Publisher Rocket Review: Is It Worth the Investment?

Posted on Dec 6, 2019

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Written by Scott Allan

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If you are an author and you want to sell lots of books on Amazon (I know, who doesn’t right), you need to get a few things right with your book: Keywords, categories, the competition, and what about that book data everyone keeps talking about? How do I figure that out?

Well fortunately, Dave Chesson and his team have developed a state-of-the-art software Publisher Rocket that is doing the work for you.

Publisher Rocket is a super-valuable tool to own so you can boost your book earnings, save time on data research, and leverage your author career.

Publisher Rocket is designed to help self-publishers build a solid, profitable book business based on real data collected from Amazon.

This post is going to give you an overview of Publisher Rocket [known previously as KDP Rocket]. I’ve listed my overall rating in the box below, then you can dive into the parts of this review that interest you the most.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

In this review of Publisher Rocket 2.0, we’re going to cover:

  1. Publisher Rocket Review: is It Worth the Investment?
  2. Looking Back Before KDP Rocket
  3. Publisher Rocket and Amazon Terminology
  4. KDP Rocket 1.0 to Publisher Rocket 2.0
  5. 5 ways Publisher Rocket Excels Above the Rest
  6. Publisher Rocket 2.0 Features: What Does the Publishing Software Do?
  7. Sneak Peek: New Upgrades Coming Soon for Publisher Rocket
  8. Is Publisher Rocket Worth It?
  9. The Ongoing Changes in Self-Publishing

Looking Back Before KDP Rocket

In the Beginning…

Before Dave Chesson and his team created an advanced self-publishing software called KDP Rocket, authors had a lot of work to do to find keywords for books, identify the competition and the best categories to position a book.

But, as far as measuring analytics or drilling down into the hard nitty-gritty of what passed as a “good keyword”, unless you could afford the time to do the research, and you were comfortable with the tech involved, grabbing those 7 master keywords for your book was like shooting in the dark and hoping to hit the target.

In most cases, unless you really know what you are doing, authors were missing the mark altogether.

And finding the best categories?

I remember spending up to 2-3 hours trolling through Amazon, comparing book rankings, searching for those magic eBook categories that held the low hanging fruit we strive to snatch so our books can survive in the big ocean of countless books. 

I won’t lie to you…it was exhausting. And if Amazon changed something [and they often do] they wouldn’t announce it until much later. Authors would then find out ambiguously, when sales dropped suddenly, and have to go through the whole process again of checking keywords, switching out categories…and on it went.

But back in July of 2016, that all changed.

Dave Chesson—founder of Kindlepreneur.com—launched a software called KDP Rocket that would change the way authors search for keywords. With the introduction of this software, authors could use analytics in a way that was presented so that they didn’t have to have a degree in digital engineering just to understand what data they were looking at. With easy to follow tutorials and a system that worked, KDP Rocket was an “island in the middle of a big ocean.”

And this, as many now know, was just the beginning…

Publisher Rocket

Later, Dave and his team added more features to the program that included category research and setting up AMS ads. Authors were no longer “guessing” on the best keywords and just shooting dice to the wind hoping to land a good play for their books.

The game had changed, and Publisher Rocket is setting the stage for the future of the self-publishing arena.

Being a self-published Indie author is an amazing journey. But most writers get hung up on the marketing side of the book business. And rightly so. Amazon has a complex algorithm that is continuously evolving.

The publishing field is not the same as it was three years ago, or even last year. This is where the Rocket comes in. Imagine a system that gives you the hard data Amazon won’t share with you. You can go there right now and find the best categories for your book within a matter of minutes without even having to troll through endless pages of books.

Publisher Rocket has now given authors a massive advantage when it comes to:

  • Book placement
  • Sales
  • Rankings
  • Competition
  • AMS ads
  • Competing in International markets
  • Staying current with market changes to Amazon’s algorithm 

In other words, we now have a fighting chance to navigate through all the data, analytics, and helps authors thrive and not just survive in the self-publishing arena. 

Now, let’s dive Into the core features of Publisher Rocket. Then, I’m going to give you a brief glimpse into what new features Rocket has planned for future upgrades. And believe me, if you think it’s good now…just wait.

But first…

Publisher Rocket and Amazon Terminology

Before we dive into this post, let’s go over the common terminology used with both Publisher Rocket and Amazon. This will help you to better understand the features of the software. 

KDP: KIndle Direct Publishing. This refers to Amazon’s online publishing tool. KDP allows authors to publish their books for free in both eBook and book format.

ABSR: Amazon Bestseller Ranking. This is the ranking of the books as they are ranked according to Amazon. So for example, ABSR #1 is the top selling book in that category.

Age: in the competition analyzer refers to the age of the book, or how long it has been in publication.

ASIN Number: This stands for Amazon Standard Identification Number

KWT: Targeted Keyword in the book’s title. This tells you if the keyword being searched is in the title.

KWST: Targeted keyword in the book’s subtitle. This tells you if the keyword appears in the subtitle.

DY Sales: estimated daily sales for the book based on the ABSR.

MO Sales: Monthly estimated sales for the book based on projection of sales based on ABSR

AMS Ads: Amazon Marketing Services. This is Amazon’s paid marketing ads platform. Setting up ads for your book has big potential for bringing in organic traffic.

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KDP Rocket 1.0 to Publisher Rocket 2.0

A few words on the progression of KDP Rocket to Publisher. When you buy Publisher Rocket, there is a guarantee that you won’t have to pay for upgrades every time Rocket makes an improvement.

And, over the past three years, a lot of progress has been made. According to Dave Chesson, from his very own Publisher Rocket Review, here is a timeline that shows all the upgrades made to date.

Publisher Rocket 2.0

August 2019: Search bar is added to the main category page so users just type in the keyword and it pulls up the categories to best fit your search.

Very slick. Now users can just type in a keyword and this eliminates clicking into the categories first and then doing a search within that category.

At the end of this post, I will cover the new features and updates coming soon with with Amazon and Publisher Rocket.

So, let’s continue…

5 Ways Publisher Rocket Excels Above the Rest

#1. All Future Upgrades…Free?

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone say, “I just bought this new software 2 weeks ago and they already want more money for the new version!”

Yes, it sucks when you have to keep forking over cash for something you already paid for. But Publisher Rocket is where users pay once. Only once.

That’s right. So if you bought KDP Rocket 3 years ago when it launched at $69, you haven’t paid anything extra for the number of upgrades made since then. It’s a one time fee.

And how often does Publisher Rocket upgrade? There is a new version at least every two months, if not sooner.

Dave Chesson and his team are in the publishing field everyday, monitoring current changes in the marketplace, and integrating these changes into the Publisher Rocket software for an overall amazing user experience.

#2. Up-To-Date Current Statistics While You Write

As a writer, it is important you stay fixed on what you do best…writing a book. Let someone else do the market research and keep you updated on shifts in market data, analytics and updates as they happen in real time.

Publisher Rocket is constantly monitoring the market and providing updates on current statistics. PR keeps you informed so you don’t have to be out there testing unknown waters. I feel like someone has got my back and they are 100% reliable, and this protects my author business.

#3.  Reliable and Fast Tech Support

Running into some tech issues with Rocket, or you have a question about something? Send the team at publisher Rocket a message at Publisher Rocket Support.

The response time is generally super-quick. In a few instances they responded back within 3 hours. This is crucial if you are in the middle of a book launch, or preparing for one, and you need help right away.

Nothing worse than sending in a ticket you have to wait days for a reply. Not the case here. As a matter of fact, you can check out the Publisher Rocket user testimonials that were not requested but discovered organically by Dave and his team.

Publisher Rocket Support

#4. The Price is…$97.00?

How much does Publisher Rocket cost? Yes, it is $97.00. This is a one-time only fee and never pay again. Gotta love it.

#5. User Friendly Software that Anyone Can Use

I work with hundreds of authors a week. One of the biggest hurdles is dealing with tech issues around keywords, categories, or the basics of understanding algorithm data. But to use the Publisher Rocket, the software is laid out so that, even if tech is not your thing, it doesn’t need to be.

With easy-to-follow tutorials and everything explained on the page, the tech side of marketing is made so much easier. You don’t have to know everything about keyword research to find the best keywords for your book.

The Rocket does the work for you based on what you ask it to look for. It spits out the data, and you decide to use that in your book. 

Publisher Rocket 2.0 Features: What Does the Publishing Software Do?

If you have been using KDP Rocket for some time, you have a good idea what the software can do. If this is your first introduction to what is available, let’s break it down so we know exactly what we have.

Publisher Rocket can be broken down into 4 features that focus on:

  • Keywords
  • Categories
  • Competition
  • AMS Ads

Let’s take a look at each of these:

Publisher Rocket Features

As an author that has been using the Rocket from its early release back in July 2016, I can honestly say that it is the best software out there for several reasons.

Why?

First of all, Amazon doesn’t share the data that the Rocket does. Have you ever tried searching for categories for your book using just Amazon? If so, you better block off a holiday to get it done. The categories that are listed in the KDP Bookshelf provide no direction as to book rankings or competition. In fact, most of the actual categories are not even there.

When it comes to breaking down all the metadata and figuring out the best keywords, best categories, and how the competition is comparing, this is where Publisher Rocket steps in to provide authors with an experience that nothing else compares to.

Publisher Rocket can do for you what Amazon, and most other software, won’t [or can’t].

So, what are the current features of Publisher Rocket 2.0 that makes it stand tall above anything else?

Over 16,000 Book and eBook Categories Listed

Imagine if all you had to do was type in a keyword in the search bar and Publisher Rocket throws out your results for your potential categories in just seconds. That is exactly what it does as you can see here:

Publisher Rocket Category Search

To make it even better, you can select Book, eBook or both and Publisher Rocket will put up the categories from both book platforms.

Includes Book Data, Not Just Kindle

Publisher Rocket Feature

When KDP came out it was focused on Kindle data only. But hard copies (aka paperbacks) still sell and are just as relevant. So now Rockets’ search includes data for books and is presented to Rocket users in an easy-to-interpret layout.

Competition Analyzer: How is the competition performing?

This is one of our favorite features of the Rocket software. You can check out the daily and monthly sales of books in the market in relation to your own books.

Check out who your competition is and based on data, look for the areas you could improve your own books’ performance.

Publisher Rocket Competition Analyzer

The competition analyzer provides users with all relevant data that gives an inside look at who your competition is, how well they are doing, and how your book compares to their performance.

The competition analyzer provides up-to-date information for each book based on:

  • Age of the book
  • ABSR of each book
  • If the keyword appears in the book title and/or subtitle.
  • Daily and monthly sales of the book based on data from the current ABSR.
  • Sales page link. You can click on ‘check it out’ and be taken to the book’s sales page.

Having this information is critical because, if your book is underperforming in sales or rankings, you can compare to the competition and make changes to your book that influences metadata. Now you are armed with the statistics to beat the competition.

For a complete walk through for how to use this feature, Publisher Rocket has an easy-to-follow tutorial: Competition Analyzer Feature of Publisher Rocket

Can Publisher Rocket help you to become a bestseller?

Publisher Rocket Result

Keyword Search Feature

Publisher Rocket helps authors identify the most profitable keywords for your book. How does it do this? First, you type in a keyword into the keyword search bar, and then hit ‘Go Get Em Rocket.’

Rocket analyzes the top 5 books that use that keyword based on the following criteria:

  1. Book popularity
  2. Fame and strength of the authors
  3. Age of the books
  4. # of reviews and review grades
  5. Whether or not the keyword is in the title/subtitle
  6. Enrolled in Kindle Unlimited or not

This is a key feature of the Rocket software.

It tells authors:

  • how many people are typing in that keyword/phrase
  • Competition score of that keyword from 1-100.
  • How much money the top 5 books are earning on average
  • # of competitors using that keyword

Without this data, you wouldn’t be able to figure out how many people are using this keyword, or if it is being searched for at all. The keyword feature eliminates the guesswork are provides accurate data.

For a complete walk through for how to use this feature, Publisher Rocket has an easy-to-follow tutorial: Keyword Search Feature of Publisher Rocket

Can Publisher Rocket help me find keywords?

Publisher Rocket Keywords

Amazon Book Ads Made Easy

Several years ago, when AMS ads were introduced to authors, I can remember spending hours upon hours just doing keyword research, copying and pasting. But now…

Publisher Rocket has the most amazing feature available that eliminates all of that. If you are familiar with Amazon Ads, then you know your book needs hundreds of keywords to be effective.

In addition, the authors have to stay on top of their ads and monitor them carefully. Setting up a successful ad campaign takes work, time and yes, money. The ads can get expensive if you just set it up and let it go. 

This feature is by far my favorites and, to add, even without all of the other features talked about here, if this was the only one available it would be worth the price of Rocket alone. Yes, it is very cool.

The feature comes with a filter as well. You can eliminate any keywords that are not relevant to your book simply by filtering these out. Before this, authors had to manually take out keywords. 

Publisher Rocket Ads

But if you are interested in setting up AMS ads, I would highly recommend learning as much about ads as you can. Fortunately Dave Chesson has a free course on AMS ads right here. Check it out so you have the overview of what it takes to set these up.

For a complete walk through for how to use this feature, Publisher Rocket has an easy-to-follow tutorial: AMS Keyword Feature of Publisher Rocket

Can Publisher Rocket help me with Amazon book ads?

Publisher Rocket Ams Ads

Is Publisher Rocket Worth It?

You’ll have to decide. Let’s break it down this way. You already know everything Publisher Rocket can help you with, so we will just assume you decided to already use it if you aren’t already.

  1. Publisher Rocket pays for itself: There are three ways that you users will earn back the initial investment spent on PR. 
  • The cost of Rocket is $97.00. If the Rocket saves you 5 hours of your time, you just earned back your money. How much is your time worth per hour?
  • When you sell about 47 books priced at $2.99 (at 70% royalty) because you could find profitable keywords and better categories, the software just paid for itself.
  • If Rocket helps you to filter out a bad book idea because nobody is searching for it, and gets you to change your marketing efforts based on proven data, it definitely just paid for itself. This will save you thousands of dollars and hundreds of working hours you would have spent on a book that won’t sell.

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Sneak Peek: New Upgrades Coming Soon for Publisher Rocket

As this post is being written , there are several amazing new features coming soon, according to Dave Chesson. These upgrades will, of course be free and, if you think the software is good now, wait till you see what is coming next.

Audible Information Analyzed.

Yes, we know Publisher Rocket can pull data for eBooks and books now. But how about a feature that includes audiobooks? This is coming soon. 

Just Launched: New “Search-All” Feature for categories. Added to the Publisher Rocket search categories is a search bar on the main category page. Now you type in the keyword and Rocket pulls up relevant categories. 

Opening up categories to international markets.

Yes, you heard it right. Amazon will be opening up AMS to the UK. And what this means is, Publisher Rocket will be there to provide category data to give authors in the US (and everywhere else where applicable) to join the UK market. This is huge in terms of growing your author business and expanding into global markets. 

New Amazon Category System launching. Soon, Rocket will launch a new feature that updates with the latest in ABSR (Amazon Best Seller Rankings) three times a day. But that’s not all. Publisher Rocket has plans to bring in a bunch of new data for categories that will help authors to really find the best categories to rank in. This will include volatility, average ABSRs for the month, and the sales popularity of these categories. Why hang around a category that isn’t bringing in traffic?

Remember, all upgrades are free and installed automatically on your Publisher Rocket software.

Publisher Rocket Upgrades

Is Publisher Rocket Worth It?

You be the judge. We’ve shown you what the Rocket software can do. Here is a breakdown of the best advantages to using Rocket, and why it matters to the success of your books as an author.

Sell More Books: We know that Publisher Rocket will help you to sell more books. Actually, you can sell a lot more books and start earning more than your day job once you use the tool. Countless authors claim they started earning 3x more with Rocket.

Keep Your Sanity: If Rocket prevents you from losing your mind, because you just spent ten hours on Amazon trying to figure out categories and relevant keywords, you made your money back and get to keep your sanity. So yeah, it’s worth it. Win-win.

Free upgrades for a lifetime: Don’t you just hate it when you buy software and then 6 months later you have to pay more money for their upgrade. And then again six months after that. Over a lifetime, you could end up spending thousands of bucks on a piece of software you initially paid $150 for.

Of course, they don’t tell you this when you sign up. But Publisher Rocket, while it upgrades frequently, doesn’t ask you for additional funds…ever. You pay once, you keep upgrading, and there is nothing more to do. Gotta love it.

Continuous Market Research. That’s right, as we mentioned, while you are sleeping and dreaming of writing that next novel, somebody else is out there on the cutting edge gathering data and figuring out better systems to help you scale up your author business. The Rocket software will soon update three times a day, staying current with complex data shifts and doing the work for you while you focus on your book business.

Gives authors a competitive edge. You can access the most up-to-date data on categories, keywords and AMS ads. You can also figure out the best kind of books to write before you write them so you don’t publish something nobody wants to buy. This is a big win for an author who has the goal to write for a living and wants to make real money in self-publishing. And, you can analyze the competition as we have seen, to stay ahead of the game and get your books out in front of readers first.

Publisher Rocket Worth It

The Ongoing Changes in Self-Publishing

The self publishing industry is in a state of constant change, growth and expansion. Nothing stays the same from one month to the next, or for that matter, day to day the data is in constant flux.

Amazon algorithms change, metadata for books shift, and how readers search for and discover their favorite books has become very streamlined.

For these reasons, as authors, we need to be on the cutting edge of this growth or else…we start losing books sales, customers, and get lost in the bloody waters.

Publisher Rocket provides a huge advantage to authors because Dave Chesson and his team are on top of this 24/7. In fact, PR is now working to update data three times a day. This data is relevant to book categories, as well as expanding international markets.

While we are busy writing and creating content to publish to market, someone else is doing the heavy lifting in terms of ongoing market research and providing you as an author with the most current, up-to-date data so you can stay on top of your game.

Sell more books, build greater authority, and keep on living the dream as an author.

Publisher Rocket Testimonial

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