devalues their work.

But I know for a fact that the majority of my readers find me through a free book and go onto to buy the series.

Some buy all of my series. Some share on social media and email me wondering when the next book is coming.

I run adverts on Facebook and Amazon. I cross-promotion with other authors and send out a weekly email newsletter to over 9,000 subscribers.

My day yesterday looked like this:

I wrote 2.5k in the morning.

I recorded a video with my wife for social media.

I wrote and sent my newsletter, arranged a group promo with some other fantasy authors and took part in a live Q&A on Facebook live.

I then uploaded the Q&A to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

So, it takes a lot of extra work to be a full-time writer, but also means I get to be a full-time writer.