BITTERSWEET needed something specific: not just buzz, but reviews. Amazon reviews are the currency that convinces browsing readers to click "buy," and for backlist or momentum-stalled titles, low review counts are often the real bottleneck

Serena Blackwell had waited eleven years to hold her debut novel in her hands. A middle school librarian by day and a writer by night, she had revised the manuscript through three agents, two near-misses with major publishers, and one global pandemic before finally landing a two-book deal with a respected independent press.

The first time I said aloud that I wanted to be a professional writer, I was sitting across from a friend at lunch, my voice barely more...