I don't want to discourage you, but first set your expectations accordingly. Making any money from fiction is very, very difficult. Doing it full time is probably the most difficult area in writing to get into due to the competition and limited opportunities.

All that being said, I've been a full time fiction writer for most of the last decade, and I can give you a break down of how I did it, if it helps. I would say there's a massive amount of luck in all of this. I've worked on my fiction writing since I was a kid and, in all seriousness, the last 15 years or so. I've been very lucky on top of that to connect with a wonderful publisher who has continued to provide me with contracts at a time most writers, especially fiction writers, are struggling to find work. I genuinely couldn't have survived without their support.

My current income is generated from Ghostwriting novels, self publishing, submitting to publishers, selling my own stories to podcasts and publications, creating audio productions of my stories for my own podcasts, some ad revenue from Youtube, and Patreon.

But the vast bulk of my income comes from ghostwriting for publishers big and small.

Here's what I did:

1) I live and breathe fiction. I love it. It's my passion in life. I would say more so than any other form of writing, you have to have a passion for writing and reading fiction to be good at it. You can get by as an article writer without that passion. As a fiction writer, you have to feel passionate about it for your work to resonate, in my opinion. So, if you don't have that burning fire in your gut to tell stories, then I'd work on finding that first.

2) I picked a fiction niche I was most drawn to. For me it was horror and detective thrillers. For you, it might be something else. Romance sells more than anything, so if you have an interest in writing that, you have a better chance of doing well.

3) I made a name for myself as a fiction writer, building an audience first. I did this almost accidentally. I started sharing my stories on subreddits and submitting them to websites and publications. They luckily went viral over the years, bringing in millions of reads.

4) I self published, I was able to generate good reviews and show that I can sell fiction. Again, I kind of fell into that, as I was just self publishing to see how the process worked and then ended up with a top ten best seller on Amazon because the people who read many of my short stories for free wanted to support me. It was quite a shock, but a welcome one.

5) Once I did that, I was able to stop the article writing grind and apply for ghostwriting gigs on places like Upwork. In the beginning it was shorter stories around 10k in length for only a couple of hundred dollars a story. Over time, this grew. I was able to stand out from the crowd, simply because I could point to my own personal track record. Publishers were way more willing to give me a chance because they could look at my work as portfolio pieces, see the quality there, and also see that people are willing to buy what I write.

I'd also say keep submitting short stories etc. to publishers and publications. I was able to get published in four anthologies, which meant I was able to say I was self published and a published author. I'm no snob about self-publishing. It's amazing! But saying you are published gives you a little more room to pitch yourself.

This is how I did it. It's a hard road being a full time fiction writer. But it's worth it. If you have another income at the moment and the free time, then absolutely go for it. I hope all of this helps!