Image source: meetcalli.com

What happens when an industry transforms its sales channels in such a short period of time that it leaves individual creators without the infrastructure to adapt? In publishing, the rise of “BookTok” and “Bookstagram” has changed how readers discover books, yet most authors remain stuck with outdated, inefficient marketing approaches. Consequently, this gap has created a situation where readers struggle to find new books despite abundant online content, while authors struggle to reach readers despite effective social platforms.

“Many authors start to publish because they love writing and the process of creating a book, but they are not marketers themselves,” says Katelyn Ilkani, founder and CEO of Calli, an influencer marketing platform built specifically for romance authors that connects them with pre-vetted content creators. Launched in May, the platform has already published over 250 campaigns, with more than 200 currently active.

“Many authors today hope that they go viral. They hope that an influencer picks up their book,” Katelyn notes. “Historically, authors have been DMing influencers and asking if they would accept an e-book for a post, but that’s not scalable or controllable. You don’t know if the influencer will post for you or not.”

With a burning passion for romance books and a background in technology, Katelyn started researching influencer marketing and realized that she could turn that hope into “an actual platform that would enable authors to hire influencers and not just wish that an influencer would find them.”

The Calli Platform: How It Works

Calli transforms the chaotic influencer outreach process into a structured marketplace with clear expectations for both parties. “What Calli is doing is taking the ambiguity out of the process,” Katelyn explains. The platform functions as both SaaS and a two-sided marketplace connecting authors and influencers.

For authors, the campaign creation process begins with uploading their book cover and detailed information. “We make it a very Pinterest-like experience for influencers to find books. It’s very visual,” Katelyn says. Authors provide excerpts, blurbs, genre classifications, and specify the tropes present in their work—key information for matching with the right influencers.

Authors then outline their marketing objectives, whether brand awareness, social media growth, or direct book sales. “Book sales are the ultimate goal, but book sales are at the bottom of the marketing funnel,” Katelyn notes. “We talk to authors about also focusing on brand awareness, and thinking about adjacent marketing goals, like growing their own social media following.”

On the influencer side, Calli implements a thorough vetting process. “We look for influencers who have at least a certain number of posts on their account, at least 300 followers. They have to be posting regularly,” explains Katelyn. The platform only accepts content creators producing original, human-made content focused on books or book-adjacent themes like voice narration or modeling relevant to book promotion.

Once approved, influencers can browse available campaigns and apply to those matching their interests.

The Four Key Elements

Calli addresses the discovery challenge through several interconnected solutions. 

First, the platform enables precise targeting based on subgenres and tropes, ensuring authors connect with influencers who already have an affinity for their specific type of work. “One of the things that we’ve done is make it so that authors can find influencers who really fit their book very specifically,” Katelyn explains, adding that this detailed matching increases the likelihood of sincere promotion.

Second, Calli establishes clear contractual relationships between authors and influencers. Unlike the informal arrangements typical in book marketing, Calli implements proper campaign briefs and agreements. “An author can see that an influencer is already invested in the content in their book and what they’re asking them to promote. Then they can hire them with a campaign brief and a clear pathway to marketing their book,” says Katelyn.

Third, Calli provides education for both sides of the marketplace. Recognizing that many authors lack marketing expertise, the platform offers guided onboarding, live support, and masterclasses. “We have two people in our customer excellence team today, two full-time people who work on both author and influencer onboarding and education,” Katelyn shares. These resources cover marketing concepts, including running ads on creator content, budgeting, and creative direction.

Fourth, Calli helps handle the often confusing territory of influencer compensation. “One of the things that’s different about being a content creator in the book space is that the margins in publishing are much lower than some other product areas,” Katelyn explains. The platform provides rate recommendations based on follower count and engagement metrics, suggesting approximately 1% of follower count as appropriate compensation—lower than the 4% often seen in other industries.

Results and Success Stories

Katelyn highlights the effectiveness of Calli in a campaign with author Ashley Zavarelli (writing as A. Zavarelli): “We worked with her to promote her ‘Boston Underworld’ series. We ran a very focused campaign for the series, which within 30 days had completely paid for itself.”

The campaign’s performance exceeded expectations, with Zavarelli tripling her royalties on the series. “She got less than $10 cost per mil. Very, very good metrics,” Katelyn notes. These results demonstrate that when properly structured, influencer marketing for books can deliver a measurable return on investment.

Every influencer who completes a campaign on Calli provides metrics about their posts directly to the author, enabling performance tracking. The platform is also developing more detailed analytics capabilities. “The next iteration is going to have specific analytics dashboards for authors as well as more integrations with TikTok and Instagram to be able to pull post-level data so they can track it over time in their dashboard,” Katelyn explains.

Why Social Proof Drives Book Discovery

The power of Calli’s approach stems from the effectiveness of social proof in book marketing. “I think it’s so powerful because of the social proof,” Katelyn explains. “At the end of the day, a book is a product and people like to buy from other people that they trust and it feels like an authentic recommendation.”

The impact of sincere recommendations on book sales has been notable across the industry. Katelyn points to an example: “Barnes & Noble, which was on a path of going out of business, essentially came out earlier this year and said that they are opening 60 new stores on the back of BookTok.”

The storytelling capabilities of influencers create an effective synergy with books. As content creators use narratives to promote narratives, the relationship becomes mutually reinforcing. “As they’re able to use a story to create a story within their own content, it’s very symbiotic,” Katelyn observes.

Expanding Beyond Romance

While Calli launched with a focus on romance—the genre that has seen notable BookTok success—Katelyn has a clear expansion strategy. “In 2025, we’re going to stay focused on romance. I want to make sure that we are serving our core user group very well before we expand,” she says.

The platform plans to broaden its scope next year to include adjacent genres that share readers with romance. “Going into 2026, the plan is to expand into adjacent genres, including thriller, fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, moving into women’s fiction, things that a lot of romance readers also read,” Katelyn explains.

Eventually, Katelyn envisions Calli serving the broader publishing ecosystem, including publishers and book-adjacent businesses like subscription boxes. Her ultimate goal is for Calli to be “the place where all authors come to market their books” and “the default marketing infrastructure for publishing.”

The strong adoption of Calli—with a waitlist of 5,500 people before launch and over 250 campaigns in just nine weeks—shows the clear demand for structured marketing solutions in publishing. As Katelyn shares, “The adoption has just been phenomenal. It’s been really exciting.”