Welcome to the Self Publishing School podcast, the show for aspiring authors and writers who want to publish a book that actually builds their business and their life.

Every episode, you'll hear from top authors and everyday people just like you who are doing it at the highest level.

I'm your host, Chandler Bolt, the founder and CEO of selfpublishing.com, where we've helped over 7,000 authors write, publish, and launch their book successfully.

Let's get into it.

I saw this video that said, if you post on TikTok every single day for an entire year, you'll never have to worry about money again.

I was like, that's really dramatic.

But it is true that if you pick a social media platform and you post every day for a year, you'll have opportunities. The videos were getting millions of views each. They were blowing up. And I get an email in my inbox one day. We want to turn your TikTok series into a book. Negotiated the deal. It happened. I had pitched all of these people before I was posting consistently.

The minute I build my personal brand and I'm posting consistently, now they're interested.

I'm here with Courtney Johnson. She got a six-figure advance. As a first-time author, this is one of

the craziest stories I've ever heard. She just launched this book. We were just at her book launch

party a couple weeks ago. The book's called Career Cheat Codes. This is a signed copy, y'all. I don't want to flex on you, but you know, this is pretty impressive. So in this video, we're going to talk about how she got a six-figure advance as a first-time author. We're also going to talk about kind of the key to that. So we'll tell the story behind it, the tactics if you're trying to do that, but then the key to it, which is what actually led to it. We'll talk about that at the end. Courtney, welcome. Hi, happy to be here. So how'd you do it? I know there's a fun story about this. This has been on your vision wall for a while. You had someone reach out. What's the story? I've always wanted to publish a book since I was little. It's been a dream of mine. I've always loved books. So I knew it would happen one day. And I was actually scrolling on TikTok one day. And I saw this video that said, if you post on TikTok every single day for an entire year, you'll never have to worry about money again. And I was like, that's really dramatic. That's a really dramatic post. And just to be clear, that's not really true, meaning there's not going to be like millions of dollars flooding your bank account. But it is true that if you pick a social media platform and you post every day for a year, you'll have opportunities. You'll have freelance gigs or clients or job offers or brand deals, whatever it is your goal.

It's very rare that you would commit to a year of consistency and not see any results.

So I said, bet. I'm going to try that. I'm going to post on TikTok every single day for an entire

year. I think this was in 2022. And I started posting about the most unhinged things that I have done to get ahead in my career. I heard the

advice, I think it was in the creative act, that said, if your art is bad, be more honest. And my videos

kept flopping and flopping and flopping. And I thought, how can I be more honest? How can I be

radically honest about things that I've done in my

career, things that I've seen in my career. So I started posting videos called problematic

career cheat codes, the most unhinged or unethical or problematic things I've done to get ahead in my

career. They started taking great hook. Great hook. Good grief. You're good at hooks.

Yeah. I mean, it actually had been in my head for years and years. I'd had that hook in my head. I wanted to write about it. I was in the corporate world and like, no way I'm giving away my secrets. Anyways, this is after I got out of the corporate world. So I started posting about it. I turned it into a series. The videos were getting millions of views each. They were blowing up. And I get an email in

my inbox one day and says, world. So I started posting about it. I turned it into a series. The videos were getting millions of

...