Book influencers: 40 bookstagram and BookTok creators, measured (2026)

This is a list of 40 book influencers: 32 bookstagrammers on Instagram and 8 BookTok creators on TikTok, grouped by size. For each one you get followers, the engagement rate of a typical post, how often they post, one recent post and a note on which brands they suit. We picked them from 944 book creators that Virev's crawler measured on Instagram between August 25 and September 30, 2026, and from 243 BookTok accounts on TikTok. On October 2 we opened all 40 profiles by hand.

The lists that rank for "book influencers" today are follower counts with an email export, or self-submitted directories. None of them says what a normal post gets, or what happens to a post when a publisher pays for it. This one does. 19 of the 32 Instagram creators have fewer than 100,000 followers, because that is the band where most book campaigns run.

How to read the numbers

• Typical ER is likes plus comments on the creator's median post out of their 12 most recent, divided by followers. One viral post can lift an average far above what a sponsored post will get. Jack Edwards averages 14.9% and his typical post gets 4.5%.
• Posts/wk is the pace across those 12 posts.
• Recent post links to a book post close to the creator's typical numbers, with its date and likes when we read it.
• Followers come from Virev's last read of each account, between August 23 and September 9, 2026. The profiles we opened on October 2 matched those reads within 10% for 28 of the 32 creators.

To check a creator who is not on this list, paste their handle into the Instagram engagement rate calculator or, for BookTok, the TikTok engagement rate calculator.

For context, the median book creator's typical post gets 2.61% at 1K to 10K followers, 1.32% at 10K to 100K, 1.23% at 100K to 500K and 0.49% above 500K. 29 of the 32 Instagram creators below beat the median of their tier.

Nano book influencers (1,000 to 10,000 followers)

• Johanna (@jowildheart), London. Fantasy and romance reviews, ARCs and special editions. A Smut & Sip rep since May, with the discount code JO10. Comments run high for her size: 66 to 139 on each of her last 12 posts. Fits romance publishers and book boxes that want UK reach.
• Margo (@margo_reading_corner), London. Special-edition flat lays and unboxing Reels for romance, fantasy and thrillers. Was on Smut & Sip's spring rep team. Fits book boxes, bookish merch and audiobook apps.
• Victoria (@nursevicreads), New York. A critical-care nurse who reads mysteries and thrillers. Her feed is ARC reviews on publication week, with thanks to Minotaur, Macmillan Audio and Celadon. Fits thriller imprints and audio editions.
• Natalie (@natreadsagain). Romantasy and matcha. Each of her last 12 posts drew between 177 and 354 comments, on a 6,300-follower account. Fits romantasy launches, drinkware and book boxes.
• Ashley (@beignetsandbookends), Lafayette, Louisiana. ARC reviews and bookstore Reels, 6.4 posts a week, the fastest pace among the nano creators here. Fits thriller and romance imprints that want a run of posts in one week.
• Shelby (@shel_be_reading), Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Horror, sci-fi and "weird girl lit". Her typical post gets 16.9% of followers, the highest on this list. She promotes Aardvark Book Club with the code SHELBY. Fits horror and sci-fi imprints such as Del Rey, whose ARC is the example post.
• Tash and Casey (@tashandcasey_talkbooks), Australia. Two friends who review romance, fantasy and crime and say they support Australian authors. They sit on author street teams. Fits Australian publishers and indie authors.
• Kennedy (@kennedysbooktalk), Pennsylvania. Literary fiction, horror and thrillers. Her late-August reading pile was mostly gifted copies and library books. Promotes Aardvark Book Club with the code KENNEDY. Fits literary imprints and book subscription services.

Micro book influencers (10,000 to 100,000 followers)

• Soph (@sophsbookz), UK. Romantasy and dark romance with drink pairings. Rep for Afterlight Books (SOPH5) and Literary Lane Bookshop. Fits UK book boxes and indie bookshops.
• Elise Carlin (@readswithelise), Brooklyn. Book events, fandom and pop culture. Her August 26 post launches an ACOTAR-inspired trip to Switzerland with EF Ultimate Break. Fits travel and event brands that want a book fandom audience.
• Mariah Plunkett (@thekneadtoread), the Bronx. Bakes inspired by books, such as an olive spread for Harmless by Miranda Shulman. Posts about every two weeks, so plan one post. Fits cookbook publishers, kitchen brands and thrillers with a food angle.
• The Smutty Professor (@the_smutty_professor). A PhD educator and ARC reader of romance. No Reels in her last 12 posts. Promotes Inked Edge Books with SMUTTY10 and gets copies through Hambright PR. Fits romance authors and PR firms that run blog tours.
• Faith (@faithohsler), Boise, Idaho. Bookstagram with a Christian bio line (Matthew 6:33) and short drink, outfit and book videos. She is expecting a baby. Has run Harlequin reading lists. Fits clean romance, faith fiction and maternity brands.
• Kimberly (@kimberlys.bookishworld), San Francisco Bay Area. Romance, fantasy and literary fiction lists in Reels, 3.8 posts a week. Also on BookTok and YouTube. Fits publishers that want one creator across three platforms.
• Emily Funn (@emfunnsbooks). Book Reels and a book club. Her August 9 post tagged Prime Video. Typical post 9.5%, the highest in this tier. Fits streaming adaptations of books.
• Ky (@kys.bookish.adventures). ARC reviews and recommendation carousels for romantasy and fantasy, no Reels. Her carousels draw 84 to 181 comments each. Fits fantasy launches that want a written review.
• Laura (@laurareadss), UK. Reading lists and cosy home posts. Her contact is The Aesthete Collective, and her bio names FairyLoot. Fits book boxes and home brands. She had 70,900 followers on October 2, up from 62,637 when we read her.
• Mason Murphy (@murph.reads). One of five men on this list. Reads all genres. 5 of his last 12 posts were labelled ads, including Everand. Posts less than once a week. He had 93,100 followers on October 2, up from 67,769 when we read him. Fits reading apps and classics.
• Cindy Pham (@readwithcindy). Author of The Secret World of Briar Rose. Signings, sapphic posts and ACOTAR edits. One Avatar Reel got 113,277 likes, which lifts her average to 13.4%; her typical post is 2.3%. Fits queer YA and comics publishers.

Mid-tier book influencers (100,000 to 500,000 followers)

• Emmy (@whatemmyreadss), UK. "An absolutely feral book reader", indie romantasy, also on YouTube (81K). 3 of her last 12 posts were labelled ads, including Audible UK. Fits audiobook and romantasy campaigns that want a creator used to ads.
• Abbie (@abbiekonnick), Hudson Valley, New York. Books, home and cosy life, 7.7 posts a week. Her bio lists 475K on TikTok and a book club, @thetwistedbookclub. Has run Harlequin summer reads. Fits romance imprints and home brands.
• Mack (@macksbookks), New York and New Jersey. Talking-head Reels with trope lists, such as friends-to-lovers. One viral Reel lifts her average to 9.7%; her typical post is 2.5%. Fits romance launches and book-to-screen tie-ins.
• Amy Jordan Jennings (@amyjordjennings), London. Seasonal book lists, bookshop visits and travel. About one post a week. Fits literary fiction and UK bookshops.
• Kevin T. Norman (@kevintnorman), US. Latine bookish and lifestyle creator. Reaction Reels on romance hits such as Heated Rivalry and The Love Hypothesis, 7.5 a week. His typical post is 0.63%, the lowest in this tier, so judge him on Reel views. Fits romance imprints that want volume.
• Julia and Katja (@thebookfeed_). Two web developers who make lore videos for Sarah J. Maas and Fourth Wing fans: family trees, maps and character histories. Typical post 9.8% at 180,000 followers. Fits fantasy launches and fandom merch.
• Heather McLarry (@heaths.bookclub), Los Angeles. Reader and YouTuber, horror and romance, 4.8 posts a week. Fits horror imprints and gift brands.
• Kriti Sachan (@kritiisachan), India. Book and film reviews, managed by an agency. 3 of her last 12 posts were labelled ads, some for Amazon book sales. Fits publishers and retailers selling to Indian readers.
• Smriti Nautiyal (@bibliophile_halfblood), India. Reading Reels in lifestyle settings and Amazon sale posts. Fits the same buyers as Kriti, with a larger audience and one post a week.

Macro book influencers (500,000+ followers)

• Aartika Kumari (@bookswithaartika), India. Book recommendation carousels. Her bio offers paid promotions. Typical post 0.36%. Fits mass-market and self-help titles where reach matters more than response.
• Sourabh Dubey (@booksopedia_), India. Self-help and nonfiction carousels. Three recent carousels asked readers to comment a word to get a book link and drew 1,192 to 2,211 comments; his other recent posts drew 10 to 278. Report comments apart from likes if you book him.
• Pedro Pacífico (@bookster), Brazil. Writes for O Globo and appears on CNN Brasil. Runs a paid reading club, Bookster pelo Mundo, through TAG Livros. Fits publishers and travel brands selling to Brazilian readers.
• Jack Edwards (@jackbenedwards), London. "The internet's resident librarian", represented by UTA. His "required reading" Reels ask celebrities about books. The Zendaya episode got 674,598 likes and a book-gift reaction Reel got 716,751. His typical post still gets about 57,000 likes and comments. Fits film studios, publishers and any book campaign with a big budget.

BookTok influencers on TikTok

TikTok shows views on every video, so for BookTok we give median views per video next to the typical engagement rate. Posts/wk is the number of videos in the last 30 days of our read, per week.

• Kenzie Deerin (@kenziedeerinreads), Los Angeles. Recommendation lists, such as magical academy books for back to school. Managed by Viral Nation. Fits fantasy and YA launches.
• Emma (@read.byemma). 22, posts one video a day at about the same hour, with book picks and reading moods. Fits publishers that want a daily slot.
• Bean (@bookishwithbean), Atlanta. "Overly optimistic romance reader", hockey romance and book boyfriend lists, 12 videos a week. Fits sports romance launches.
• Kerry (@kurryreads), San Diego. Thriller, mystery and horror. Her bio counts 423 books read in 2025. Long weekly wrap-ups with timestamps. Views are 6% of followers, the lowest of the eight, so price her on views. Fits thriller imprints.
• Amber (@ambersometimesreads). A series ranking the worst sentences in popular BookTok books, posted most days at the same hour. 21% views per follower, the highest of the eight. Fits brands that want a funny, critical voice.
• Kaila (@kaila.books). Romantasy and ACOTAR. Her bio carries an Audible offer for an audiobook. Fits audiobook apps and fantasy launches.
• Marianna Moore (@mariannasreads). 825,100 followers on October 2. About 21 videos a week, including commentary on fandom "ship wars". Typical video 143,100 views. Fits large romance and fantasy launches.
• Tierney (@tierney.reads). Spicy romance BookTok and now an author: her August videos promote the pre-order of her novel Lyrics of Summer. She posts about twice a month. Fits only campaigns that do not compete with her own book.

The eight creators above get 12% to 21% of their followers in views per video, except Kerry at 6%. Six of them are above the BookTok median for their size. Across all 243 BookTok accounts we measured, views per follower run below the TikTok median at every size under 500,000 followers: 13% against 28% at 10K to 100K. Our TikTok engagement rate benchmarks have the full table.

Book creators against all creators

We compared the 944 book creators with the 53,934 individual creators in our Instagram engagement rate benchmarks. Both groups use the same rule: likes plus comments, averaged over the 12 most recent posts, divided by followers.

What this means for a campaign:

• Small bookstagram accounts get less response per follower than other small creators: 3.63% against 5.09% under 10,000 followers. One likely reason is follow-back culture: a quarter of the nano book creators in our set follow more accounts than follow them.
• From 100,000 followers up, book creators do better than the average creator: 2.10% against 1.49%. A mid-size book account is a better buy per follower than a mid-size lifestyle account.
• Book creators post often. Under 100,000 followers they post 1.5 to 2 times as often as other creators. A short launch window can get several posts without asking anyone to change their pace.
• Only 7 book creators in our set have more than 500,000 followers, so the macro row is a small sample.

What happens when a book post is an ad

We compared every ad post by the 944 book creators in 2026 with the same creator's normal posts, meaning posts with no ad label and no mention of a gifted copy. An ad here is a post with Instagram's paid partnership tag, #ad, AD in the caption, or a discount code.

• The typical ad post got 0.89x the creator's normal post. In our golf list a similar check gave 0.63x, and in our NYC list paid-tag posts gave 0.48x.
• Posts with Instagram's own paid partnership tag did worse: 0.66x. They come from larger accounts: the median tagged post is from a 29,700-follower account, against 6,900 for all ad posts.
• Size matters. Ads by nano creators kept 0.94x of a normal post. Ads by creators with 100,000 to 500,000 followers kept 0.51x.
• Gifted copies and ARCs cost nothing. 1,402 posts that thank a publisher for a free or early copy got 0.98x a normal post. On bookstagram a review copy is normal content, and readers treat it that way.

So a book brand can expect most of a creator's normal response from a labelled ad if the creator is small, and about half if the creator is mid-size. Seeding review copies keeps the full response but gives you no control over timing or wording. To plan the step from review copies to paid posts, see when to move a gifted creator into a paid partnership.

Case: Smut & Sip's rep program

Smut & Sip (@smutandsipbox, 37,900 followers on October 2) is a UK subscription box. Each month it sends a romance book in an exclusive edition, a themed mocktail and one or two bookish goodies, according to its FAQ. In our data it works through a rep team of small bookstagrammers who get the box, post about it, and share a personal discount code.

In our data, 32 book creators tagged @smutandsipbox in 107 posts between January 12 and August 17, 2026. The median creator had 3,232 followers. The largest had 15,650. Codes we read in captions include JO10, ELLIE10, LILLY10, MADS10, MARGO10 and LAUREN10.

What the posts show:

• The box posts did as well as the creators' normal posts. The median Smut & Sip post got 1.05x a normal post. Posts labelled AD got 1.02x. A special-edition book is the kind of photo these accounts post anyway.
• The rep program generates free posts before anyone is a rep. 8 posts were applications for the rep team, such as "rep search" posts and "#summer26ssreps". Each one tags the brand and tells followers why the box is worth it.
• One rep gives many posts. Lauren (@pagesoflauren, 15,650 followers) tagged the box 11 times from January 30 to July 25, 8 of them labelled AD. Her Book of Azrael edition post on April 13 got 843 likes, 3.4 times her normal post. Johanna on this list posted about it 8 times.

For a book brand, the takeaway is to plan a run of small creators who already post about books like yours. Pay them in product and a code they can share, and measure each post against that creator's own normal post. Instagram does not show saves, which these special-edition photos collect, so ask reps for screenshots of their saves if they matter to you.

How to use this list

1. Start with the typical post, and compare it with the tier medians above.
2. Check the gap between average and typical. A large gap, as with Jack Edwards, Cindy Pham or Mack, means one viral post lifts the average.
3. Count ad labels in the last 12 posts. 5 of Mason Murphy's were ads. 0 of Shelby's were.
4. Read the bio for rep codes. Many bookstagrammers already rep a book box or bookshop (Aardvark, Afterlight, Smut & Sip, FairyLoot). A rep deal may rule out a competing box.
5. Treat "comment a word for the link" posts on their own. They inflate comments.
6. On TikTok, price on median views, not followers.

For more ways to find small accounts, see how to find micro-influencers beyond hashtag lists. Our Christian influencer list uses the same method for faith creators.

How we built the list

1. Candidates. We took every public Instagram account with 1,000 or more followers that Virev read after July 1, 2026, whose Virev creator profile, content tags or bio names books, reading, bookstagram or BookTok. 9,648 accounts matched. We kept accounts whose Virev profile is an individual creator and whose primary niche or content tags are about books and reading, and dropped publishers, bookshops, libraries and comics. 944 creators had six or more measurable posts. 631 of them write in English. In 72% of the 944, at least half of the 12 recent captions mention books or reading.
2. Measure. For each account we used up to 12 recent posts from its own feed, at least three days old when read, not pinned, with visible likes. Average ER = (average likes + average comments) / followers. Typical ER = likes plus comments of the median post / followers. Posts with exactly 3 likes, a pattern we see where likes are hidden, were left out of the creator figures.
3. Pick. We read 53 high-scoring accounts, including accounts the Virev profile had not yet classified. We dropped a comedy account, a streaming service's book club account, an author whose recent posts were mostly not books, and a cake business. We kept creators active in August or September 2026 and spread them across the tiers.
4. Check by hand. On October 2, 2026 we opened all 32 Instagram profiles and all 8 TikTok profiles. All were live. Four Instagram creators had grown about 10% or more since our read: Elise Carlin, Kimberly, Laura and Mason Murphy.
5. TikTok. Public TikTok accounts with 1,000+ followers read after July 1, 2026, whose Virev profile or bio names books or BookTok, individual creators only: 243 accounts. Views and engagement from the 12 most recent videos at least three days old.
6. Ads. A post counts as an ad when it has the paid partnership tag, #ad, AD, #sponsored, a discount code or "in partnership with". A gifted post thanks someone for a free, gifted or advance copy and has no ad label. Each post is compared with the median of the same creator's 2026 posts that are neither, for creators with at least six such posts.

Limits: Instagram does not show saves, shares or story views, so they are not in these rates. The 944 creators are the book accounts Virev crawls, which lean toward accounts brands search for, not a random sample of Instagram. Our caption rules miss ad labels written in decorative fonts. Contact the creators through the channels on their profiles.

Find more book creators

The 40 creators above are a starting point. Virev creator search for "book" lists every book creator we track, with the same engagement numbers, and lets you filter by follower count, country and engagement rate. The creator discovery page explains what the search covers.