- Are you looking for a tool that's going to cut down
a lot of time, hassle, and heartache
in your self-publishing business?
Have you considered getting Publisher Rocket,
but you're still kind of on the fence
and not really sure if it's going to be right for you?
Well, today I'm going to be giving a full on
Publisher Rocket review in 2020.
Is it really worth it?
Well, find out my thoughts in today's video, stay tuned.
(dramatic music)
Hey, I'm Dale, a best selling author,
as well as the self-publishing advocate
that wants to show you how to publish books that sell,
and if you want that too, make sure you hit the Subscribe.
Click that bell notification icon and turn it to all,
so that way you don't miss a single one of these videos.
Full disclosure, so the FTC isn't coming
and beating me over the head with a gigantic fine,
I wanna let you know that I am an affiliate
for Publisher Rocket, meaning that if you purchase a license
for Publisher Rocket I have a little bit of a kickback
and a financial incentive.
But I'm gonna tell you this,
that I don't get behind any kind of products or services
unless I wholeheartedly believe in them,
and Publisher Rocket, sorry, spoiler alert,
is one of them that I do get behind.
First, what is Publisher Rocket?
Now, this is available for both PC and Mac.
Publisher Rocket actually is a tool,
and it's for research purposes,
and I'm going to talk about each one
of those features here in due time.
It essentially is an Amazon research tool.
Now, it's kind of just right now exclusively on Amazon,
but I know talking to the minds behind Publisher Rocket
their intent is to actually expand out
and offer more beyond the Amazon platform,
in places like Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so on,
but that's in development right now.
The mind behind Publisher Rocket is actually a good friend
of mine, the Kindlepreneur himself, Dave Chesson,
and Dave actually is just one of the go-to resources
when it comes to self-publishing
and especially when it comes to understanding
the Amazon algorithm.
So, it's no surprise that he actually
put out a product that is Publisher Rocket.
Now, I tripped up over KDP Rocket a few years ago.
I bought a license for it, because it seemed
like it was gonna be a good fit.
I was already big fan of Dave Chesson,
so it just made sense to me.
I'm like, let's go ahead and get this.
It sat and it collected dust for quite a while,
until one day I was like, you know what,
let's give this a run, and oh my gosh,
it made life so much more simple for me,
because I used to spend hours upon hours upon hours
trolling about on the Amazon Marketplace
trying to find the right keywords and the right niches,
studying competition, seeing the number of products
for a given keyword, and you know,
and what were the books looking like,
and oh, it was just too much much stinking work,
and that's great.
If you believe in sweat equity and time invested
into your business then I don't want to stop you
from that, but as soon as I had made that investment
in KDP Rocket and started to use the product,
that's when I really started to go, oh,
okay, all right, I get this.
So, let's go ahead, let's talk about
the four unique features of Publisher Rocket,
starting it out with Keyword Search.
When you do research, you'll do it through E-book
or print book.
So, it'll say E-Book, or Book.
You wanna make sure that you're checking out your keywords
and your categories and everything else
based on the type of product,
because the relevance for keyword on an E-book
may be completely different than the relevance
of a keyword on a print book.
So, that's why it's so nice that
they've kind of split it up.
But as soon as you go and you put in,
you type in a word into the search bar and you hit Enter,
it's going to go ahead and populate your search
with everything that's going to be relevant
to that specific keyword.
The very first metric it's gonna do
is Number of Competitors.
This shows the number of books that compete
for this keyword on Amazon.
So, it's good to know who all
you're gonna be fighting against.
Are you gonna be having no competitors,
meaning there's zero people using these keywords,
or is there gonna be 3,000 of the competitors
on this given keyword?
The next one you're gonna take a look at is
Average Monthly Earnings.
Now, this tells you the estimated monthly earnings
of the top books that rank for this keyword.
Now, essentially when it says rank that means
the first page placement.
That's the holy grail.
That's where everybody wants to have their book,
because if you get in first page placement,
that really increases your odds of a sale,
because the further out you go from that first page,
the less likely that most of the audience
is gonna go over there.
Audiences want instant gratification.
Buyers want to get what they want, so they can get off,
and continue on with their life.
Next one is Google Searches per month.
This one gets me so excited, because if you can get it
to where you are being brought up in Google's search engine,
oh my gosh, 'cause Amazon is like this.
We got Google, it's like this.
So, when Google can index your content that's on Amazon,
that's a big win.
So, Google Searches per month, it tells you the number
of searches per month that this keyword gets on Google.
So, any time you see that search volume,
I want you to kind of pay close attention to that,
because that can really make a difference.
The next one is going to be
Estimated Amazon Searches per month.
Now, don't take this one lightly.
I see far too often a lot of people
just kind of go, oh, that's good, there's search volume,
great, I'm gonna go ahead and do that.
Now, just because it says less than 100
doesn't mean that it's going to be the best idea
for a keyword placement.
But I'm not gonna go into that, actually.
There's a full video.
I've got a link in the description below
where I talk a little bit about how to find the keywords
and what to make of it.
You're gonna wanna make sure that the search volume
is significant before you consider utilizing it.
Now, the next one is when you're gonna determine, okay,
is this going to be right for me?
It's the Competitive Score.
Now, the Competitive Score is
kind of like it's a sliding scale.
It starts with zero, meaning there's no competition,
to 100, which means it's absolutely an all-out fistfight
for the top, you know, only the big dogs can roll at 100
in the competition level.
Generally speaking, I like to see that Competitive Score
below 50, if not 40, before I just start a new brand.
If I'm an established author,
I'll go for something a little bit higher,
but for the most part I try to go for the low hanging fruit,
below 50, if not 40.
And then last but not least is
the Analyze and Check Competition button.
So, when you pull up your search
it essentially is gonna go ahead
and it's gonna scrape Amazon for all the relevant keywords
it's gonna find associated to your search,
and from there you're gonna select whatever keywords
that make the most sense to you for your given publication.
So, you're gonna click the Analyze
and then it'll go ahead and it'll show you
the Competition Score, Average Monthly Earnings,
the Number of Competitors, the Google Searches
if there is any, as well as the Amazon Searches.
And last feature, now this is kind of nice
and this works on most of the features in the talk
right about now, is Export, and when you click that
Export button, it'll actually export a CSV,
which is a spreadsheet file,
and it'll download those keywords.
So, it's gonna give you all of that relevant information.
I like to do that, and I will typically keep the date
on it of some sort.
That way, I can go back and refer to it later on.
Remember that keywords, the value of them,
are gonna shift from one day to the next,
or one year to the next.
So, always go back on a regular basis.
The nice thing is when you get a lifetime access
to Publisher Rocket you can go back
and check that stuff as frequent as you want.
Second feature is Competition Analyzer.
So, similar to the Keyword Search,
you're gonna essentially type in some type of a keyword
that's relevant to your niche,
and it's gonna pull up 10, all right,
it's gonna get 10 books ranking for the term,
plus other data.
Now, I'm gonna talk about the other data here
in just a moment, and what it's gonna do is
it's gonna populate.
So, it just shows all the covers of the book
in a thumbnail style image.
It's gonna tell you the type of book,
if it's an E-book or if it's a print book.
It'll tell you the author's name.
It'll also tell you the age of the book.
Now, this is interesting,
because it does it in the number of days.
Now, in the event you see a negative next to it,
that means that book is currently on pre-order.
So, don't get thrown off going
(mumbles) how does it have negative 150 days?
It's because that's probably on pre-order.
So, if you see something that's thousands of days old
and it's holding a really good rank,
that means that things a heavy hitter and it's here to stay.
Speaking of rank, there's ABSR,
which means Amazon Best Seller Rank.
Now, obviously the higher the number, the worse off it is.
The lower the number, the closer it is to number one,
the more copies that the book is selling.
And two other really good metrics here is
is the keyword in the title or the subtitle.
Most times, you can get a good keyword into a title
and subtitle and get more likely placed
on first page placement,
because obviously it's in your title.
It's saying, hey, this person's really relevant,
they have it inside their title or their subtitle.
This doesn't always work, but it is believed that
if you can place your keyword in a title and subtitle,
you have definitely increased your odds
of first page placement versus the other ones that have not.
Then the other ones are gonna be the estimated daily
and the estimated monthly sales.
Now, these aren't 100% accurate,
and I wanna actually discuss that here
towards the end of the video when we discuss
the pros and cons of Publisher Rocket,
but these are just kind of as just a rough estimate
of where it is as far as, you know,
based on its rank.
And now, there is the link that says Check it out
if you want to go look at the actual book itself
on its product page.
You just click that button.
It'll whisk you away over into the Amazon platform.
You can take a look at its book description.
You can see any also bots that go along with it,
any type of relevant information that will help you
make a more informed decision based on the information
you got from Publisher Rocket.
And of course it has the Export feature.
So, the third feature is Category Search.
I have a lot of fun with this one,
because believe it or not Amazon has over 16,000
different book categories, and it's growing constantly.
So, it can be so confusing,
like where does my book go?
I don't know, there's 16,000 freaking categories!
Where do I put it?
Ah, Publisher Rocket comes in here.
You're able to just search it up.
It's so, so easy.
The very first thing you could do is you can narrow it down
to E-book or print book or you can do both
if you're just trying to do just a generalized search,
and all you need to do is just search via keyword.
Now, that keyword typically needs to be
in that browse path in some capacity.
So, if you start typing up, and it's not pulling up anything
then chances are likely there's not a browse path
based on that, and you may want to just go ahead
and use the Check it out feature when you first go in there
and it'll show you all the different categories.
Figure out, okay, what's the most broad
and generalized way to put your book into a category,
and then you can start to search a little further.
The very first thing you'll notice as soon
as you do a search, it's actually going to show you
two different metrics with an additional set
of metrics with each one of those,
and the very first one's ABSR number one.
That means the Amazon Best Seller Rank
and the number one spot of that given browse path
for that category and right next to it it's gonna show you
the number, the estimated number of sales
to get to that number one spot's rank.
And then next is gonna be the ABSR of number 10
and the best sellers list as well as the sales it will take
to get to the number 10 spot.
Now, you might be kind of wondering
why number one to number 10?
What it's doing is it's showing you proof of concept.
Is there enough people right now purchasing this book
that it's going to be worthwhile to publish a book
in this category or list your book in this category,
and then here's a really cool part.
You just click that Check it out button.
It'll whisk you away over into Amazon store
right into the best seller list for that browse path,
and you can take a deeper look.
Now, don't be surprised,
every now and then the ranking's gonna be slightly off
from what Publisher Rocket's gonna show.
It's because Amazon's rank is always fluctuating
on each one of these books.
From one hour to the next,
it's gonna be different from each one of them.
So, Publisher Rocket tries to keep up with that,
but sometimes it's a little bit behind,
but for the most part, gives a fairly accurate
representation of what that specific browse path is doing
and performing on a given day.
And the last feature is the AMS Keyword Search.
I used to just, oh, oh, oh,
my Amazon ads were horrible at one point.
I was losing money hand and fist,
because I was just trying to rely
on a bunch of free programs thinking that
it was gonna get me by, but to be honest with you,
you can only go so far with free products,
and that's why Publisher Rocket comes in
and fills this void to where you can get all 1,000 keywords
you need to fill in on an Amazon ad,
and you can start at a really low bid,
a low cost per click and a low cost per day,
so that way you can kind of figure out, okay,
what's some of the low hanging fruit
when it comes to some of the keywords.
But what you need to do,
and this is what Rocket actually says,
is enter a general keyword, phrase, or book title,
and Rocket curates a large list of keywords
for your campaign, that simple.
Now, based on the specific type of keyword,
if you go really, really long tail,
it may not bring back as much
as if you were just go really broad,
meaning that fitness versus home fitness workouts.
You know, fitness by itself is gonna get you a ton
and a ton of keywords you can put on a campaign,
whereas home fitness workouts may not get you as much.
And it will give you four different categories
when you download the spreadsheet to utilize
with your campaigns.
It's gonna give you titles, author names,
ASINs and ISBNs, as well as the category search type,
and you can feel free to use any one of these
inside your AMS campaigns.
It's 100% above board and white hot,
so, you don't need to worry, be like, oh no,
I heard that you're not allowed to use author names.
First of all, yes, you can use author names
on Amazon advertising campaigns.
You just can't use it in your metadata
of your keyword inside KDP.
Let's talk about the pros and cons of Publisher Rocket.
The pros include it is a time-saver.
I can't tell you how much time,
how many hours it has saved me.
The second pro is also it removes the guesswork out,
and the third pro includes lifetime access with upgrades
and updates forever.
The cons of Publisher Rocket,
will it make your life easier?
Yes.
Will it remove some guesswork?
Yes.
Does it come with lifetime access?
Absolutely.
Is it a 100% accurate?
Not really, in fact, I don't even think that they even say
it's 100% accurate all the time.
The second con is it takes a little bit of practice.
Obviously, these four features, you know,
you're gonna go into, you're gonna be like yay, all right,
and it seems like a lot of fun,
but unless you've actually played around with it for a while
you're gonna be kind of lost at first, okay?
But it's not the steepest learning curve.
In fact, you could probably learn it
within a good evening or something like that,
or maybe out lunch a something like that.
For just a few hours, just sit on down,
play around with it, so you can understand
why these features work the way they do.
The beautiful thing is if you're finding yourself stuck,
there's this really cool thing.
I'm gonna show it right here on the screen.
It says Support.
Click that, all right, and they are very attentive
to your needs.
And the third issue, there's intermittent issues.
Now, this is nothing that has anything to do
with Publisher Rocket.
It has more to do with the fact that Amazon
is always changing things.
They're always changing their API.
They're throwing curve balls, so they'll change some stuff
and it's not like they get up over on the phone,
hey Dave.
Okay, hey, we're changing our algorithm a little bit,
so, you may wanna know about X, Y, and Z,
so, that way you can get your Publisher Rocket ready.
No, they're just gonna change things.
So, if for some reason you've run into any kind of issues,
hit Support, all right?
There is gonna be some issues, all right.
It's not perfect.
So, you got to just be patient,
and just so you know, if for some reason after 30 days
after you've purchased your product,
within that 30 days you say this is not my thing,
they got a 30 day money back guarantee.
If you're not happy, just go ahead, get ahold of them.
They'll gladly refund you back the money.
Overall, I always give two thumbs up
as well as a big glowing banana sticker
for Publisher Rocket.
It is a very, very awesome tool.
If there was any tool that I could not do without,
it would definitely be Rocket,
and speaking of Publisher Rocket,
I happen to have a full tutorial
on the Publisher Rocket keywords feature.
You wanna go ahead and take a look at that one
where we do a deep dive and I tell you exactly
how to analyze each one of those metrics.
What are you waiting for?
I'll see you down there.