Latest / The Daily Writer / Kindlepreneur Founder Dave Chesson on Amazon Keywords, Publisher Rocket & Book Marketing

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Kindlepreneur Founder Dave Chesson on Amazon Keywords, Publisher Rocket & Book Marketing · The Daily Writer

0:06
SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
0:14
SPEAKER_03: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
0:25
SPEAKER_03: When you get into the world of self-publishing, you discover a lot of helpful tools and resources for writing, publishing, and marketing your books.
0:33
SPEAKER_03: But there are a handful of tools that become an essential part of your arsenal as a self-published author.
0:39
SPEAKER_03: One of those tools is Publish Your Rocket, which is an app that helps you get your book in front of more Amazon readers.
0:46
SPEAKER_03: The creator of Publish Your Rocket is Dave Cheston, and I'm excited to feature him as a guest on today's episode.
0:52
SPEAKER_03: Dave is a military veteran, husband, father of three kids, and an avid book marketer.
0:58
SPEAKER_03: His work in publishing and book marketing has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Huffington Post, and many, many other places.
1:06
SPEAKER_03: Dave is also the founder of Kindlepreneur, which is an online resource that features guides, courses, articles, and much more to help you create and market your books on Amazon.
1:18
SPEAKER_03: In addition to Kindlepreneur and Publisher Rocket, Dave is also the creator of Atticus, which is software that helps you format and upload your books.
1:27
SPEAKER_03: As you can see, Dave is a serial entrepreneur who's dedicated his career to helping self-published authors like you and me.
1:34
SPEAKER_03: Before Dave became an author and entrepreneur, he served in the U.S.
1:38
SPEAKER_03: Navy, he was a nuclear engineer, and even worked in defense cooperation around the world.
1:43
SPEAKER_03: Fun fact, Dave is also fluent in Mandarin Chinese, which is pretty cool.
1:48
SPEAKER_03: Our conversation today focused on a variety of topics, including the importance of Amazon keywords and how to use Publisher Rocket, print books versus ebooks, book formatting and marketing, how self-publishing has changed, and much more.
2:02
SPEAKER_03: This was a really wide-ranging conversation.
2:04
SPEAKER_03: And as you listen to this episode, I think you're going to be just as impressed as I was, not just had Dave's knowledge and his expertise with all things related to books and self-publishing, but also his passion and his desire to help self-published authors like you and me.
2:19
SPEAKER_03: It's really, really exciting, and I came away from this conversation more pumped than ever, not just to be an author, but also a self-published author.
2:27
SPEAKER_03: Now, before we get to the episode, I want to make sure to mention that you've got to go check out Dave's Amazing Resources at Kindlepreneur.com, PublisherRocket.com, and also atticus.io.
2:38
SPEAKER_03: Make sure and check all those out.
2:39
SPEAKER_03: You're going to really love those resources.
2:41
SPEAKER_03: All right, here's my conversation with the amazing Mr.
2:43
SPEAKER_03: Dave Chesson.
2:45
SPEAKER_03: Dave, welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast.
2:47
SPEAKER_03: It is great to connect with you.
2:49
SPEAKER_03: I'm so thankful that our mutual friend Honor Recorder made the connection.
2:52
SPEAKER_03: So welcome to the podcast.
2:53
SPEAKER_03: Good to have you.
2:55
SPEAKER_03: Thanks for having me.
2:57
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
2:57
SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm so impressed, as I mentioned before I hit record on this, with all the cool things that you're doing.
3:03
SPEAKER_03: And before we dive into details about this, can you speak to the fact that as a writer, you're also very entrepreneurial, you're very business minded, which is not super common in the world of authors, many of whom tend to be kind of introverted, which I am as well.
3:20
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, writers as a group don't always tend to be like a business thinker.
3:26
SPEAKER_03: So how how did you learn to think like a business person and like a business owner and not just a writer?
3:31
SPEAKER_03: I know that's kind of totally out of left field, but I'm curious your thoughts on that.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I understand that.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: So the biggest thing is there's this phrase that I absolutely like.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Um that it says, creativity isn't cheap, right?
3:47
SPEAKER_00: And what that means is it's kind of a great story of this is Leonardo da Vinci.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, he he did amazing things, like super cool stuff.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: And he got to be creative.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: He got to wake up every day and just come up with something.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: The problem is he had to pay his bills, right?
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he had to be able to afford his creativity.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: And apparently he hated with a passion, like hated uh painting portraits, but that paid the bills.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: That was such a big thing.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so for him, he was able to afford his creativity.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: And so when I got into book writing, now I'm not like Da Vinci, I actually love writing books.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: But that being said, though, I really wanted to do it like I wanted to be home every day with my kids.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Um and the which by the way, for any of the listeners, my son actually like interrupted.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh you didn't see them, but he just came walking right in and all of a sudden realized dad was on a podcast and just gave me a silent hug.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: Um that was like three minutes before we started talking about this.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: But that was my absolute motivation was I wanted to stop working full-time.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: I was in the military traveling all over the place.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be home.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be the dad that was in the crowd on a Friday morning watching his kids sing, you know, or or do their their thing.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: Like that's what I wanted.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: And so for me, it wasn't like I had an arbitrary number in mind.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh man, I want to make this much money or I want money.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: What I wanted was I wanted the lifestyle.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be home full-time, working on, you know, doing things I love and be able to have the freedom to go see my kids or or have my kid interrupt a podcast, you know.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that was my motivation.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: And that helped me to start to really start looking at it from a business perspective.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, understanding how Amazon works, why do they choose to show this book over another?
5:35
SPEAKER_00: These are really important things to help me uh not just write good books, but be able to write books that people are searching for.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was just that simple shift of combining the art of writing and the art of business together that I feel was one of the biggest uh things.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Now there are lottery winners out there.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: There are people that write a book and it just takes off.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm not one of them, never have been.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it was just really important to kind of understand those things.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what got me to create Kindlepreneur, which you know is Kindle Entrepreneur, um, is that is talking about that fine balance between the art of business and uh and book writing.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: And like I said in the beginning, creativity isn't cheap.
6:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, man, that is that is what sure.
6:20
SPEAKER_03: And as a ghostwriter, I totally second that emotion because there are a lot of ghostwriters who don't and people who do freelance work who don't value their services.
6:29
SPEAKER_03: And um valuing what you do and valuing your time and the ability to work from anywhere, set your own schedule, that's immensely valuable.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: It really is.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh, some of the people in my support team uh for both Publisher Rocket and Atticus are writers where working for us part-time um gives them more than enough money to pay the bills and allows them to have all that free time to be able to work on their writing.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's such a great lifestyle for them just to have enough, um, but also that freedom to really drive towards the one thing they want in in in their life and goal.
7:03
SPEAKER_03: So wow, I love it.
7:05
SPEAKER_03: Let's dive into some things about Kindlepreneur.
7:07
SPEAKER_03: I got a lot of things on my list here.
7:08
SPEAKER_03: We're probably not going to get to them all.
7:10
SPEAKER_03: But you know, I used to be a college professor.
7:12
SPEAKER_03: I did that job for a long time, and I always over-prepare for podcast interviews.
7:16
SPEAKER_03: So it's like, do you have three hours?
7:18
SPEAKER_03: Let's get through my list.
7:20
SPEAKER_03: Not really.
7:21
SPEAKER_03: Um, I'd love to maybe start here.
7:23
SPEAKER_03: So you've been in the self-publishing game for a long time.
7:25
SPEAKER_03: You know probably more than any other human that I can think of about stuff related to Amazon keywords and the Amazon ecosystem and all those kinds of things.
7:35
SPEAKER_03: How have you seen the self-publishing industry, and I guess specifically Amazon, change over the last, let's say, eight or 10 years?
7:43
SPEAKER_03: Things are constantly in flux, but what are some of the main things that have changed in the last decade or so with Amazon self-publishing?
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's take 10 years and split it in half.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about the first five years compared to the last five years.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a really good differentiator point.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: Um in the first five years, Amazon just sucked.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm gonna put it bluntly.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: They didn't care.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: And here's why.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh reporting way back when was horrendous.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: You could not actually log into your KDP and see how many sales today happened as compared to yesterday.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: You know what you had to do?
8:18
SPEAKER_00: You had to download an Excel sheet and look at yesterday's Excel sheet and compare it to today's Excel sheet just to see the difference in sales and say, okay, today minus yesterday's that equals today's sales.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, like it was that bad.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: And I never understood it because it was like KDP was legit, like it was making lots of money for them.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: It was a big deal, even in that first five years.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: And yet they wouldn't even do simple reporting.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: It's not that hard.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I can say, as somebody in the business of software, it really shouldn't have been that hard for them to do it, but they didn't care and they didn't do a lot.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, we also had, you know, create space for publishing physical books and KDP for publishing ebooks.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: And again, the fact that those two things were separated was a little rough.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: And so we saw these things change around, you know, the turn of the five-year mark, right?
9:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it took years of them knowing they have these glaring issues to be able to do something with it.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: All right.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: So now let's go to the second uh five years.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden we see an explosion of different things that Amazon is trying.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh they're trying new programs, um, you know, they're trying new capabilities.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: We have like A plus content, we have um Vela, who is a competition with another thing that's out there.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: And we have we have a lot of programs that they started and then ditched.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: Um reporting is way better than it was.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: They combined it to just the one.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: Now they're looking at hardcover capability as well.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: So it's not just paperback.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Uh Amazon ads is a new thing, and all they're constantly tweaking that because let's face it, for Amazon, that's a pretty big cash cow.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: Um and and so all of a sudden, I see a lot more tension.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: I see a lot more focus on, you know, and sadly to put it, focus on profit.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: But I would much rather Amazon focus on profit because that means more sales for all of us as well, than Amazon not caring and not doing anything about it.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: So that being said, is Amazon's still a hard, you know, beast to work with, per se.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: And that hasn't gotten any easier.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: But at least they're trying and at least they're doing something, and hopefully, you know, they kind of keep on a trajectory that makes it easier or better for us authors.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: It just means we have to learn more and understand this industry a little bit more because there's so many tools we can do, you know, or things we can accomplish.
10:53
SPEAKER_03: So for writers who who aren't really in this world as much, what do you recommend as far as authors just going exclusive with Amazon or going wide with distributing their books and other platforms as well?
11:06
SPEAKER_03: Or how how would you know which direction to go with that?
11:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that last part's the right, right question because I always say it depends.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Um now, generally speaking, my answer to most people is going to be one, and then I'll give a second one here.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Generally speaking, is it depends on what you feel, what is most important to you.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh for example, some people they don't care if it's just on Amazon, okay?
11:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, and they're just what they want to focus on that one platform and do that one platform well.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: Other people, though, might not like putting all their eggs in one basket and they might really or they might vehemently dislike Amazon.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: And if that's the case, then go wide.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, that that's fine.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: So let's put that preference as the first part.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: If you don't care, then listen on.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: If you hate email Amazon or you're scared that they'll take everything away, then go wide.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: All right.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: So for those who are still in this, the next question you should ask yourself is are you in nonfiction or fiction?
12:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna generalize this a little bit, okay?
12:06
SPEAKER_00: There's always fringes or people that could say, Well, what if this or but I'm just giving a general answer to this.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: If you're in nonfiction, you don't need to be in just Amazon as much as a lot of fiction genres, okay?
12:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay, makes sense.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, so use that a part of your decision matrix on, you know, because like if you just write nonfiction, you can still get away with not being in KU.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: If you write in say romance, it's a little harder.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: It's not that you can't do it, but it's a little harder.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: And the reason for this is that a KU download counts as success as a success in Amazon's mind.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: So what do I mean by this?
12:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you type in romance novel into Amazon, okay, Amazon presents you with a list of books that you can choose from.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: All right.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: The book that ranks at the top gets the most clicks, and then the second one gets the second most clicks and so forth.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, there's percentages out there, it's believed that the one that ranks number one gets 32% of the clicks.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: So what that means is that if a thousand people a month say, actually, it's probably a lot more than that for a romance novel, but if a thousand people a month type that in, then the first book gets 320 new people clicking on their book.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: But if you rank number two, then you're only looking at 20%, which is 200.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: And then if you rank number three, it's 11%, which is 110, and so forth, right?
13:32
SPEAKER_00: So it's really important, you get more attention if you rank number one.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing though Amazon uses a lot of information to figure out who ranks number one, two, or three.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: So if you are and there's keywords and things like that, and that helps Amazon put you there.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing if they put somebody number one and they put a book number two, but number two continues to get more, not only clicks, but sales, then Amazon will move number two up.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: All right.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: So now comes to the answer about KU or not KU, okay, the KU program, is that Amazon looks at a purchase of a book and or a KU download as the same thing.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: So what happens is this let's say book number one, the one ranking number one, is not in KU, okay, and it's$499 to purchase.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: But book two is enrolled in KU.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: If I'm a KU uh subscriber, I get that book for free.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: I get book two for free.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: So which one do you think I'm gonna do?
14:39
SPEAKER_00: Will I pay$499 for the first book or will I just download for free book number two?
14:46
SPEAKER_00: And so what ends up happening is the KU books, like Amazon sees that as a success.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: And so they're like, hmm, book one only made three sales today, but book two maybe only made one sale, but had 10 downloads.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: So that's 11 conversions in their mind.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: And so all of a sudden, book two will outrank book one and now gets even more because it's at the top.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I mean by that is that look, if you're in a genre where a mass majority of the books are in KU, then you're really fighting an uphill battle because all those other books have that competitive advantage of getting those KU downloads over you.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: Whereas if you're in a in say nonfiction where there's not that many KU books really, or also too, sometimes like shoppers I've seen will trust the more expensive nonfiction book a little bit.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like, well, they must really be good if they're charging.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you can get away with just still having a price and not doing KU.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: So that would be the next level.
15:47
SPEAKER_03: Well, a lot of things to take into consideration there.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, one thing that I like too is in in Publisher Rocket, we actually list the percentage of books in KU or not in KU.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: So that really helps with that answer right there.
16:00
SPEAKER_03: Actually, I'm glad you mentioned that I and I'd love to dive into Publisher Rocket because this is really the only tool of its kind out there, isn't it?
16:07
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you you don't really have any direct competitors to Publisher Rocket, correct?
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Well, there are a couple out there, like KD Spy um is a Chrome plugin that that does some of the things we do, but you know, it's definitely yep.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh nothing that nothing as extensive as we are.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, and one of the big things is that being an author and having a programming team, I'm constantly like saying, man, wouldn't it be nice if?
16:32
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, guys, do this.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: So like it was only uh uh about a month ago or so, uh actually a couple months ago, that uh we added the KU percentage because of exactly that.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, we have all of these, we have every Amazon category listed in it.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: And we were like, all right, hey, it'd be nice to know how many sales I need to make in order to be the number one bestseller today.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Um it would be nice to know what the average price of books that are listed for this.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: It would be not it would be nice to know uh the sales trajectory.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: How good is this category?
17:02
SPEAKER_00: And also, I'd really like to know what percentage are KU or not KU.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: Because then if I'm sitting there at home and I'm like, man, you know, should I enroll in KU or not?
17:12
SPEAKER_00: You could easily just go to Rocket, look at your categories, and then see what percentages are and use that as a guide as to whether, okay, yeah, it's boy, if I want to survive in this one, I might, I might need to, you know, or uh you can use that uh as you please.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: And so again, that information just gives you, instead of just kind of guessing or kind of you know hoping, you can use that information to make really solid decisions.
17:37
SPEAKER_03: So for those who are who are new to this whole world of keywords and what Publisher Rocket does and that whole world, can you give us kind of a super basic, you know, 100-level crash course on what are keywords, why are they important, uh, why should authors be thinking about these things as opposed to just writing a book and putting it out there on Amazon and kind of hoping for the best?
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: So uh especially for a new author, two of the biggest ways to get more readers to find your book is through the keywords and categories you choose.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: And the reason for that is that keywords are the words that shoppers type into Amazon when searching for a book.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: And you get an opportunity when you go to publish your book to tell Amazon, hey, Amazon, I'd really like you to show my book for for when people type these words in.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: This is like your direct way to get Amazon to help you.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, they have customers coming in searching all the time.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: And this is your time to help them to say, hey, this bullet book belongs in these searches.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: But now most authors will sit down and they just kind of randomly come up with terms, okay?
18:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, a little think about what works and stuff.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: And there's a couple of ways that you can maybe glean a little bit more information from Amazon, but it in in the end, you're not really sure what is what.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: You can use Publisher Rocket, what pulls information from Amazon.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: It will tell you what words people type into Amazon and it will tell you how many people per month type that into Amazon.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: It will also tell you uh how competitive that keyword is.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: And so now instead of just kind of guessing and throwing some things in there, you can actually know what would really move the needle, which phrases and words you should put in there so that your book will be seen by more people on Amazon's market.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: So that's keywords.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: The second thing I talked about was categories.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's crazy about categories, and a lot of authors don't know this, is that when you go to publish your book, Amazon asks you to select two categories, right?
19:36
SPEAKER_00: That's in your KDP.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: The thing about those are those aren't Amazon categories, those are called Bisacs.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: And Bisects are this international standardization code.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: It's something that they use for kind of supply chain logistics.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, back in the day, publishers used to, they used to, you know, make their books and they would just come up with a category.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: They'd be like, uh, this is gonna be Wiccan, you know, and then they'd ship it off to all the the bookstores.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And the bookstores would open it up and they'd be like, okay, Wiccan.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh we don't have an aisle for that.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we don't even have a section called that.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: So what do we do?
20:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, one bookstore might say, Well, that's religious studies, and they'll put it in the religious studies.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Another store might say, Oh, well, that's fantasy, put it in fantasy.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: And so books started just subjectively being put in the wrong spots, and so this caused a lot of problems.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: So they standardize this by setting up the system called the buy sacks, and there's 4,600 of them out there, okay.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: But when a publisher goes to submit a book, they have to check a buy stack.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: That way, when a store gets the buy sack, gets the book, they know exactly where to put it in their store because it's pre-programmed, right?
20:48
SPEAKER_00: So there's no whoopsies there.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, Amazon does the same thing.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: So when you choose those two when you go to publish, you're just choosing two buy sacks.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing, though, there were over 1,100 Amazon categories, which means that if you just select those two buy sacks, Amazon's gonna put you in 4,600 of the most competitive categories out there.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that does not mean that there are people looking.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: So if you're not showing up in those categories, you're not getting new traffic, you're not getting new readers, you're not even being seen from it.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: Instead, I highly recommend to authors to look at the Amazon categories that are out there, the 1100 and or 11,000.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: And you will find some amazing opportunities where it absolutely fits your book, but only requires a couple of sales in order to be a bestseller.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Or it just requires a couple of sales just to be in the top 10.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: And then when those readers show up to that category to look to see what's new, they see you.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: Or when new people find your book, they see that bestseller tag and they were like, oh man, now we all know what it takes to be an Amazon bestseller, but most shoppers don't.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: And so when they see that bestseller tag, it's kind of like social proof.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: They're like, oh man.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: People must like this book because people are buying it and they purchase it.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: And so you have higher conversion rates.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: So, all in all, Amazon, or excuse me, Publisher Rocket helps you find those keywords that help you to get in front of more shoppers.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: And on top of that, too, it helps you to discover all the categories out there, which ones fit your book, and which ones give you the best chance to be a bestseller or at least listed so that shoppers can find you.
22:22
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22:28
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23:33
SPEAKER_03: All right, back to the conversation with Dave Chesov.
23:36
SPEAKER_03: What is the best way to indicate that your book has been an Amazon number one bestseller any specific category?
23:44
SPEAKER_03: Like is there across the industry is there any sort of universal language that is accepted to describe that?
23:53
SPEAKER_03: Because it's all over the place.
23:54
SPEAKER_03: Some people say bestselling author or number one bestseller or bestseller or number one Amazon bestseller or something like that.
24:01
SPEAKER_03: Is there any kind of indicator that you feel like is really common?
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Well, and again, I I I every time I work with authors, I like to remind them that we authors, we we've seen the we've seen the sausage making.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: So that being said, I I understand, you know, it's kind of like um a lot of people kind of roll their eyes about, you know, okay, you're an Amazon bestseller.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: I get that.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm with you.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: That being said, though, uh, is that the mass majority of the shoppers they don't understand how maybe easier it was.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: And so then they see bestseller, it's social proof.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: It makes them feel better about purchasing your book.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: So I tell people I get, I get it, you know, but it does help.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Um a great story of this.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh my grandmother, her name is Muzzy.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she's my muzz.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: I love Muzzy.
24:58
SPEAKER_03: What a great name.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, she's my muzz.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's funny when I was in the military and uh, you know, I was writing books and you know, doing really good, like legitimately, um, from my book sales.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: And uh I told my grandmother, who, you know, my grandfather was in the Navy, he retired as a senior chief, and here I am a lieutenant commander.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: I told my muzz, I was like, hey Buzzy, uh, you know, so I'm getting out of the military, you know, and she's like, Hey, don't be stupid.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: You've got 11 years.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: You got nine more years to go before you retire.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, no, no, Muzz, you don't understand.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, I've been writing a lot of books, you know, and and I actually make more money from my books than when I was in the military.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Well, but you only have nine more years, you know?
25:39
SPEAKER_00: And like, I kept trying to talk to her about it, and she just did not get it.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: And so I don't know if it was, it wasn't out of desperation, but I just sort of told her, I'm like, Muz, look, I'm a multi-best-selling author, okay?
25:51
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden it clicked.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't the money, it wasn't the fact that it was it was beating it.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: She was like, Wait, what?
25:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah, I I'm multiple bestselling author.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: And next thing you know, she's telling her friends at Crib all about her best-selling author grandson.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: Like it did, it just snapped.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: And after that, she never bothered me again about getting out of the military.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm like, okay, well, I mean, I wasn't blowing smoke, you know, or anything like that.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: But it took that just to trigger her to say, okay, then he's okay.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: He's not being stupid.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: She was literally telling me, think of your family, think of your children.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Muzz, I am.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm getting out of the military, you know.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: So I use that, I use Muzzy as an example here of the fact that it really carries a lot.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Just we authors, we've seen the sausage making, we know what it takes, and it's not, it's not that big, you know.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: We roll our eyes about it.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: But it can be, you know, yeah.
26:50
SPEAKER_03: There are some books, you know, like if you're number one, number one on all of Amazon.
26:53
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's a massive, massive deal.
26:55
SPEAKER_03: Most most books that are labeled as a number one bestseller are not number one on all of Amazon.
27:02
SPEAKER_03: But but even if you have it in a just a specific category, that that can still be quite a big deal.
27:07
SPEAKER_03: So I guess it's it's whatever the author wants to make of it, I suppose.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but the key is, and I I remind people when it comes to marketing, is just understand we we authors understand this, the market doesn't.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: And that's a good perspective to have when looking at your book cover, when reading your book description.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, when you're over looking at your Amazon sales page, you know, put read it and look at it through the eyes of a customer, not an author.
27:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's good.
27:35
SPEAKER_03: And every industry does this, you know, really to some degree, like you see a card commercial for the latest Ford, whatever, and they'll say voted number one by some motor trend of the year, which by the way, if you look at the fine print, uh, which I don't remember if it's Ford or whatever, but they own the motor trend.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it doesn't mean it was it was a substance, yeah.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: It was like a side company that they created.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: There's actually some connection out there that proves that these car companies own the so-called award thing that they keep giving themselves.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: No idea.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Wow, I know it's terrible.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: It I think there's a great YouTube uh video called If Marketers Told the Truth or something like that.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: And oh man, I think it's like on Funny or Die, and this so it's the soul guy, and he acts like the the salesman, you know, but he just kind of tells the truth like on toothpaste, like what toothpaste is made out of.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: He's like, but you know, does the do the bubbles hurt help?
28:28
SPEAKER_00: Of course not.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: But you, the consumer, wanted us to have it.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: So we put extra chemicals just to make it bubble for you.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, like they're hilarious.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: So they totally ripped on the motor trend one.
28:38
SPEAKER_03: That's funny.
28:39
SPEAKER_03: Well, I want to ask about Atticus in just a minute.
28:41
SPEAKER_03: Uh, before I get to that, though, I'm curious about this.
28:44
SPEAKER_03: Um, just a minute ago, I was thinking I should ask Dave about this.
28:47
SPEAKER_03: So, big thing right now is AI, chat GPT, all these kinds of things.
28:52
SPEAKER_03: Do you do you predict a glut of of books on Amazon and on other places, I guess?
28:57
SPEAKER_03: But because Amazon is so great to work with, do you predict a glut of books that are gonna be AI generated?
29:04
SPEAKER_03: This kind of thing where authors are just gonna cram all these books onto Amazon, not even not even talking about the quality of them, but just do you think this is gonna be something that a lot of authors are tempted to do?
29:16
SPEAKER_03: It's just create all these mass glut of books.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so let me preface this and let give a little bit of my background before I answer this.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, so a I'm always studying technology, um, you know, always looking at what can do.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh as an author, I'm always looking for, you know, great ways to improve or make my stuff effective and efficient.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: Um when blockchain was a thing and everybody's talking about crypto and NFTs, um, I had a problem with it.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: The technology is amazing, but I could, I could under, I could see that it wasn't going to be as uh a game changer in our industry or anything like that.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: I um so I took that with a major grain of salt and I've kind of I did a lot of warning about how there might be marketers that tried to take advantage of authors over it.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: Not to say that there won't be some use of that technology in the future, but one of the biggest issues was that industry didn't understand what it was.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's like libertarians and there's let's make it with the system.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, you can't have both.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: So I figured if the industry itself can't figure out what it is, it's not going to magically happen in our industry.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: So I preface that so people understand that when I say uh the next thing, like they understand that I take things with a grain of salt.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: But sadly, AI is going to change the world.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I mean legitimately.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh I wouldn't be surprised if Google's out of business in five years.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, because how powerful this Chat GPT is, uh, it may render Google search engine useless.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: Because when I search something on Google, I might ask, like, hey, what's give me a good Manhattan recipe, you know?
30:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I find an article and I click it, and I have to scroll through history and what to wear and how to, you know, the glasses.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: And then finally at the bottom, I get the recipe, right?
31:02
SPEAKER_00: The thing I'm looking for.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: And people have to do that because they have to convince the Google engine to show them, right?
31:08
SPEAKER_00: It's their keywords that they're working in there so they rank better.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: Got it.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Well, I could go to ChatGPT right now and say, uh, give me a good Manhattan, you know, recipe.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: And it will legit make one.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: That is yes, like I've tested it.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: It's how I like them.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, Manhattans are my favorite.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: So I'm a bit of a Manhattan snob, and ChatGPT gave it, gave my recipe away.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay, well, um, so that's there.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: So now imagine the world where you could just type something in or speak.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: Imagine if Siri or Alexa had AI in her and she was they were able to answer your questions legitimately, not kind of pre-programmed, but you know, like uh crazy stuff like, you know, please recite uh Genesis in the lexicon of Snoop Dogg, you know, or something like that.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden there's an AI voice that sounds like Snoop Dogg, you know, saying, you know, with with his words, you know, like he's interpreting the Bible, you know, like it'll just do it.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: And I say all that is it's absolutely incredible.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, and there's signs Google's legit worried about that, and there's so many other things that can happen with it.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: Now, that being said, though, there's a lot of uh roadblocks and a lot of things or reasons to make me believe that we authors will not be hurt by this.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: The reason for that is one, the legal system's gonna have to figure this out.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: There is a lot, there is a good chance that the courts get involved, or you know, the US government or governments around the world get involved to acknowledge that certain things can't happen.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a a a percentage that that could happen, that the courts get involved and they say no.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: But I think I don't think it's likely.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: What I do think is likely is well, faith in capitalism.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: It is not in Amazon's interest to let that roam roam free.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because you're right, there are a lot of desperate authors out there that will punch out as many books as possible using this AI system, and it will flood Amazon um with books that will cause issues.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: And if people are constantly going to Amazon and buying books and they're terrible, or they don't make sense, or there's issues, or it's clearly written by a robot, or any of that, that quality will cause a lot of problems and Amazon will lose long-term money.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: I think Jeff Bezos once said it's we don't make money when we sell a product.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: We make money when they come back.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, right.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, and if people aren't coming back, then they lose.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: So I think Amazon will probably do something.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: There's actually a large industry right now being grown on detection of AI systems.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: Amazon, who owns AWS, they will absolutely have stuff in there at some point that will detect AI capability.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, just when they turn it on or they trigger it or whatever.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: That one I have more faith in than the US courts or international courts.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: So I don't think that it will overtake us because it's not in Amazon's interest.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: And I will always bank on them to make decisions, good decisions, good decisions if it makes them more money.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I do think a lot about AI art.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, mid-journey, I think is amazing.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that that's that's hard.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that they're going to be able to pull the images.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: I think they can figure out natural language per se, but I don't think that they can figure out what is you know AI art or not.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: And I don't really think they care in that respect, because if the words were written by human, is there a difference between the images?
34:46
SPEAKER_00: And so what I've enjoyed doing is not so much my book covers using AI art, but I've been generating some really cool pictures inside my books using the AI art.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: And so chapter theme images or images of characters, you know, in different positions, or you know, building this amazing map um, you know, using AI art, that's been incredible.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: These are things that I wouldn't have done or paid an artist to do.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it allows me to extend or make my book even that much more cool or unique or professional by adding it.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: I still love having a book cover designer make a book cover, though.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
35:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
35:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's nothing quite like having the input of a real human who is creative and who knows you and what you want from a book.
35:38
SPEAKER_03: And I I suppose at some point and understands your genre.
35:41
SPEAKER_03: That's the nice part.
35:42
SPEAKER_03: Yes, and that's really, really important.
35:44
SPEAKER_03: That's really important.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: They know the elements.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: It's it's funny, is that you can almost break book covers down to like a math.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, certain genres, like no joke, certain genres, you're it it needs to center a main character center on the the cover.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: But in certain genres, the characters should not look at you.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: In certain ones, they should.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: In certain ones, they should, you know, be in this provocative position.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: These different colors, like all of these things are broken down.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: That's why if you go through like some of the most popular, we'll say, like um vampire romance novels or things like that, um, you know, you will see the same colors and the same look and the same like general shape of where things are on the cover over and over again.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: And why?
36:30
SPEAKER_00: Because people are looking for familiarity, right?
36:33
SPEAKER_00: So if I love Twilight, you know, then if I see a cover that reminds me of Twilight and it happens to be a sparkly vampire romance or something like that, then you better believe it.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm grabbing it, you know, because it triggered my thought process.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: And so honestly, they just kind of keep stealing each other, and so they have this.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, AI art might be able to pull in some of that component, but somebody who specializes in that genre, you know, that that makes those, they know these things.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: They know those little subtle cues, they know how to do it.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: And so I haven't seen AI art be able to take over that.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: But I do think it's a really neat option to create some extra art inside of your book that gives just a little bit more interest, you know, and and a little more professionalism and just something that makes you unique and look all the more, you know, bodacious.
37:20
SPEAKER_03: It's almost like the art of movie posters.
37:22
SPEAKER_03: You know, when you see when you see an action movie uh or some kind of thriller, it's almost always gonna have some combination of blue and orange.
37:31
SPEAKER_03: It's just like the like the Bourne movies, you know, or Liam Neeson movies, they almost always have those colors.
37:36
SPEAKER_03: It's like this just this visual language where you kind of know what you're gonna get, which is awesome.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, and it's funny too.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's some funny meme I just saw recently or something that had, I think it was like the Star Wars seven or eight or nine, one of those three.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, the two Marvel movies and the X-Men movie poster.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: And they like, if you were to zoom out, they all look like the same thing, almost the same exact color, same exact, you know, character atop a character in a ball kind of looking thing with a thing flying over.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, ripped each other off.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: And and and it is, and it's just because they want to connect that excitement, you know, they want to look like the the they want you to see this movie poster and immediately be connected to a movie that you probably saw and liked and paid a lot of money for.
38:28
SPEAKER_03: Well, let me dive into Atticus here for a bit.
38:30
SPEAKER_03: I want to respect your time and gosh, I still appreciate you making time to do this conversation.
38:33
SPEAKER_03: I could talk to you for hours.
38:34
SPEAKER_03: You're like such a fountain knowledge with all this stuff.
38:38
SPEAKER_03: Uh, you've been doing this a long time.
38:40
SPEAKER_03: You've you're in this world every day, so it and it really shows.
38:43
SPEAKER_03: Um, let's talk about Atticus for a second.
38:45
SPEAKER_03: So people have different options when it comes to formatting their books.
38:49
SPEAKER_03: Uh authors have historically had a lot of frustration when it comes to that before tools have been developed in the last few years that make the this a lot easier.
38:58
SPEAKER_03: Uh what is what was the the space in the marketplace that you saw that led you to developing Atticus?
39:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, uh to tell you the truth, um back in the day, like I used to ask myself, what exactly is a book writing software?
39:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay, because people would you ask, like, hey, what do you what do you use to write a book?
39:19
SPEAKER_00: And people would say, Well, I use Word or I use Scrivener, you know, and and I'm like, well, okay, but that's that's to write.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: What do you use to write a book though?
39:27
SPEAKER_00: And uh they were like, Well, I also use this program, I I use Vellum, I use a formatter.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: And the point though is that to actually write a book, a lot of people use a lot of different software throughout the entire process.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: They might use a an outlining program like plotter, then they're using a program like Word to write it, or you know, maybe they're using Scrivener to write it, then they're exporting to Word to then email back and forth with an editor, right?
39:56
SPEAKER_00: In Word, and then they're taking that and they're uploading it into like a formatting software like Vellum, uh, just to be able to turn it into a book.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: And that honestly, that's that is probably a good description of many authors out there.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and they have to go through this.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: And what this ends up happening is is it causes you to have a whole bunch of copies in the end that say final copy, final edition.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: This is the final, all caps, final, final, you know.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so there's version control issues.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: And so as an as an author, way back in the day when I, you know, I think it was like 2007 when I when I when Scrivener first came out, that's what I used for my writing.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: I used to hate that.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: I used to hate how I had to learn so many different software in order to make a book.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: And I still to this day, my first couple of books, I don't remember which one was actually the final version.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: So if I wanted to update the book, I don't know which one was the one that actually got fully edited because I kept a bunch of them and I never marked out which one was actually the one that I used.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: So that's always been a problem in the back of my mind.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I wanted to one day create a software where an author could just all they had to do is learn one software and they can control the whole process all the way through.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: They no longer have to switch from program to program to program.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: They no longer have all these extra copies out there.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: They can plan, write, collaborate, and format all within one.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: And the most beautiful thing about that process is that if you ever need to update the back matter or you need to make a change, maybe you got you saw a review and you're like, oh, crikey, I misspelled that.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, my editor and I missed that.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: You can go.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: All you have to do is open a program, open that program, make said one correction and hit export upload, and it's that simple.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: Five years later, you can come right back to it and do the same thing.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: And it makes managing all your books and updating them and improving them that much easier.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: So that was my absolute goal.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: So I decided to start Atticus.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: And Atticus, we decided to begin with just formatting.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: And so back in the day, uh, we came out with this about two years ago, um, we created a formatting software that's honestly comparable to Vellum in that you can upload your Word file uh into it.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: You can immediately make changes, you can see exactly what it will look on ebook and book.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, some of the core differences between us and Vellum is that uh, so we work on all computers, uh not just Macintosh, whereas Vellum only works on Mac.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're also$147.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: That's a one-time payment.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you get that for life, no matter how many books you do.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh, whereas Vellum is$249.99, um, and that's for book and ebook.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: And so those were some of the areas that we started with.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: We also really push the fold on a lot of new features and capabilities.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: And um, but we didn't just stop there because we added the writing section as well.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: So now you can write uh your book inside of Atticus, and when you choose, you can start formatting just like that.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: And we're adding a lot of writing features, um, you know, just daily, just about all these things that I've always wanted.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, and later this year, actually, we'll be coming out with the third phase, which is collaboration.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: And so this will allow you to work with other writers inside of Atticus.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: You can also tag your editor in and they can edit it.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: And at that point, you'll be able to write, collaborate, and format all within one, and you never have to leave it.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's been our biggest thing.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: And um, like I said, we have the writing and we have the formatting, and collaboration will come out later.
43:37
SPEAKER_03: So, how does thank you for all that by the way?
43:39
SPEAKER_03: That that's super helpful.
43:40
SPEAKER_03: Uh how does how does Atticus work with uh with the editor uh with the editing process?
43:47
SPEAKER_03: Because uh most editors I've well, actually all the editors that I worked with, they all want to work in Word.
43:53
SPEAKER_03: Very few of them work in Google Docs.
43:55
SPEAKER_03: Like professional editors are just Word people in general.
43:58
SPEAKER_03: So if somebody wants to do Atticus from beginning to end, somehow they've got to stop and do stuff in Word for their editor and then put it back into Atticus, right?
44:07
SPEAKER_03: Or how does how does that work?
44:09
SPEAKER_00: See, you're 100% correct about that with editors.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna design the editor version, which is gonna be free for editors.
44:19
SPEAKER_00: So editors don't have to pay to own Atticus, okay?
44:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, where it's gonna look and feel just like Word, because we're not gonna teach old dogs new tricks.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, and more importantly, it'll be one of those things where uh so the track changes, everything will be absolutely familiar.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: There will be some improvements because we've been we've been actually meeting with editors, professional editors with publishing companies, as well as as um editors, you know, that are that work solo and getting their input on things they wish Word would do.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: So this way they can open it up, immediately jump into it, and start seeing those benefits that they've probably been thinking they wish they had.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: So now what this operation will look like is that say you've written your book and you're ready, you hit collaboration, you hit, and by the way, there's four ways you can collaborate.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you can collaborate with another writer, an editor, an arc reader, and a formatter.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so in case you don't want to touch the formatting, you can bring somebody in to take care of that.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: The writer and the formatter have to own Atticus because that's just there's just too many functionalities.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: We can't have somebody outside of it using it, right?
45:21
SPEAKER_00: But the arc reader and the editor, uh, no problem.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: So say you add the editor.
45:26
SPEAKER_00: There will be a pop-up box, you can put in their email address, they can give them certain permissions.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: There's things that authors want to control, um, and then you send it to them.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: They can open up a free account, they can go in there, it will look just like Word, track changes, everything, and they can start working.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, what's awesome is you as a writer can go in and check to see how that's coming.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: And just like that, you can also accept the track changes and it will be adopted into your book.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: If you don't accept anything, when you go to your book, you won't see anything they've done.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: So it's that clear separation for you.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh finally, when the editor is all done and you've accepted everything, you can remove their access from the book and poof, now you can control who has access to your book.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: There's no copies floating out there on the internet, there's no final, final version, or God only knows how many you know files that you have in your desk from the back and forth emailing of Word.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's all controlled in that manner.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: And then at that point, you can just start formatting it and be good to go.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: Or you can collaborate with a formatter to come make your book look cool.
46:28
SPEAKER_03: Man, I love that.
46:29
SPEAKER_03: I love that collaborative element, uh, which is something that really is a sticking point for a lot of writers.
46:35
SPEAKER_03: Just the the pain of emailing versions back and forth.
46:38
SPEAKER_03: Same thing with ghostwriters, honestly.
46:40
SPEAKER_03: Um ghostwriters might be an interesting market for this because I mean I'm constantly collaborating with people on in Google Docs, which is fine.
46:49
SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, my goodness, you could in this case, you could take Atticus and you could uh make say, say, for example, you're ghostwriting for somebody.
47:00
SPEAKER_00: You could you could basically um set them up as an arc reader, you know, just use it that way, right?
47:06
SPEAKER_00: Because that's free.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: That person, no problem.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: And they can open it up and they can leave comments.
47:11
SPEAKER_00: So as you're writing, they can leave comments and you can see them just like it's Google Docs in that respect, right?
47:16
SPEAKER_00: Whereas you can go check to see and you can kind of communicate with them and go back and forth about it, but they can read what you're doing and they can talk, you know, and leave comments as you go, but you get a writing software.
47:26
SPEAKER_00: Because one of the things that's a problem with Google Docs is that once you get to like a hundred or so plus pages, it gets a little laggy.
47:32
SPEAKER_00: It craps out.
47:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we won't.
47:34
SPEAKER_00: We don't.
47:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's one of the big things on our programming that we don't crap out on hundreds of pages.
47:39
SPEAKER_00: So you can continue to write.
47:41
SPEAKER_00: You can also lock chapters, by the way.
47:42
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the things people have asked.
47:44
SPEAKER_00: Like maybe you write the first five chapters, okay, and you want to make those first five open for the other person to read and check and start commenting while you're working on the six, but they're not watching over your shoulder.
47:56
SPEAKER_00: You can control that process.
47:58
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's but that's one of those things we've also talked to a lot of writing coaches.
48:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, as a writing coach, you know, you might want to be able to see your people write, um, kind of live, just like Google Docs, right?
48:09
SPEAKER_00: The writing coach can go through all the different writing that people are doing, check, make comments, you know, and help assist.
48:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, and also be able to say, hey, see you haven't written in a bit.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
48:19
SPEAKER_00: Let's keep it up.
48:20
SPEAKER_00: You've got this.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, that that collaboration component, it's the truth be told is the way that I like to describe Atticus is when I'm done, you know, with everything, which by the way, I never stop, I'm always adding to my software.
48:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, anybody who owns Rocket knows that for a fact.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: But when I hit their true mark of what it will be, um, is I like to describe it that if Scrivener, Google Docs, and Vellum got together and had a baby, its name would be Atticus.
48:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I've used that.
48:48
SPEAKER_03: That's that's really, really fascinating.
48:50
SPEAKER_03: I had not thought about that from a ghostwriting perspective.
48:53
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, you're exactly right.
48:55
SPEAKER_03: You know, that there's so many things you've got to use to produce a book.
48:59
SPEAKER_03: The formatting stuff and the writing stuff, and the there's just so many things out there.
49:04
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I think you're really onto something.
49:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's cool stuff.
49:08
SPEAKER_00: It's just one of those things that as a writer, I've just I hated having to use so many different sets of software.
49:15
SPEAKER_00: I hated having to email back and forth my editors, because I wish they would just do do Google Docs, you know, but they don't, they don't like it.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: I got it.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it can be a bit of a pain too.
49:25
SPEAKER_00: I get that.
49:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then finally, you know, ugh, having to update something.
49:31
SPEAKER_00: Like if you use a formatter, formatters are great, uh, not knocking on them, but they'll format it.
49:38
SPEAKER_00: And the moment you got to change something, it's like they have to reform it.
49:41
SPEAKER_00: You have to pay them again, you know, and so it causes hesitation, it causes you not to.
49:46
SPEAKER_00: How great would it be if you know, if you have Atticus and you publish a book, you could just click on the file, make said quick change, hit export and upload, and you can always take care of your back matter, you know, keep things up to date, change dates, you name it.
50:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, that much simple.
50:02
SPEAKER_00: It's file management, it's book management, which is nice.
50:07
SPEAKER_03: And it's almost like it's making into reality this whole idea of truly being a self-publisher in these in the sense of you are actually doing all the things that a publisher really does, all within one app or one place.
50:23
SPEAKER_00: Fascinating.
50:23
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: You can tag in your editor and remove their access when they're done.
50:28
SPEAKER_00: You can tag in all your arc readers or beta readers, get your information you want, and then remove their access just with the click of a button.
50:35
SPEAKER_00: And then you can bring in your formatter and you can see everything.
50:40
SPEAKER_00: It it truly is project management for authors.
50:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then you hit export and you have your collection.
50:48
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's why, you know, like I said, I'm just I'm jazzed.
50:52
SPEAKER_00: I I've wanted this since I first started writing.
50:55
SPEAKER_00: So it's just been really cool to have a phenomenal programming team to be able to make this a reality.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, we're really excited.
51:03
SPEAKER_00: Later this year, we'll have that collaboration component.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: We've been working under the hood for a long time to make it solid and uh to ensure because I I just I'm excited.
51:13
SPEAKER_00: And another thing, too, just in case it's a question for people out there, uh you can work on it offline.
51:18
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
51:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh it doesn't need the internet to write.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the only time that you need the internet with Atticus is just to log in, you know, so it knows.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
51:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then once once you have it on your computer, you're good to go.
51:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the only other time that it might need the internet is when you go to hit export.
51:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, but if you're hitting export and you're uploading it to Amazon, you're gonna need the internet.
51:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: Um we like to do it that way because a lot of the, we'll call it the engine to the car uh we put on a server so that it doesn't take up space or hurt your computer.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, when you download a giant program or so, it it can cause things to slow down or it can cause your uh buyer's protector can go nuts.
51:55
SPEAKER_00: So we put the engine up there so as to make it very simple and not take up space.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: That's old computers can use it, brand new computers, it doesn't matter.
52:03
SPEAKER_00: It was it's kind of one of our uh really cool architecture designs uh to make life easier.
52:07
SPEAKER_00: And it also means that every time we add a new feature update, you don't have to re-download something, it happens automatically.
52:14
SPEAKER_00: The engine gets tuned up, and when you open it up, poof, there it is.
52:18
SPEAKER_00: No delete and download and none of it.
52:22
SPEAKER_00: So it's fine.
52:24
SPEAKER_03: What about writers who who will say, um, you know, I really want a custom design for my book.
52:30
SPEAKER_03: I don't want one of the the pre-formatted designs that you have available.
52:34
SPEAKER_03: I want something that's truly custom.
52:35
SPEAKER_03: In those cases, um would you just say, hey, you can still use something like Atticus for the other things, but if you want a truly custom design, you just you're gonna need to work with a formatter for that.
52:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, so uh we designed Atticus where an absolute novice can use our custom templates and make something look really professional with honestly a couple clicks of a button to be good to go.
52:59
SPEAKER_00: Boom.
53:00
SPEAKER_00: But we've also added a lot of customization capability.
53:03
SPEAKER_00: You can design special chapter themes um to make it.
53:07
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I prove I'm about 99.9% sure that when this podcast is published, you will have the ability to change any of the fonts you want through everything.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: You can really make that book look unique.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's up to you.
53:21
SPEAKER_00: So if you want the easy button to make something look professional, boom, boom, boom, all done.
53:25
SPEAKER_00: Or if you really want to make it look special and change things, you can absolutely do that too.
53:29
SPEAKER_00: Like, for example, you can make your chapter theme change with each chapter.
53:34
SPEAKER_00: So I've seen some really cool ideas where somebody designed on chapter one, it looked like just uh the dirt on the ground.
53:40
SPEAKER_00: And in chapter two, you saw the little seedling poke out of the hole.
53:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's cool.
53:44
SPEAKER_00: And by the end, all the way to the end, it was a full, beautiful rose.
53:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, it had grown over time, and that was symbolic of the character's arc.
53:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you can absolutely do that.
53:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can do phenomenal two-page uh chapter themes.
53:59
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot to it.
54:01
SPEAKER_00: And also for the nonfiction writers out there, we will have, and also I think by the time this podcast comes out, we'll have what we call our nonfiction package, which will give you call-out boxes, uh, ability to customize your footer, your end notes, um, like a whole bunch of things that I the only software I know that does this is InDesign, and that's it.
54:22
SPEAKER_00: And for those who don't know about InDesign, InDesign is created by Adobe, but you're gonna need a like a college degree to use that thing.
54:30
SPEAKER_00: It is it is hardcore.
54:32
SPEAKER_00: It's really, really out there.
54:35
SPEAKER_00: You give up simplicity for to use that thing, but you can do just about anything with it.
54:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we'll we'll be we'll be definitely kicking down their door um probably by the time this thing comes out.
54:45
SPEAKER_00: So are you that being said, you can really simply make something quick, or you really can make something that's absolutely unique.
54:52
SPEAKER_00: So nobody's gonna look at your book and be like, oh, that must be an Atticus book.
54:56
SPEAKER_03: Now, are you at all targeting the academic crowd for Atticus for dissertations, theses, things like that?
55:03
SPEAKER_03: Or is that just a whole different ball of wax?
55:06
SPEAKER_00: No, um, I think in time it's definitely something we can do.
55:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's definitely not on my near-term horizon.
55:13
SPEAKER_00: But like I said, I never like one of my rules with software is I call it the ABBA role.
55:18
SPEAKER_00: Always be adapting.
55:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, always find some way that you need to look at your software and you always need to say to yourself, how can I make this better?
55:26
SPEAKER_00: And it's a challenge.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: I make it rule number one for all of my team.
55:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, so when we hit these major things, um, yeah, absolutely.
55:32
SPEAKER_00: Let's sit down.
55:33
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's design some things specific for for poetry books.
55:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, um, we've hit a lot of the requirements for academic books or papers and things like that because we're only we're one of the only ones that actually has footer.
55:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, Vellum doesn't do it, a lot of the others don't do it.
55:50
SPEAKER_00: The only other way you can do a footer right now is uh us and InDesign.
55:56
SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, so that's they're really important.
55:59
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
56:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, I do a lot of nonfiction and I I I live in my footers.
56:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh I know I probably lean on them just as much as I use hyphenation, but uh still though.
56:10
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, end notes, footers, um, because sourcing and being able to explain things without ruining the tempo of your discussion point, uh, these are all incredibly important.
56:20
SPEAKER_00: Um so it is definitely something I used Scrivener back in the day to write my master's thesis uh when I was at Naval Postgraduate School.
56:28
SPEAKER_00: So it's something that we'll do for sure.
56:30
SPEAKER_03: Nice.
56:31
SPEAKER_03: I I wrote my um master's thesis in uh Word, I guess.
56:36
SPEAKER_03: No, I'm sorry, it was Word Perfect way back in the day.
56:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
56:40
SPEAKER_03: Oh man, I don't even know if they're still in business now, but um I do use Scrivener a lot, though.
56:47
SPEAKER_03: I love Scrivener, so but a lot of people complain that Scrivener is hard to use, especially when you first start using, and it is, it's complicated to start using.
56:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, a good term for it is they over-engineered themselves.
56:59
SPEAKER_03: Totally, I totally agree.
57:00
SPEAKER_00: I I yeah, yeah, I was I was literally just talking with Michael Hyatt the other day, um, you know, who who just he's using Atticus and he he said, I I I've used Scrivener for years, so I'm stealing his words.
57:14
SPEAKER_00: He was like, but when they came out with 3.0, they over-engineered themselves to the point that things are hidden.
57:19
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like you need to learn where things are, and I think that's a major failure in what we call UIUX.
57:26
SPEAKER_00: And UIUX stands for user interface and user experience.
57:30
SPEAKER_00: If you if there's something that people need and you hide it behind like two or three layers, or I have to, I call this sadly, I call it click click.
57:37
SPEAKER_00: If somebody has to click twice to use something, then you're doing it wrong.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
57:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, if I have to memorize where something is, you're doing it wrong.
57:45
SPEAKER_00: If I have to expend extra brain calories to try to, oh man, what is that the thing?
57:49
SPEAKER_00: We're doing it wrong.
57:51
SPEAKER_00: And so the real key component is that we believe that we can are we are really designing a lot of the things most authors use in a way you don't have to learn how to use it.
58:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I will say in the end, we probably won't be able to do everything that Scrivener uses or does.
58:09
SPEAKER_00: But truth be told, a mass majority of the things they jam into that is stuff we never use.
58:14
SPEAKER_00: It's it seems nice, but we just don't use it.
58:17
SPEAKER_00: And so all it does is make it more complicated because it's there.
58:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's one thing we're keeping in mind is we definitely don't want to over-engineer.
58:25
SPEAKER_00: Keep it simple, keep it clean, and keep it effective.
58:29
SPEAKER_00: And that's the best way to roll forward.
58:31
SPEAKER_03: Uh Dave, this has been an absolutely fascinating interview.
58:35
SPEAKER_03: I so appreciate all that you're doing to help writers and particularly people who are into self-publishing.
58:41
SPEAKER_03: You're just you're really doing some helpful things and some cool things.
58:44
SPEAKER_03: And I'm just so inspired by your creative thinking and your business savvy and just everything that you're doing.
58:51
SPEAKER_03: So thanks for taking the time to do this.
58:52
SPEAKER_03: We'll have links in the show notes to all the cool stuff that you're doing.
58:55
SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, all 57 cool things that Dave Jetson is doing, there's a long list.
59:00
SPEAKER_03: So thanks for taking the time to do this.
59:01
SPEAKER_03: I really am grateful and I appreciate you.
59:04
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
59:04
SPEAKER_03: And again, thanks for having me.
59:06
SPEAKER_03: Uh totally, totally.
59:07
SPEAKER_03: This has been a blast.
59:08
SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
59:10
SPEAKER_03: Well, my friend, I hope you took a lot of notes during that conversation because Dave just dropped a ton of wisdom for all of us who are writing, publishing, and marketing our books.
59:20
SPEAKER_03: This was really, really fun.
59:21
SPEAKER_03: And again, I want to encourage you to go to Dave's site and sign up for all the cool stuff that he has to offer.
59:26
SPEAKER_03: Most importantly, go to Kindlepreneur.com.
59:30
SPEAKER_03: That's where that's kind of like a hub for all the things that Dave is doing.
59:32
SPEAKER_03: But also make sure and check out publisherrocket.com and atticus.io.
59:37
SPEAKER_03: Those are some really great resources for you as an author.
59:41
SPEAKER_03: The main thing that I want to say as we wrap up this episode, and you know, many times I conclude these interview episodes with a takeaway or two.
59:49
SPEAKER_03: The main takeaway that I would want to throw out there after this really great conversation with Dave Chetson is that I want to encourage you not to be intimidated by all this marketing stuff.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_03: You might be one of those authors who is in love with the creative process.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_03: You love writing and creating books, but maybe you feel kind of intimidated by the marketing aspect.
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SPEAKER_03: When we throw words out like Amazon keywords or marketing or SEO or those kinds of things, maybe your eyes glaze over and you think, I could never learn to do that stuff.
1:00:20
SPEAKER_03: But I promise you you can.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_03: So again, make sure and go to Kindlepreneur.com, check out all the cool things Dave has going.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_03: And I would really encourage you to grab Publisher Rocket as well.
1:00:29
SPEAKER_03: It is a great tool.
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SPEAKER_03: There's nothing else really like it out there on the market.
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SPEAKER_03: It's a super phenomenal tool.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_03: So make sure and grab that, check it out, and don't be intimidated by this stuff.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_03: My friend, you can do it.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_03: I promise you.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_03: You can learn to do these new marketing kinds of things if this is sort of new to your world.
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SPEAKER_03: And you know, you might even have a little bit of fun once you get into it.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_03: I kind of think that you probably will.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_03: I'd love to hear about your experience once you get into this.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_03: All right, my friend, as always, thanks so much for listening, and I will see you in the next episode.