To just quit work and finally write my books?

This. No publisher is going to sign you on the basis of an incomplete book. They need to know you have the ability and stamina to actually FINISH a book - you would not believe how many people have written half a book that they never actually finish, while having loads of ideas for 'follow ups'.

The only people who can sell an idea on the strength of a sample chapter are already very well established authors with a proven track record. Or, sigh, celebrities who are going to get ghost writers to write the rest of the book anyway.

It's funny, but these threads pop up from time to time that say approximately

1. I'm not enjoying my job
2. I've always wanted to be a X
3. I want to quit my job and try X
4. Even though I've no experience I'm sure I will be accepted and a success because I am really good at <small part of job>

And they're always about becoming a writer or doing medicine.

It's funny, but I know very little about either, I'd say, but I have far more idea how much work and the likelihood of success than most of the people who want to do them.
And the first few pages are always people cheering them on, go for your dreams, you only live once, you're so amazing, you'll do it...
Of course those aren't the people who are going to be living without a regular income when Op quits her job and finds she isn't going to get into either easily.

Then the reality of people who have been there come in.
I'd be interested on these many threads that come every year if there is anyone who has actually quitted their job and become successful in either of those two fields.

If you've only got enough savings to live off for 2 years, beware. I've been published and only earned £7k for the year.

This ☝️

This is what I do. 3 days work, 2 days of writing. I'm lucky to be able to afford being part-time at work.

I say go for it - there is so much shite in bookshops that sells, you never know. You may strike lucky. Well, I mean, memoirs of pop singers, self-help shite - surely you can do better than that and write something worthy?

I work in publishing: do not quit your job! Good luck with the writing and publishing, and hope you can down the line, but definitely don't go into it expecting that you will be able to support yourself on the income (let alone a family!). It absolutely can happen, but the average income of a writer in the UK is around £7-8k – and bear in mind that includes the JK Rowlings and Richard Osman's, so think of how many are on the other side of that figure.

I never knew there was a ‘big five’ when it came to publishing, or how little the average author actually make.

I know two people who got 3-book deals. One with a Big Five publisher and had smoke blown up their arse about how they would be the next big thing. Neither earns anywhere near enough to live on. Compared to the hours they have worked in their books, they’ve deffo been paid less than minimum wage. They’re good books, too.

I’ve written 2 books. Had an agent at one point. I think my books are good, but they remain unpublished. I wrote them while carrying on working, and thank goodness for that.

I don’t say this to be discouraging about writing. If you love it, keep doing it (or start doing it?!). But it could be worth having a big think about work more widely. Eventually I realised that my (fairly unrealistic) dream of being published was actually a dissatisfaction with my job/career. I retrained to do a job I absolutely adore, and the itch to be published has gone away, because I find my job so rewarding. I’d still love to be published, but I’m fulfilled either way.

I dont have a view as such, but I'm assuming your employer wouldn't agree an unpaid career break?

Alternatively, you could try to take your max unpaid parental leave entitlement in the school holidays, which would free up your usual annual leave entitlement to use when your kids are at school to write...as a sort of trial if you can get them to agree an a/L pattern that suits.

Just a thought really...not sure if that would work...

YES life is short write your books.

Life may be short but majority of people live to state pension age 67-68. Whilst working at a high paid but soul destroying job may seem tough, closing off your earning options at the height of them reduces your options a lot in later years. Job market sucks atm especially as you get older so there’s no guarantee if OPs plan doesn’t work out that she will be able to walk back into a high paying role.

I don’t want to pee on anyone’s chips and I know it sounds that way, but if you’re giving it all up for a dream, it’s well worth exploring what has stopped you dedicating time to writing properly before now and lack of time isn’t the answer.

Go part time? Your savings will last much longer and I'd the reality doesn't match up to your expectations after a year of so you're still in work and could presumably increase hours again.

If you can't do it in 2 days a week treating it like a 9-5 you might need to accept it's not just the lack of time holding you back. They say we all have a novel inside of us, but most people's stay there.

If you do this you need to face the reality of the ££. For most, writing, even when published, is a hobby or a second income. I've never earned more than about £5K in a year from writing books (I earn a LOT more from other writing, but even that's not my main work). To get I have to not just write, but also promote, since I decided to self publish (definitely more lucrative if you put some effort in). Most of the writers I know circle the £5-10K mark. They'd probably consider writing is their career but is it if they need other jobs to scrape by? If you can effectively retire and write, that's great, but very few writers do well out of it. I have a friend who is very well known, hits the best seller lists etc. She makes about £70K a year, which is good but by no means a great living.

If you know what you are doing you will earn more self publishing. The era of wanting or needing a trad publisher are over. I speak as someone who has done both.

Respectfully, as you say yourself, books by well-known people do sell, regardless of your opinion of their quality. And publishers, agents and bookshops are not non-profit organisations.

Given the choice between Earl Spencer’s tell-all saga fingering the other Charles with huge amounts of pre-release media coverage, another instalment of a massively best-selling cosy crime series by a celebrity, and a brilliant but low-key novel about fishing by an unknown author, which do you think is going to make more money for the publisher and agent, and get the window or prominent front table at the bookshop?

Well, it’s my career, because even though I earn more money from other sources (teaching writing), those other sources require me to be actively writing and publishing fiction.

That's how many writers I know see it. I'm sorry if I sounded like I was dismissing people who both write and have other jobs. I'm not. I'm the same in a way ; )

Is your company the type to allow you a sabbatical period without pay - eg 3 or 6 months off in which you write, but your job is there afterwards?

Oh, no, I'm not being arsy about it. I know there are writers whose day job doesn't bear any relationship to their writing -- I know a postman who writes very well-regarded hardboiled crime novels, for instance. He does come in to the creative writing programme and give seminars, but he likes the postal job because it's done early in the day and leaves time for writing in the afternoons. It works for him.

Magnus Mills, famously, was a bus driver when his first novel was was on the Booker shortlist, but went back to it years later, after a period of writing FT, not just on financial grounds, because he said it was helpful to his writing routine.

But most people I know personally who write seriously have some kind of writing-adjacent job, usually teaching writing, or mentoring writers, or doing MS assessment etc, or reading for a literary agency.

I love Magnus Mills!
He is exactly the kind of level of author that I would be very curious how much he earns and if it's a good living.

So many on this thread are saying they know (or are!) best selling authors and don't earn enough. It really makes me think.

I would love to give up the day job and just write but I know enough about myself to know that I am not a great finisher. Lots of half-ideas, plans for a trilogy, etc but not much down on paper!

You are absolutely right.

I would like to be published one day, but I am writing regardless because even if I am the only person who ever reads them I love writing and the stories I really want to tell the stories I am.

I think you just need to find some routine, however small and see where you end up.

So hard to sell books unless your really lucky. Blame the so called celebs who write books and they sell on the back of their name.
Harry Styles mum is one. Marcus Rashford and loads more.

He's very prolific, but I sincerely doubt he'd make a remotely adequate living wage from his writing.