7 Authors Who Were Able to Quit Their Day Jobs Thanks to TikTok

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TikTok, or more importantly for us, BookTok, has blown up over the past couple of years. Now, even Barnes and Noble proudly displays a “Popular on BookTok” table as you walk in the door. Books that go viral on TikTok make big bucks, and many savvy authors are wondering how they can crack the TikTok code so that they can enjoy some of the benefits TikTok has to offer.

Anyone Can Go Viral

TikTok is a unique social media platform because anyone can go viral. It’s kind of like the American Dream of social media, anyone can make it big if they work hard, make enough videos, and have just a little bit of luck. They don’t prioritize big accounts as much as the other platforms, so as long as your video performs well right out of the gate, it will continue to do well.

What this means is that TikTok will first show your video to a select few people, if these people interact with your video genuinely, TikTok will continue to show your video to more and more people. If those first few people don’t engage with your video, then it will be dead in the water. This is why even accounts that had videos go viral with millions of views will also have many videos with just a few hundred views.

Perfect Formula?

There is no one perfect formula for making a viral TikTok video, and there’s even less known about how to keep the success once you’ve got it. However, by studying authors who are already doing well on TikTok, we may be able to gain some insights about the types of videos that perform well or how to genuinely connect with readers and fans.

Below, we explore some authors who started out as self-published authors, kicked butt on TikTok, and were eventually able to quit their day jobs, make six-figure incomes, and even gain traditional publishing contracts if they wanted.

7 Authors Who Ditch the Day Job Thanks to TikTok

1. Alex Aster

Alex Aster was feeling defeated after over a dozen rejections from publishers and being dropped by her agent. That’s when she decided to take things into her own hands. She went to TikTok to ask if anyone would be interested in reading the plots of her young adult novel, and by the next morning that video had over a million views. All of a sudden publishers were fighting over the rights to her book based on the TikTok data.

But she knew her work wasn’t over yet. She knew that to be truly successful she’d have to keep the hype alive. Unfortunately, it didn’t all go smoothly. When her book was released she earned a lot of backlash as readers felt that the promotions she did leading up to her book, Lightlark, were not actually representative of the book.

@alex.aster

2. Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti

Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti are the authors of Zodiac Academy. After experiencing incredible success, largely due to TikTok, many traditional publishers have approached them. However, after doing so well on their own, these authors aren’t quite sure what a publisher has to offer them anymore and have declined every offer so far. They remain independently published and happy with their success.

@carolinepeckham

@susannevalenti

3. Hannah Nicole Maehrer

Hannah Nicole Maehrer’s story is a fun one. Her book, Assistant to the Villain, was originally a viral TikTok series. It featured a sunshine assistant to an Evil Villain, and their unexpected romance, of course. TikTok fell in love with her characters, and the rest is history. This unique strategy may not work for everyone, but I think it’s a really fun way for Hannah to market her books.

@hannahnicolemae

4. Rosie Talbot

Rosie Talbot, author of Sixteen Souls, gained the attention of a Scholastic published after her debut YA novel became popular on TikTok. She was able to gain a two-book publishing deal.

@merrowchild

5. Emily Blackwood

Emily Blackwood has been able to make a six-figure income and quit her day job since starting TikTok. She shares everything from her publishing progress to her writing setup. She’s open and transparent about her journey and we feel that this is a huge part of her success on TikTok.

@authoremilyblackwood

6. Carissa Broadbent

BookTok is obsessed with Carissa Broadbent’s writing. TikTok word-of-mouth has been a huge contributor to her success, and because of this, she spends very little on paid advertising. That means that all those sales she’s making thanks to TikTok are pure profit. She recently signed a publishing deal with a traditional publisher for her books The Serpent and the Wings of Night and Daughter of No Worlds.

@carissabroadbent

7. Raven Kennedy

Raven Kennedy joins the ranks of authors who have signed with traditional publishers after gaining success on TikTok. Her books, The Plated Prisoner Series, has become a TikTok sensation and sold over half a million copies.

@ravenkennedybooks

What other authors do you know of that are crushing it on TikTok? Share with us in the comments below so that we can check them out.

Happy writing!