Review velocity beats review count

Retail algorithms reward recency. A steady drip of new reviews signals a title that people are actively buying and finishing, and that signal feeds discovery placement far more than a large but stale review count.

This is why we plan review campaigns as concentrated windows rather than as an always on trickle. We recruit readers ahead of the window, distribute copies together, and time the follow up so reviews land inside a defined period.

The ethical line is simple. We never pay for a review, never script one, and never ask for a rating. We ask readers who finished the book to say what they thought.

One practical note: build the reader list before the book is ready. The campaigns that fail are almost always the ones that start recruiting during launch week.