The short answer
Five creators with 25,000 followers each put your book in front of roughly 125,000 people. Under the illustrative planning assumptions built into this page — 18 percent of followers view a post, 1.2 percent of viewers click through, and 8 percent of clickers buy — that reach converts to about 22 sales and close to 77 dollars in ebook royalty at a 4.99 price. Seeding free advance copies keeps that royalty as your net, while paying 150 dollars per creator costs 750 dollars and leaves the campaign deep in the red. So the default answer is straightforward: start with free advance copies, measure what each creator actually delivers, and only pay creators who have already demonstrated they can move your specific book.
That paragraph is a planning estimate, not a promise. Nobody can guarantee how many views, clicks, or purchases a creator post will generate, because every audience, book, and week behaves differently. Treat the numbers below as a sizing exercise that tells you whether an outreach plan is large enough to matter and whether paid posts can plausibly pay for themselves.
What this calculator asks for
The form collects five inputs. Genre gives context for the guidance around the numbers, since a romance audience on short video behaves differently from a nonfiction audience on photo posts. Average followers per creator sets the size of each account you plan to contact. Number of creators sets how many accounts join the effort. Book price drives the royalty arithmetic. Format switches the royalty assumption between ebook and paperback, because the two formats leave you very different margins per sale.
Total reach is the first output, and it is simple multiplication: followers per creator times number of creators. Everything else flows from that single product, so getting reach right matters more than fine-tuning any later rate.
How the funnel math works, step by step
The calculator moves reach through three stages. Each stage uses a fixed illustrative planning rate that you should read as a placeholder for discussion, not as measured data from any platform.
Stage one is views. The tool assumes 18 percent of a creator's followers see a given book post. With 25,000 followers, one creator generates about 4,500 views. With five such creators, the campaign totals about 22,500 views from 125,000 combined reach.
Stage two is clicks. The tool assumes 1.2 percent of viewers tap the purchase link. From 4,500 views, one creator sends roughly 54 shoppers to the store page. Across five creators, that is 270 store visits from 22,500 views.
Stage three is purchases. The tool assumes 8 percent of store visitors buy. From 54 visitors, one creator produces about 4.3 sales. Across five creators, the campaign lands at about 22 sales from 270 visits.
Multiply the three rates together and each follower is worth about 0.0001728 sales under these assumptions. That tiny per-follower figure explains why small campaigns look so weak in the tool: 4,000 combined reach yields less than one expected sale, which is the calculator telling you the plan is below the noise floor rather than telling you the book will fail.
The worked default example in full
Walk through the defaults slowly so you trust every digit. Five creators times 25,000 followers equals 125,000 total reach. Eighteen percent of 125,000 equals 22,500 views. Multiply 22,500 by 1.2 percent and you get 270 clicks. Multiply 270 by 8 percent and you land at 21.6 sales, which the tool rounds to 22.
Royalty comes next. The tool assumes an ebook royalty of 70 percent of the retail price as a planning placeholder. Seventy percent of 4.99 dollars is about 3.49 dollars per sale. Multiply 3.49 dollars by 22 sales and the campaign earns about 76.78 dollars in royalty.
Now the two cost paths. Free advance-copy seeding costs zero dollars in fees plus whatever the books themselves cost you to provide, so the net is the full 76.78 dollars. Paid posts at 150 dollars per creator cost 750 dollars for five creators, so the net is 76.78 minus 750, a loss of about 673 dollars. No reasonable adjustment to the middle of the funnel overcomes a cost gap that large, which is why the verdict favors free seeding at this size.
Why the rates are labeled illustrative
Every percentage in this tool wears the word illustrative deliberately. Real view rates swing with posting time, video length, sound choice, and how the recommendation system treats that account that week. Real click rates swing with how clearly the creator shows the cover, names the title, and places the link. Real conversion rates swing with your cover quality, review count, price, blurb, and whether the store page loads quickly on a phone.
Calling the rates illustrative planning assumptions keeps you honest in two directions. It stops you from presenting 22 sales to a co-author as a forecast, and it stops you from discarding influencer outreach because one post underperformed a spreadsheet. Use the output to compare plan sizes against each other — five creators versus fifteen, mid-size accounts versus large ones — instead of treating any single number as a prediction.
Royalty: ebook versus paperback
Format changes the answer more than most authors expect. The tool assumes ebook royalty equals 70 percent of price and paperback royalty equals 20 percent of price, both as rough planning placeholders rather than statements about any store's actual terms.
At 4.99 dollars, the ebook royalty is about 3.49 dollars per sale and 22 sales earn roughly 76.78 dollars. Switch the same campaign to paperback and the royalty drops to about 1.00 dollar per sale, so the same 22 sales earn only 22.00 dollars. The paid column does not move — five creators still cost 750 dollars — so paperback makes paid posts even harder to justify.
This gap carries a practical lesson. If your launch centers on paperback, free seeding is nearly always the right call at small and mid-size reach, because the per-sale margin cannot absorb fees. If your launch centers on ebook, paid posts at least enter the conversation once reach climbs into the hundreds of thousands, since each sale contributes meaningfully toward the fee.
Free advance copies versus paid posts
The comparison block sets the two strategies side by side on three rows: upfront cost, royalty earned, and net result. Royalty earned is identical in both columns because the same posts generate the same sales in this model. Only the cost row differs, which means the entire decision reduces to whether the royalty covers the fees.
Free seeding wins whenever expected royalty sits below the total fee, which describes most campaigns under a few hundred thousand reach. Its real-world advantages go beyond the arithmetic: creators who accept free books chose your title voluntarily, their recommendations sound unforced, and a posted review gives you evidence about that creator before money changes hands.
Paid posts earn their place in narrower situations. A creator with a proven record of selling your subgenre may be worth a fee because their audience buys on command. A launch with a hard deadline may need guaranteed posting dates, which money buys and free copies cannot. A large-reach campaign where the royalty already clears the fee can scale faster by paying, since waiting on volunteers slows momentum.
A sensible middle path exists for most authors. Seed free copies widely, watch which creators post and which posts draw comments, then offer a paid repost or a second video only to the one or two accounts that proved themselves. That sequence spends money on information you already hold instead of on hope.
Illustrative hypothetical example one: a romance launch on short video
Consider a hypothetical debut romance author planning a launch with eight short-video creators averaging 40,000 followers each. This scenario is entirely illustrative, with invented numbers chosen to show how the tool scales.
Combined reach is 320,000. Eighteen percent viewing gives 57,600 views. A 1.2 percent click rate sends about 691 shoppers to the store. An 8 percent purchase rate yields roughly 55 sales. At 4.99 dollars with the 70 percent ebook assumption, royalty per sale is about 3.49 dollars and total royalty lands near 192 dollars.
Free seeding nets the full 192 dollars. Paid posts at 150 dollars each cost 1,200 dollars and lose about 1,008 dollars. The verdict stays with free copies, but the author learns something valuable: doubling the creator list to sixteen would push royalty toward 384 dollars, still short of the 2,400-dollar fee. For this book, paid posts across the whole group never catch up, while paying only the two best performers after a free round might.
The romance angle matters here. Short-video romance communities are enormous and trend-driven, so a single enthusiastic video can outperform the average dramatically — or vanish. That variance is exactly why the free-first sequence fits romance: it buys many lottery tickets at the cost of books alone, then concentrates spending on the tickets that show early movement.
Illustrative hypothetical example two: a nonfiction launch on photo posts
Now consider a hypothetical nonfiction author writing about personal finance, working with six photo-post creators averaging 15,000 followers each. Again, every number below is invented for illustration.
Combined reach is 90,000. Eighteen percent viewing gives 16,200 views. A 1.2 percent click rate produces about 194 store visits. An 8 percent purchase rate yields roughly 16 sales. At a 9.99 price with the ebook assumption, royalty per sale is about 6.99 dollars and total royalty approaches 112 dollars.
Free seeding keeps the 112 dollars. Paid posts cost 900 dollars and lose heavily. But the deeper point is structural: nonfiction buyers follow topics more than book accounts, so a general book-photo audience converts worse for a finance title than the uniform 8 percent suggests. The author would do better approaching three finance-focused creators of any size than six general book accounts, even though the tool shows identical reach. Use the calculator for sizing, then apply judgment about audience fit that no fixed rate can capture.
Reading your verdict
The tool returns one of three verdict styles. An informational verdict appears when combined reach falls below about 10,000 or expected sales drop under two. It means the plan is too small to evaluate, not that the book is doomed. Add creators, find larger accounts, or both, then run the numbers again.
A warning verdict is the most common result. It means free seeding earns something while paid posts lose money at the stated fee. Treat it as permission to run a wide free campaign and a prohibition on paying the whole group upfront.
A passing verdict appears when even the paid column shows a profit, which requires very large reach or a high price. Treat it as a green light to negotiate, not a command to pay everyone. Confirm each creator's genre fit, ask for past book-post performance in their own words, and start with a short paid test before committing the full budget.
Edge cases and failure modes
Zero or near-zero reach breaks the model in an obvious way: the tool reports an informational verdict because dividing noise by rates still gives noise. Do not read zero as a strategy signal. It only means no inputs were entered or the plan has no audience yet.
One giant creator versus many small ones exposes a blind spot. The tool treats 500,000 reach from one account identically to 500,000 from twenty accounts of 25,000. Real campaigns differ: one account creates single-point-of-failure risk, since a skipped post or a flat video zeroes the whole effort, while twenty accounts diversify timing and style. Prefer the diversified list when the totals match, and discount any plan that depends on a single person posting on a single day.
Follower counts include inactive, duplicate, and purchased followers on some accounts. A creator with 100,000 followers and weak comment activity may deliver fewer real views than a 20,000-follower account with an engaged community. Before paying anyone, scroll their recent posts and compare likes and comments to follower count; shallow engagement should push you to cut the assumed view rate in your head or drop the creator entirely.
Posting failures are the most common real-world breakdown. Free-copy creators forget, lose the book, or post months late. Paid creators post at midnight, bury the title, or link the wrong edition. The tool assumes every creator posts competently, so your operational job is closing that gap: confirm receipt, agree on a posting window, supply the correct link, and check the post within a day.
Attribution failure is the quietest breakdown. Without per-creator links or staggered dates, a sales bump cannot be assigned to anyone, and the next round repeats the same guesswork. Give each creator a distinct link, space posts several days apart, and record units per creator in a simple log. That log becomes the dataset that replaces these illustrative rates with your own history.
Price and availability failures also distort results. A store page showing the wrong price, a missing ebook edition, or an out-of-stock paperback can crater conversion on the exact day posts go live. Verify every link yourself on a phone the morning posting begins, because the tool's 8 percent assumes a working page.
Genre mismatch is the failure the numbers hide best. A 200,000-follower general audience that never reads your subgenre will underperform a 15,000-follower niche account dramatically. The calculator cannot see fit, so manually filter every list for creators who have posted books like yours in the last three months before trusting any total.
Genre-specific guidance
Romance thrives on short video, emotional reactions, and trope language that signals exactly which readers should care. Prioritize creators who name tropes, film themselves reacting, and post romance almost exclusively. Volume matters because trends are unpredictable, so favor more creators over bigger ones when the budget is books alone.
Fantasy and science fiction reward worldbuilding hooks and series commitment. Creators who read series to completion and post map art, magic-system explainers, or lore discussions fit better than general reviewers. Because these readers buy whole series, mention book one price and series length in your pitch, and consider the read-through revenue beyond the single sale the tool counts.
Mystery and thriller audiences respond to spoiler-free suspense: pacing, twists, and the promise of a one-sitting read. Creators who post hook-first reviews without revealing endings are ideal partners. Short posting windows help here, since launch-week momentum and early ratings compound for thrillers more than for evergreen nonfiction.
Nonfiction is the hardest fit for general book accounts and the easiest for topic creators. A productivity book belongs with productivity creators, not romance reviewers, even at one-tenth the follower count. Adjust expectations downward whenever the audience reads little in your category, and supply the creator with one concrete takeaway to demonstrate rather than a plot summary.
Young adult lives where its readers live: short video first, photo posts second. Cover appeal and first-line hooks carry unusual weight, so send cover images early and lead pitches with the premise in one sentence. School and library sensitivities apply to some subgenres, so confirm the creator's audience age skew matches the book before seeding widely.
Across every genre, recency of book content beats raw follower count. A 30,000-follower account that posts books three times a week will usually outperform a 150,000-follower lifestyle account that posts one book a month. Filter lists by book-posting frequency first, then compare sizes.
Running outreach like an operation
Build the list before you need it. Search genre hashtags, follow recommendation chains from creators you admire, and save accounts that post books like yours over several weeks. A list assembled in an afternoon will be shallow; a list accumulated over a month will be accurate.
Pitch briefly and specifically. Name the book, state the genre and tropes or topic in one line, explain why that creator in particular fits, and state exactly what you are offering: a free copy with no obligation, or a paid post with dates and deliverables. Long flattery emails get skimmed; precise short ones get answered.
Ship quickly and confirm receipt. Every week of delay between agreement and delivery bleeds momentum and pushes posts past launch. Send digital copies instantly and physical copies with tracking, then message once to confirm arrival rather than checking in repeatedly.
Make posting easy. Provide the correct store link, the exact title and author name spelling, the cover file, and two or three spoiler-free talking points the creator may use or ignore. Never script their opinion; creators who feel controlled produce flat content or decline.
Stagger the schedule. Five posts on one day create a single spike that vanishes, while five posts across three weeks create sustained visibility and let you learn between posts. Paid posts especially should be spaced, since each result informs whether the next fee is justified.
Log everything per creator: contact date, copy sent, agreed window, actual post date, link used, and units during the week after posting. After twenty or thirty logged creators, your own averages replace the illustrative rates on this page, and your planning becomes dramatically sharper.
Going deeper: questions authors ask next
How should follower count influence the fee I accept? Scale expectations linearly: a creator twice as large should deliver roughly twice the views under identical engagement, so their fee should roughly track size unless engagement data says otherwise. When a small account quotes a large fee, ask what past book posts achieved in concrete terms before negotiating.
Should micro-influencers get priority over large accounts? For free seeding, yes, almost always. Small engaged accounts reply more often, post more reliably, and cost only a book, so a list of twenty small creators usually beats five large ones at the same reach. Reserve large-account effort for paid tests after small accounts reveal which angles resonate.
What deliverable should a paid post include? Specify platform, format, posting window, link placement, and how long the post stays up, all in writing before payment. A short video with the link in the first comment and the book held on camera outperforms a vague promise of a mention, and written terms prevent every common dispute.
How long should I wait before judging a post? Give each post a full week, since recommendation systems surface videos over days and readers buy on weekends. Judging after 24 hours fires creators whose posts were still climbing and rewards whoever posted at the luckiest hour.
Can influencer posts help anything besides launch-week sales? Yes. Evergreen review posts keep selling backlist for months, creator quotes become advertising creative with permission, and posted reviews supply social proof for your store page and website. Log which posts keep delivering so future campaigns reuse proven partners rather than starting cold.
What if nobody replies to pitches? Rewrite the pitch before blaming the book. Shorten it by half, lead with the single most compelling hook, and target smaller accounts whose inboxes are less crowded. A reply rate below one in twenty usually signals a pitch or targeting problem, while a reply rate above one in ten with no posts signals a follow-through problem worth fixing with faster shipping and clearer windows.
Tracking these numbers over time
A single estimate cannot guide a career, but a running record can. That ongoing tracking is what Author Desk at /author-desk is built for: log each creator, each post date, and each week of sales in one place so your real averages gradually replace planning assumptions. Over several launches the log reveals which genres, platforms, and creator sizes actually move your books, turning every campaign into preparation for the next. Keep the habit for a year and your outreach decisions will rest on evidence instead of hope.
Mistakes that waste the budget
Paying before any free test is the costliest error. Fees commit money to unproven fit, while a free round would have identified the one creator worth paying for a tenth of the cost. Always earn the right to spend with data.
Chasing follower count while ignoring fit is the second. A massive audience that never reads your genre converts near zero, while a modest niche audience buys eagerly. Filter for recent books-like-yours before sorting by size.
Sending copies without tracking links is the third. Untracked posts produce anecdotes, and anecdotes cannot allocate the next budget. Distinct links and staggered dates cost nothing and create the only dataset that matters.
Judging too early is the fourth. Pulling support after two quiet days abandons posts that needed a week to circulate. Set the evaluation window in advance and honor it.
Finally, treating the calculator output as a forecast is the mistake this whole page warns against. The tool sizes plans and compares strategies; your logged results predict the future. Keep both in their place and influencer outreach becomes a repeatable, improvable part of your marketing instead of a gamble.