Kindlepreneur Dave Chesson Shares Top Amazon Tips
Dave Chesson became an author as a way to spend more time with his family. As he developed expertise writing, publishing, and marketing books, he shared lessons learned on his Kindlepreneur.com website, which eventually became his main focus. In this episode, Dave shares his author journey, how he started Kindlepreneur, as well as some of his top tips about how to market your book on Amazon using Amazon Ads, editorial reviews, and more.
Kindlepreneur is one of the most visited websites for self-publishing authors, so seriously, if you haven’t been there, go now.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle: Today my guest is Dave Chesson, also known as the Kindlepreneur. If I can just get you to do one thing after listening to this episode, go to kindlepreneur.com and check out everything that Dave's got there. It's an amazing website full of a ton resources that I've personally used as I've been through my book writing journeys.
Dave is an interesting guy. He was a nuclear engineer, he was in the military , he was on submarines, and he's done triathlons, he speaks Mandarin Chinese. He's got a bunch of interesting stuff in his background, and he's also the author of nine books. Or is it more than nine at this point?
Dave Chesson: I think it's 10. I just need to update that number.
Josh Steimle: All right. It's hard to keep track of once you get to that number. Dave, welcome to the show.
Dave Chesson: Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me.
Josh Steimle: One of the questions I wanted to get out of the way first, I noted in your bio that you have dyslexia. I'd be curious to learn more about that.
How does somebody with dyslexia end up being somebody in the book industry and being an author and running a website about books and reading?
Dave Chesson: Yeah, actually if you went back to my English teacher from high school and you told her that I was doing this, her jaw would probably hit the ground.
I grew up thinking that I would never be a writer. That I'm not supposed to be. I struggled dramatically with that and reading. I actually have more dysgraphia. I have a lot of issues in that respect. You never want to watch me write with a pen, it's like nails on a chalkboard for most people.
So when I grew up, I was like, I'm going to get as far away from writing as possible. I became a physics major. It was close, probably farther, could have been math. But I did, I was only two classes away from a double major in math and physics. But the truth of the matter is, is that it doesn't mean the story, you know, or the desire to write ever leaves.
You. I kind of just grew up looking down on myself about it and praying for a C in English, you know, and expecting an A plus in math and science. That was my lifestyle. I'm just as shocked as many of you.
The truth of the matter is that I think writing is kind of like a muscle. You just kind of got to keep working out and that muscle is going to build and it's going to grow.
If you look at the first thing I ever wrote on a blog, it's atrocious, it's embarrassing. It's kinda like they say, like, you know, if you ever want to, you go to like your favorite YouTube video person.
Go watch their first ever video and you'll be like, oh, okay. I can do this. but it takes all of that time that sitting down to the keyboard, typing, working on it in a reading on and you will grow. And so that's really what I battled with was constantly pouring over the keyboard and bleeding.
Josh Steimle: Now in between becoming an author and struggling with this in high school and such you went into the military, you were on nuclear submarines.
How did you end up in this place where you said I'm going to write a book?
Dave Chesson: So I got out of submarines and I was a military diplomat. I did that for awhile. That's what got me into the Chinese component of it all. Becoming fluent in Mandarin Chinese and a master's in East Asia, the Navy decided to send me to Korea where they don't speak English or Chinese.
English is not a main language there. Matter of fact, I ran into more English speakers in Sri Lanka than I do in Korea. I was also stationed in a Korean base, not a U S base either.
That was fun. But because of that situation, they sent me without my family. So I had to leave with, out my wife and kids. That really sucked and my wife had this question one day. She's like, what are you doing this for? Are you trying to be an Admiral? You're trying to like, what?
And I'm like, honestly, I don't really have an answer.
She's like, well, why don't you figure out a way to come home? And I said, okay. So when you're on the other side of the world and I didn't want to leave by the way, leave the military and go do one, traveling nine to five job. To go to another.
So I was like, all right, I need to find an exit plan.
And when you're on the other side of the world, you're really limited in what you can do. You can't do advertisements because, you know, my problem was I'd go out on ships for like a couple months, South Korean ships to be exact and I can't run an advertisement from a ship without internet.
I couldn't do a brick and mortar, a drop-ship. There's all these businesses I could not do. So I started getting into blogging a little bit cause you can write on a website whenever you want. And SEO became my main way of helping my writing show up more. When I started to see that a couple of thousand people reading something I wrote every month, I was like, holy moly, this is cool.
And that really kick-started it all. And then I got into writing books. A matter of fact, wrote my first book on the Ugogi Warship. It's a ages class destroyer in the South Korean Navy. And we were patrolling right near the border of North Korea in some crazy times. And here I am typing away at my first book.
So it just goes to show, you could write a book from literally anywhere. So that was it. That's how, that's, how it really got started.
Luckily from my writing alone, I was able to make more money in a month than I was making in the Navy step out of the military, but still be able to support my family and be home full time.
Josh Steimle: So that first book was it just, "Hey, this is what's in front of me, so I'm going to write about it." Or did you have a goal in mind or a purpose?
Dave Chesson: No, for me I've always said, still to this day, I don't think I'm a good enough writer to just be able to sit down and write about anything I want and make it be gold.
Hemingway could probably write a book about tying your shoes and it would be a masterpiece, you know, me not a chance. Well there could be a chance, like I said, it's a muscle, right? You got to keep working at it. Maybe by the time I'm 65, I can write that. We'll see.
Instead though I started to learn. Here's a great example, I'd go to a party. A military ball and they would tell me, you know, here's this particular person who has this particular background or so that we need you to go communicate with.
So I would shoot over there and turn off. There would be other people shooting over there to listen to the person talking. And here we are just listening and you know, communicating with them and working with them. And it was because they had the answer, like they had the information.
And so, when you think about it. You don't have to be the greatest orator in the world, but if you're the one with the answer, you're the life of the party. If everybody wants to learn, what is you have to say, Fala, you've done it.
So I kind of took that idea with kindle books. I started to say, well, you know what, let me, let me go ahead and look and use my analytical mind, and all this kind of information to try to figure out what is it that people are searching for on Amazon, and where is there an opportunity to where someone like me could write a book and fill that void. That need.
So when I started doing that, I started having some great ideas. Now this isn't about writing books. You don't want to write. Sometimes I had a great. And I'd find out, Ooh, that was a bad idea. You know, like, oh, that sounds great. And then you look, you know, like, Ooh, yeah. Nobody's. Nobody wants that.
It didn't mean I couldn't write the book. I could still write the book.
What it does mean though, when you do that kind of research and you find out nobody's searching on Amazon for it, what it means is you can't depend on Amazon to sell it for you. You now have to develop marketing strategies to go find your market and bring them to your Amazon book.
I personally didn't like that, so I'd kind of keep doing my research to find out where the opportunities lie.
And sometimes I would find a great opportunity, but it's too competitive. So I'd niche down. Instead of it being about a particular subject it would be a particular subject for particular type of person.
This allowed me to be number one for that search term and make continuous sales over time.
So these were the things that allowed me to really grow, especially in my non-fiction writing and having written more and more books, I really started to develop a stylized way of teaching inside of books.
I call it the sandwich formula that I use in my chapters, and that has allowed me to broaden a little bit and then compete with bigger books because I am a better writer than I was when I first started.
Josh Steimle: So tell us about that sandwich method. What's that?
Dave Chesson: The sandwich method, I actually got it from reading John C. Maxwell. He does the sandwich method. I just give it a name. He wrote the book on, was that 21 Irrefutable Laws Of Leadership.
He didn't reinvent anything. I mean, we've all heard if you read every one of his so-called laws of leadership, you've probably heard it from somewhere. No, there was nothing new there, but boy is that book great. Why? Because man am I entertained.
I'm entertained and learning and feeling good about it. He starts every, every chapter with some story that pertains to the lesson at hand, then you get you hooked on the story and then it gives you the lesson. And then he finishes up the chapter with the rest of the story, encapsulating the whole purpose of the lesson and each day.
It's fun. I still, to this day, years ago, I haven't even read it the second time. I remember the first chapter, which was on Ray Crock from McDonald's and it was talking about the glass half, you know, the potential of a glass. Some people's glasses full at the size. Some people have a bigger glass, it's just natural.
And so McDonald's created this great, you know, idea on how to prepare the burgers, but it took a Ray Crock to go beyond just two stores and make it into the McDonald's we know today.
I still remember the story. And so what I found in writing nonfiction is that we learn better in story we're entertained better in story, and we will always give a five star review for information that was entertaining.
I love that when I set up my books for nonfiction. Not write the chapter until I find the really good story. It could be personal, it could be made up, clear if it's made up. Or I love, love, love, love, finding things in history. Some small details, some really interesting story.
One of my. This is crazy, but there was a book and I haven't been able to find I own it, but I haven't been able to find on the market, but it was called one night stands with American history, which is hilarious because you pick it up and it's this little short. Couple paragraphs. So it's like, you literally read one a night, you know, before you go to bed.
And it's always these crazy little stories. You know, that you're just like shocked happen and hi, I've found so much inspiration in those. So I really searched for those kinds of stories to put in there that have that shock, bearing that like, whoa, a moment. And when you find that and you start using those sandwiches and each one of your chapters, you really pack a good.
Josh Steimle: Interesting. I interviewed a guy years ago who makes viral videos on YouTube and charges about 750 grand to make one of these videos. He's been pretty successful with it. I asked him what his secret was and he said you have to have something unexpected.
There has to be something unexpected in the video.
Otherwise it's not going to go viral because that's what people want to share. They say, Hey, look at this. It's so unexpected. It sounds like that's kind of what that book taps into.
Dave Chesson: Absolutely. If it's a story that's told multiple times, you know, I was like, man and that also goes to speaking to, it goes with a lot of things.
When you're communicating with people, we just learn better with story. And we, you know, we walk away with a better frame of mind and a better feeling about what the interaction that just occurred because of the story itself.
Josh Steimle: Can you walk us through the rest of your books after that first one that was about the Navy ship.
What were the other nine books about that you've published?
Dave Chesson: I've hit subjects all over the place, and by the way, the first book was not about the Navy ship. I wrote it on then while I was on the Navy.
Josh Steimle: She just wrote it on the ship. What was the first one about?
Dave Chesson: That was actually from language learning. It was about a particular language learning process. I've also done things in aviation, too. I mean, just a whole plethora.
Josh Steimle: Gotcha. Okay. So why did you write, maybe you don't have to go through every single one of the 10 books, but what was your motivation for writing each of these books?
What were your goals? What were you trying to accomplish?
Dave Chesson: In truth, back in the day, I was really just trying to build up an author career. To be able to get myself out of the military and to be home. And so a lot of that was, you know, and I think that was really important for me, especially in succeeding because, I didn't just sit down to write, because I felt like it, you know, I didn't sit down and write because I kind of had this dream of one day being a writer I wrote because if I wanted to be home with my kids, like I needed to make this work, I needed to figure this out. And that kept me punching away at the keyboard long into the hours, no matter what, because I just didn't want to give up.
Oh, it didn't want, did not want to let my family. Now that was a great motivation to really push through the, you know, the, the, the times where you don't think you can do it. You know, it was a really good motivation to push through the fear of my dyslexia and, you know, kind of, I wouldn't say the word trauma per se, but that just stigma that I put on myself because.
And it really, it was just kind of a major motivating factor that got me through. And so I was always finding ways. I was always trying to learn more. My biggest thing was I studied Amazon. Like why did Amazon show that book over my mind's a way better book, what is going on here? And so really trying to figure things out, tweak tests you know, and that's what really got me into creating Kindlepreneur was I had found all these things that really helped me to get in front of it.
Shoppers on Amazon. And when I started doing that, I realized nobody was talking about it. You know, not back then, at least. And so. Kennel printer.com has kind of a place to teach about exactly what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. You know, and when you do this, this is what happens. And my goal with every one of the articles is I hope that somebody can read, learn, turn around and be able to take action right then and there and see results.
It's a major goal of ours. That's why, like when I created the Amazon app, Of course, I actually started by writing an article and I kept writing and I kept writing and I kept writing. I'm like, you know, the only way somebody is going to be able to read, learn, take action and see results is if I show, so I need to create videos.
And then it turned into a course. That's just kind of been my motto.
Josh Steimle: Got it. Now with the books, a lot of people will say, oh, the first book didn't do that. Well, the second book was okay. The third book is really when I hit it or something like that. Or maybe it's the 10th book for some people for you was the first book as successful as you hoped it would be.
What allowed you to actually go home and be home? Was it the first book, the second, the third, or at what point were you able to quit your job and say, I'm going to be a full-time mom.
Dave Chesson: Gosh, by the time I hit that point, it was the collection of book five, one through five because they were all still making money.
So every time we made an X book, it was the next step. And next step, my first book was the most successful. I know that's probably rare to say, and I'm going to stress that that's rare. I was a lottery winner in that respect because I found, you know, an area where a lot of people were searching for it and there was really nothing addressing that type of language learning.
So. Sweet. But I also had a huge background. I was a major language learner. I grew up in France or excuse me in Canada and I learned French. I went to a French immersion school, you know I used to be absolutely fluent in Mandarin Chinese. To this day I make my the lady who runs the Chinese restaurant down the road.
I make her chuckle because. It's close to being good. Chinese, my Chinese, but it's not good enough so anyways that was, that book really did well because of the fact that there was a hungry market for it. And that's what really triggered me to start looking. The next book that I did wasn't as successful, but at least it's still making money today.
You know, and then the third I did better and by the fourth, you know, even better. And again, it was really a stepping stone for me and they kept kind of adding up to each other. And then by the fifth I was hitting my mark.
Josh Steimle: Were any of your books traditionally published or were they also published?
Dave Chesson: All self-published and still to this day.
One of the things that I've seen in the publishing market that's really changing is that back when I start self publishing, publishing companies look down on publishers. They looked at us like, like, oh, not real authors. Can't act it. Blah, blah, blah. However though, and by the way, I've sat in on as a consultant, the major publishing companies, I have sat in on the meetings where they figure out which authors they now sign, or which ones they offer or pursue, and which ones they're going to put the money behind that they have signed all that.
I have seen such a shift in their mentality. Now what they're doing is they're realizing that why should we take a chance on some no-name author that just submitted their manuscript, when we can go to Amazon and start looking at these authors that have books, that must be good because they've got good reviews so they can write, they have a marketing background, they understand this, they could do a little digging, find out that they have an email list, all that, and now, Hey, why not sign him or her?
The no name, that's done nothing. And they're starting to really look at public or self-published authors as free agents, you know, kinda like in sports that you know, why, why not look at the free agents when trying to just dig for rookies. And so that's been a really, really big shift, but there comes a point and I think they, the publishing companies are realizing this is that you get to a point as an author where you have your own following, you have your name out there, you have your email.
Why would I sign with you? You're just going to take some 40, 50% of what I'm already getting, you know, like you're going to have to really prove to me you're going to make me more money than if I just do it on my own. So what they're really now looking for is they're looking for the, you know, not a rookie, but they haven't made it yet.
And hopefully they can find that, you know, that magic right then and there, sign it. And then it, you know, benefit from all of it.
Josh Steimle: Catch them before they're big.
Dave Chesson: Exactly. Otherwise they're going to be way harder to land. But yeah, the other thing too is sometimes the publishing companies will play to the hubris, you know, to an extent every author, even the major successful self-published authors kind of would love to say they were published just, you know, and so sometimes they can get you that way.
So be careful be wise. Think about what you really want before you decide that guys,
Josh Steimle: How many books had you written when you started Kindlepreneur?
Dave Chesson: I had started three for three or four, maybe. Yeah. Somewhere in there.
Josh Steimle: And how has Kindlepreneur evolved and grown over time? I mean, it started out as essentially a blog, right?
Dave Chesson: Yeah, it was, it was a blog. I let's see. I had written, I was interlock at the time that I was riding on Kindlepreneur and cause I transferred over from Korea to Sri Lanka. Like I said, they were sending me everywhere this time. I got to bring my family, which is great, except that my middle daughter got juvenile, rheumatoid arthritis. So the military actually kicked my family out because it was too costly to take care of her. They don't have a good medical system in Sri Lanka.
So they had to fly back and forth between Singapore and he was government was like, They can't be here. They're gone. So I had to finish that job without them, which really, really sucked. That was, that was the nail right there. I was like, I'm out, I'm out of the Terry life, man. It's tough. So anyways, So I was starting, I was working on Kindlepreneur as much as I could while doing the day job while still trying to write the book.
So believe me, if I could do it, you guys can totally do it and it was, I had a really good understanding of SEO as well. That's always been a key component. And when I'm studying, why Amazon chooses one book over another, or you know how to understand inside of Amazon, what people type in, why they're doing what they're doing, that's SEO.
But I also know no Google SEO. And so that really helped me to grow the content. Cause like we started off, right. Same with Google. What is it that people want to know? Where are the questions. What are they searching for? Let me write that article, do my best to do a really good job on it. And then couple of things in Google to make it so that Google chooses to show that to people.
And so that really helped to kind of, again, step up the number of people that find my work every week.
Josh Steimle: Cool. So you started Kindlepreneur how long was it before that started paying some of the bills and what was the growth trajectory there?
Dave Chesson: You know it's funny. It took years before there really was a lot of growth trajectory.
But again, it's really kind of the same thing that we talked about. Right. As you know, we always hear about lottery winners out there, you know, like, oh, I did this one thing and then I, you know, and then we all feel like we failed because we didn't, you know, we didn't, we weren't a lottery winners. And that's just not the truth.
Truth be told about all of these things. Building a business, building an author career is about a lot of a series of failures and just sticking with it. You know, some people maybe have it sooner and some people don't it really is, but if people really stick with it, they get their, And so I really set out not with this idea of I'm going to stop.
If this doesn't make me money or I'm going to stop, like I just kept with it and it kept growing. I figured that it would be better. And here's another thing too, is you don't want to create a product and then go try to find the people to fit the product. In this case, I was going to create the site. Find out where, you know, the people who do come, how can I best serve them?
And from there is the idea of the product itself, right? So do the research, figure out what people want and then provide for that. It's kind of the same thing I did with books. And what I was finding at the time was that. There were a lot of, like, I love talking about keywords, you know, and how to rank better in Amazon, how to do that research to figure out what people are typing into Amazon.
And, you know, all of that. There was only one software out there at the time that really did a good job with keywords and its name was Kindle samurai. And. You know, it was really cool. The problem is that only worked on PC and half the things were broken on it. And the guy who programmed, programmed it, great person by the way.
But he was just a programmer who was making lots of programs in different industries and moving on he was not there to like this wasn't his baby. And so when it broke, he wouldn't fix it, he just dropped the price so that people would stop complaining. And so I was like, man, there's so much you can do.
If only somebody could create a software that worked on both Mac and PC. Did all the things it's supposed to. And by the way, there were a couple of things I'd like to change. And that's where I developed the idea of creating KDP rocket. Back then it was called KDP rocket. Now it's called publisher rocket and basically bottling up all that information and things that I've done in the past to learn what people type in Amazon, how many people type it into Amazon per month, the competition level, how much money books are making.
I found phenomenal programmers actually in Sri Lanka while I was there. So that worked out well. And we built the program. Grown dramatically from that point, I would say at that moment when that was there, you know, that, that would be a huge point for, for Kindlepreneur, especially from a revenue stream.
Josh Steimle: And by the way I bought Publisher Rocket just a couple months ago, 97 bucks, I think. And it was well worth it. All I used it for, I was just to find the right categories for my book. I was like looking around for categories and I'm like, man, you have to really dig to like find these categories.
And then I looked at the software. I was like, Hey, if this saves me one hour, it's worth it. It's worth 97 bucks.
So I bought it and it was like, oh, this is so much easier. And not only did it give me the keywords for the U S site, it gave me the keywords for the British side and you've got the German site up there.
Are you going to be adding other foreign language websites or foreign language versions of Amazon to it?
Dave Chesson: Yeah, it's just a super long process for us because what we do is we collect data for a very long time on those international markets. And then on top of that, we also like kind of develop agreements with publishing companies in those countries.
So as to help make sure that our information is as accurate as possible for as long as possible. And then we go through testing and then once we finally nail that down, we'll release it to the market. You know, and the key thing is, is that you've got that for life, cause it's not a subscription. So anytime you go to write your next book again, it's going to save you more time.
Then on top of that too, but every time we come out with new features and new upgrades, uh, it's always free for current owners. So yeah,
Josh Steimle: It's a great deal. It's awesome. I love it. That software. Cool. So on Kindlepreneur what is the most popular content?
Dave Chesson: Define popular, like as in the most people that read it or the thing that people are most jazzed about.
Josh Steimle: Hmm. Good question. Can you give us an example of one of each?
Dave Chesson: Sure. The most read article on Kindlepreneur at this time would probably be I think it's the book title generators. Which is weird, but the a lot of people who are looking for generators to help come up with a book title.
Instead of creating a book generator, what we do is we found all the generators that are out there and broke them out into genre specific or capability specific so that people can find the right one for them.
So if, because if you're reading, if you're writing a fantasy novel, you need a fantasy generator, not, you know, a generic one. And if you're writing a nonfiction, a title, boy, there's some really cool sales copy generators that can spruce it up and give you a shock value of like, whoa, you know, like did not see that coming.
What is this book? I think those are really cool. I would say. So that's the most read article? Probably the thing that gets people most jazzed though. Isn't so much an article, but a free tool we built, which is the book description generator. And basically it's a Wiziwig, which is a, what you see is what you get.
Amazon allows authors to use HTML to make their book descriptions different. You can change the size of words. You can change the spacing. You can create bullet point lists, bold, you name it. There are certain limitations that you have and they have. Place on their site where you can figure it out.
So I'm like, well, that sucks. Cause nobody likes HTML, not even I so we created this, this, this tool where you can write your book description or copy and paste it into our system. And then you can. Literally highlight and then click the button to make it look the way you want. But what's really awesome about it is exactly how you see your book description inside of it is exactly how it will look in Amazon.
We use this same exact CSS, which is a thing for making the font look exactly the way. So there's no surprises. I've had a couple of times where I published a book and I totally forgot to put an end bracket on something. And then half of my book description was all bold. And so it helps with the mistakes.
Be it makes sure that you've got a beautiful looking book description. You've laid it out. We even include symbols and things that you can make it look really cool. And so you can just click the button, copy the code and paste it in. And that has just been such a big savior for a lot of people. I think before we created it, somebody had something like it and they were charging 50 bucks for it.
So making it free was a pretty snazzy way for people. And so I'd say that's the most popular. The thing or the thing that people like the most,
Josh Steimle: What are some of the biggest misconceptions that you found that new authors have about Amazon or about the writing and publishing process over the years of your experience and getting feedback on your content?
What keeps coming up?
Dave Chesson: Well, I think the question that I answer most or the advice I give the most is probably the best way to phrase that is there are hundreds of different ways to market your book hundreds, and every day you can find something on the internet that says I did this one thing and it was the thing.
What ends up happening for most authors is you literally start dabbling in everything and you, you keep pivoting and pivoting and pivoting you dabble in this. It doesn't work. So then you pivot over here and you dabble in that, that doesn't work. And all you do is keep going in circles and you are spinning your wheels and you're getting nowhere and you're getting frustrated, but you're tired too.
I tell you. Choose one or two things and hit it hard and do it. Great. You'll see a better return on your investment. I know it's coming from a guy who writes articles about strategies and all the strategies out there. I've got an article out there on literally a list of all the book marketing tactics, you know, that are out there and you can read a blurb and then you can click a link to go really dig into that tactic even more so.
I tell people go there, choose two or three. And dig in and never give up. And when you build that skill, oh, it becomes so much easier. Just don't dabble, just do things right. Do it. Well, you will see a better return.
Josh Steimle: Interesting. What are some of the recent developments you've seen with Amazon that are most interesting to you or that you think are going to be most helpful for self publishing authors?
Dave Chesson: Hmm. That's a good question. Amazon has done a lot of things and I'm going to take the 20,000 foot view on this and just say, I'm very happy that Amazon is doing things, for those of us, you know, for like 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 years ago, or so Amazon didn't do it. I remember when their dashboard, when he even tell me stuff like it was so archaic, like trying to figure out how much money you actually made was like pulling teeth.
They did that for years. It was terrible. And that, that allowed things like book report to be a necessary thing because somebody else just made an easy dashboard that helps me to understand it. They've approved it. But my goodness, they live that long. Like to me, that was the sign that they didn't get.
Or they weren't going to put the resources into actually doing this right. Then I think when they actually moved create space into, Amazon KDP. So now I could do print books and Kindle books in one dashboard instead of two different things. that was where I started to see them actually start making improvements or trying, you know they just recently they came out with a plus content. I don't know if that's going to be a good thing yet. The data's not out. I, I can't speak on that. I think that if done wrong, it can hurt you if done, right? Yeah. You know, it might not help you a lot, but it's not going to hurt you. That's kind of my take on A plus.
Josh Steimle: Explain real quick what A Plus content is.
Dave Chesson: A plus content.
One of the areas on a book sales page on Amazon that authors rarely use and they should is called editor reviews. You should always set up an editor for review and. Give me a little bit of time at the end here. And I'm going to talk about my favorite strategy that every author should take, especially non-fiction authors, but we're going to get to that in a second.
But editorial view generally is where you can pretty much put anything you want there. At one point they even very unprofessionally would say in their FAQ that even your mom could leave something in there. They took that down, but I always thought that was the funniest thing I ever found on Amazon.
I'm like, wow. Okay. So I really made it. You could put anything in there. But when they decided though, They understand that pictures say a thousand words. And so you can now design an image of sorts. You can also do certain things in this new section called A-plus content and you can put it there, but what I mean by, you know, it could hurt you if you don't do it right.
Is you put an unprofessional or, you know, a mirror image in there and people are going to be like, oh, this bullet looks go, oh, no. Okay. This is one of those books. Like, Nope, not professional. So it could hurt you, but maybe you did nail it or. You know, I, I don't have enough data to actually say whether or not it will work, but here's the thing though.
If Amazon keeps it round, it must be working because Amazon is all about what makes them more money and they have the numbers. They can clearly see that a book was doing this. And then when they did that, it did this. So we'll see they also released Kendall Vela which is kind of like little small tidbit by book size, bite size, excuse me, bite size books that you can put out in kind of a series.
They saw a bunch of companies. Actually, there's a whole bunch of companies that were doing this, but they saw it really exploding in Asia. They, instead of buying up one of those companies, cause a major Asian conglomerate bought up the biggest one. They built their own, I think right now it sucks.
I'm just going to throw that out there. It never caught on in America. Like the truth be told is it's really hot in Asia. I just did a whole like giant research on that to try to figure out, cause I was trying to like, Hey, is Vela going to be good or not? My belief based off of what I found from past success of other companies like this and what Amazon is doing is until they open it up to the international market, it's probably going to be a dud.
And when they open it up to the international market, it'll be interesting. I don't know, but that's what I'm waiting for it. And I would say that if you're. Thinking about or whatever. Wait until they announced an international market. I think that's the best chance of success.
Josh Steimle: Got it. So you're talking about Amazon Ads a little bit earlier.
If you had to give one or two top tips for people who are totally new to Amazon ads, have no clue what they're doing, just getting started. What are some of the key tips to getting that started on the right foot?
Dave Chesson: Well sticking with it, which goes back to my recommendation is, is that if you choose Amazon ads, think of it like a skill and stick with it.
And you know, what a lot of people will do is they'll dabble. They'll throw a couple ads out there and bang, oh, it wasn't profitable. And they run off to something else. It's like, ah, you just learned a good lesson build off of it, you know? And it's true. You'll start to figure out these little things you'll start to gain.
And my captain used to tell me this, and I love it is that when you combine knowledge with experience, you gained something called intuition and intuition is actually what we mean when we say that guy's a master, you know, they have the intuition to know the right answer sooner. Doesn't mean they get the right answer every time they just know it sooner.
And that is what we need to build. When we look at these marketing skills. So an Amazon ads stick with it. Really, it is a great platform. I mean, you're selling your advertising to people who are on the website, ready to buy now and buy something they use. You're trying to get yourself in front of them first.
I actually prefer Amazon ads over Facebook ads because on Facebook ads, I got to convince somebody to stop watching the cat video, click on my advertisement. Leave the platform, they were on come over to Amazon, decide they want to buy now and then buy my book. That's is so many steps. Why not just advertise the person who's already there.
Ready, ready to buy? Just put your book in front of them. I do prefer Amazon ads over other advertisement in that respect, but again, it's really gonna come down to you taking that time. And really learning. And you, you know what, you're probably going to have some failures in there, but if you really want that skill, that's exactly what it is.
Get out there and practice it.
Josh Steimle: What's one more advanced Amazon ads tip something that you learned over the years that you were like, oh man, that is a good thing.
Dave Chesson: I love the capability now. To be able to structure my bids for specific areas on a page. I can say that I really want to be number one for this keyword term, but I'm okay.
Being wherever you put me for this one, that was a really cool differentiator because now I can say this keyword here has really been raking it in for me. It's obviously worthy of the number one spot. So let's get it up there. Let me at least kind of. Convinced Amazon, Hey, Amazon, like, seriously, I'm really serious about this.
You know, back when they didn't have that, I was like, this is keyword, my bad, it's doing the
thing. Come on. You know, let's bring it up. And then it, you know, Increase the bid and Amazon wouldn't do a thing. It's like, come on guys. I said increased, but that on the other hand does get some action out of them.
So I really do like that. I recommend to people really look at what keywords are working for you, and then try to find ways to not so much exploit that keyword, but definitely beef it up as much as.
Josh Steimle: What's your philosophy on getting reviews? How important is it to get reviews the first week, the second week, or really quickly after your book launches?
Like how do you go about that? Or how do you advise people go about getting reviews?
Dave Chesson: Yeah, reviews. I hate to say it, but they're so important. They're important for a number of reasons. Number one, the more reviews you have, the easier marketing efforts become because like let's face it. Nobody wants to break the seal and be the first person to buy the book that has no stars.
Imagine when you go to launch your book, how many people decided not to buy it? Cause nobody had left a review. Whereas if the review was just there, they'll feel better about it. There's, there's like a social proof to it. You know, somebody else has tested it for me. Somebody else has verified this as good, so I'm going to go with it.
So that that's a major component to it. So what I personally like to do, is that, you know, I always try to develop an arc team and advanced review copy team. And I will actually publish. Secretly on a day and then ask for the art team to go and leave her. At that point, as well as, you know, certain fans that I know will do it, you know, just contacting them, asking them if they're up for that.
And then I will publicly launch the book the next day or two later. So that there's, that gives time for my categories to show up, you know, on the page. It gives time for the reviews to show up. And then when I send out the email or I do all these other marketing events, there's already some reviews, there's already some social proof and it looks hot from day one.
Josh Steimle: Cool. What was the next question I was listening so intently. I forgot what my next question was. This is good stuff. Oh, what's the number that you shoot for reviews? Like, is there a minimum number where you would say once you get to 10, 20, 30, like that's a good initial number to have
Dave Chesson: 21. That's my personal one, like 21. You're solid at that point, you know, like it's not questionable. Like, you know, when you have three or four, it's like, I say 21 because I put the one on the end of 20. I never liked to be on that, that specific, number. once I hit 21, I feel good about it.
And I stopped thinking about it, you know? But that's my own personal take. I don't have any data behind that. I just don't like that number for myself.
Josh Steimle: How much better are verified reviews versus non verified reviews? Really?
Dave Chesson: So long as the review shows up in the stars and the numbers and they can read it.
It doesn't matter to me. A matter of fact, I can't remember the last time I was even. Looking at a review page and notice whether it said review verified or not. So as for rankings from all the data I've seen, it really doesn't change much. So people who say that will, when you have more reviews, Amazon is going to show you off more.
It's a factor is kind of the way I like to say it, but it's not significant. So, from that perspective, ma.
Josh Steimle: And what are some of the things to not do with her views? I mean, Amazon has some rules. Like you can't pay people to review your book.
How far can you push that? If you say you'll be my, I'll be your friend if you write me a nice review or something.
Dave Chesson: Incentivize. Yeah. There was actually a lot of arguments about whether or not you could do an advanced review copy and in return for a review because technically that, that violates the belief that, you know, that your incentivizing, correct. But Amazon's head of personnel or.
VP of something I can't remember, but I remember his name. It was called / , which as an easier name to remember. But anyways, he literally sent out a memo that because they, they literally, they had, they had just made a new rule that said you were no longer allowed to give free samples to people in order to get a review.
Then they put a caveat on the bottom, which apparently like a lot of the authors. Cause they went nuts about that. All, they were like adventure copies of. They didn't read the last paragraph where he's like, however, though, we will continue to honor the age old tradition of, of publishers giving advanced review copies of books in return for a review.
We just ask that they continue to say that they got an art copy, you know, somewhere in their review. So, people know that. So anyways, you can still give an advance review, copy of a book, you know, and, you know, in hopes of a review that they will honor that giving that since that is an age old tradition, But like, for example, there are some ways where this is a gray area that I kind of like, because it is gray and I think this helps to kind of give the example of what you're talking or what we're kind of talking about here.
There is a, a tactic that I, I do kind of like, I think. If you, do it right, it's still clean and it's very effective, but it's so easy to do it wrong. You can set up a giveaway. Okay. Like a contest and their software that allows, that helps you to do this legally because giving giveaways or.
Like legal minefield. Exactly. You're tiptoeing. There's a software that will help you to do this. Right. Everybody can sign up. Okay. But what you do is you make steps in order to enter the contest for whatever the prize gift is. You know, it could be an iPad, could be whatever is that you first need to like sign, you know, put your name and email address because how am I going to know who the winner is?
And then you say, click this link. And the link can be a link that goes straight to your books review page. All right. This is where it's technically it depends on what you do next, because if you say, click this link and leave a review, that means that you've now met, made the review a part of the incentivization to be in the contest.
It's wrong, according to Amazon. But if you say click this link, you know, and Hey, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't change whether or not you're entered, but while you're there, if you've read the book, please leave a review. That'd be awesome. Now you're on the right side of the legal. See what I'm saying?
Like how great that is, right? You have incentivized sending them to the page, but you have not incentivized them to leave a review, but Hey, while you're there, you know that is extremely effective. But again, it's, it's very close. It depends on the messaging and how clear you are that it's not. But there are so many people who've read our books that like our books that just never took the time just to click the link, to go leave that review.
And so that's one, one opportunity to do that. And so some people will even develop that into their autoresponder especially for people who signed up for the content upgrade of that particular book. And that's a review generator in that.
Josh Steimle: Awesome. Some great tips here, Dave, as we wrap things up, you said earlier that you were going to share a tip with us.
Dave Chesson: Editorial reviews are really awesome because you can design them and there's a way to design them to look really good. If you type in editorial reviews and Kindlepreneur into Google, there's an article I have that really expresses what I'm about to say, and even shows you the way to design these It is so awesome and it really helps you to sell more by going to people in your.
John WRA and your subject matter, whatever it is, and giving them, getting them to leave just the testimony. And if they haven't read your book, it is okay to leave a testimonial on you. Okay. So if you are a subject matter expert, first, you could say, yeah, I know Josh is amazing at podcasting, you know hopefully that your book is on podcasting or something of that magnitude, but they could say that they might not have read your book, but they could say that about you.
So. Probably a good writer on the subject. But what you do though, is that when you put the blurb that they give you, you find a way to translate who they are and why they're important to the book you see. Like, I might not know you, Josh, like I might be some random person I'm reading about. So if it just says John and I'm like okay, so Josh said it, but then you put a comment in there and you say something that really translates to what, the reason why I got Josh to leave that testimonial and say, I wrote a book on podcasting and I'm like, you know may, and maybe I can find that you're an award winner or something award-winning podcast, or you know, of the such and such show, right.
That, that speaks volumes. If I'm in. Sam doing a book on, you know, natural health you know, if you're able to talk to a doctor, you know, and the doctor gives you a blurb, put the word doctor in there next to the name. So they know that this was that. yeah, there's just so many ways to do it and fiction, I know this is an affection group, but give people an understanding is find other authors in your genre or other writers.
You can do this a non-fiction too, and then put in their multi best-selling author. The area that you're talking about. So clearly an expert on this is having these things. And when you do that, it is like social proof to the max and you can put what you want in there. You know, and so that's, that's one area where a lot of authors don't do that one simple step.
And I really think that that has a major effect on whether or not people think that your nonfiction book is legit. Whether or not it beats out all the other books that don't do this and whether it just solidifies you as an authority or somebody worth reading on the subject.
Josh Steimle: Great stuff. Thanks so much, Dave. So of course, the place to find you is kindlepreneur.com anywhere else that people can connect with?
Dave Chesson: No, I think that's it. I find I've got a contact page on Kindlepreneur. So if there's any questions people had from this or so they can go there, send me a message and I'll be sure to answer.
Josh Steimle: Perfect.
Thanks so much today for being with us here today on the show.
Dave Chesson: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
