One of the best ways to sell more books on the Amazon bookstore is to give the Algorithm accurate information on your book’s contents based on what readers are searching for. And one of the best ways to get accurate Amazon bookstore data is using Publisher Rocket.
Publisher Rocket, also known as KDP Rocket, is a very powerful book marketing software that can help you figure out the best keywords and categories to attract new readers to your books, analyze your competitors, and research keywords for your Amazon ads.
If you’re an author searching for an answer to the question: ‘How do I sell more books?’, this article about Publisher Rocket should help you improve your Amazon marketing game and hence, increase your book sales.
Before we get started though, here’s a disclaimer: I wasn’t paid to write this review, but because I’ve used this software personally to sell more copies of my books, I’m an affiliate for Publisher Rocket. Hence, there are affiliate links embedded in this article and I will earn a small percentage when you make a purchase using them without affecting how much you pay for the software.
What is Publisher Rocket and what is it used for?
Publisher Rocket is a book marketing tool that Amazon authors can use to research Amazon keywords, categories, and Amazon ad keywords as well as analyze what other authors (your competition) are doing to sell more books. It’s a great Amazon SEO research tool to help you understand how readers search for and choose the books they buy on Amazon. You can download it here.
Now that you have an inkling of what Publisher Rocket is, you may be thinking: Couldn’t I just research the best keywords and categories for my books and analyze my competition on Amazon without spending a dime?
The truth is, yes, you can.
But Rocket provides you with data, that is, numbers you need to make informed Amazon book marketing decisions.
You’re probably wondering what type of information Rocket can give you. Here’s a sneak peek:
Publisher Rocket gives you access to data like:
- How many searches certain keyword phrases get monthly.
- How many authors are using certain keywords.
- What categories your competitors’ books are in.
- The typical price of books addressing certain niches, topics, and categories.
- How much books are earning daily and monthly.
With this kind of knowledge, you can optimize your books’ titles, subtitles, descriptions, keywords, and categories for organic sales on Amazon and even other bookstores.
If you read this article to the end, I’ll show you exactly how that works.
Who is Publisher Rocket useful to?
Publisher Rocket is for all authors publishing via Amazon KDP. Whether you’re a fiction author or non-fiction author, you can make the best data-driven Amazon marketing decisions using this tool.
Publisher Rocket Pro and Cons
Pros
- With the numbers and data provided by Rocket, you can make informed marketing decisions on Amazon. (E.g. The percentage of Kindle Unlimited books in each category is a great marketing insight to help you determine if your book will earn more inside or outside KDP Select).
- It’s a one-time payment software and then you get to enjoy the software and subsequent updates forever.
- Using the software, you get insights into what successful authors are doing to sell more books on Amazon.
- It helps you choose the best keywords and categories which goes a long way to help Amazon’s algorithm show your books to more readers.
- It helps you determine if a keyword or category is too competitive, uncompetitive or too niche.
- It saves you from spending a lot of time trying to research the best keywords and categories for your books manually.
- Very easy to use and understand with a pretty user-friendly interface.
- It is not a Google Chrome extension, rather it’s a Mac/PC software.
Cons
- The data you get from Publisher Rocket such as the number of monthly searches for each keyword are mostly estimates because the data is always changing every day, week, and month based on changing reader behavior. BUT Rocket gives you regularly updated estimates.
- The daily and monthly income estimates for books are not entirely correct. I know this because I tested it with my books.
- No free trial but Youtube videos and pictures on this blog should help you understand everything about the software.
- The software can only provide Amazon KDP US, UK, and German marketplace data for now.
- There’s no software for Linux users, just Mac, and PC.
4 Publisher Rocket Amazon SEO Research Tools/Features
1. Amazon Keyword Research Tool
Amazon gives you the chance to attach seven keywords to each book. The keywords you should be putting in those seven empty keyword boxes are keywords that you know your readers are searching for.
Most people casually choose keywords and then complain when they don’t get sales. And even those who understand the importance, do long and extensive FREE research scouring the Amazon Kindle store without selling more books because their research is not backed by data.
You can save the time you would spend blindly trying out keywords with the data and numbers Publisher Rocket can provide you with.
How do you find keywords with Publisher Rocket?
STEP 1: Enter your keyword ideas. I’ve explained how to develop a basic list of keywords related to the content of your book in this Amazon KDP Keywords article.
STEP 2: After you enter a keyword idea, Publisher Rocket will spit out a list of relevant keywords with the term or phrases you searched for in them.
The keyword list generated by Rocket will include terms and phrases that your target readers are searching for on Amazon.
Unlike Amazon’s search autocomplete feature which gives you a list of related keywords that readers are searching for, KDP Rocket will give you data like:
- Estimated number of readers’ searches for each keyword phrase or term combination.
- The number of books using that keyword.
- Monthly earnings for that keyword.
- A Competition score that will tell you how hard it is to rank for that keyword.
- The average price of books using that keyword.
- The average number of pages each book using that keyword has.
2. Amazon Categories Research Feature
Other than keywords, another way to get your book in front of your target readers is through your book’s categories.
If your book falls into the wrong categories, there is a strong possibility that you won’t be able to meet your readers’ expectations.
Also, if your book is a cozy mystery novel but you have it in the fantasy romance category, your potential readers who discover your book may walk away once they see the category listed on the book.
Publisher Rocket has an entire database of Amazon’s categories and subcategories, including the obscure ones.
More importantly, using Amazon’s competition analysis, you can get access to a list of categories that books using your keywords are in or the categories your competitor’s books are in.
With Publisher Rocket’s Category Search feature, you can find out information like:
- The number of sales you need to get your book ranking as the number 1 or number 10 best-selling book.
- The percentage of traditionally published authors signed to large publishers in the category
- The percentage of Kindle Unlimited books in the category – This can help guide you on your Kindle Unlimited vs Kindle-only thoughts.
3. Competition Analysis Feature
It can be very beneficial to analyze what your competitors are doing and what they’re not doing in any business.
With Publisher Rocket, you can find out information about books similar to yours or authors that write books in the same category or genre.
How to Analyze your Competition With Publisher Rocket
STEP 1: Search for either a book or an author’s name.
STEP 2: Look through the data Publisher Rocket provides which includes:
- Categories that the book is in
- The Author’s name
- How long the book has been published on Amazon KDP
- The book’s Amazon Best Seller Ranking
- The book’s number of pages.
- Whether the book has a keyword term in its title or not.
- The book’s price.
- And an estimate of the book’s daily and monthly sales.
STEP 3: Use the information you have to your advantage.
4. Amazon Ads Keyword Research
We all know that AMS ads are very powerful if used the right way.
If you don’t use AMS ads properly, you could waste a lot of money and one of the best ways to take advantage of Amazon ads is by learning how to use Amazon Ads. Here’s a free AMS ads course by Dave Chesson, the creator of Publisher Rocket.
When you know how to do Amazon ads, you will understand that AMS ads do not work well without the right target keywords.
And just like Publisher Rocket’s keyword research tool, the AMS keyword tool will help you find phrases and keywords that your readers might use to find your book.
Here you’ll get data like:
- Author names
- Book titles
- ASINS of works related to certain keywords.
Pricing
Rocket is $97. A one-time payment, after which, you never have to pay a dime, yet you keep enjoying new updates and upgrades of the software. You can buy Publisher Rocket here.
Publisher Rocket Alternatives
- KDPSpy
- Keywordtool.io for Amazon
- Ahrefs for Amazon
- Jungle Scout
Publisher Rocket Frequently Asked Questions Answered
1. Is there a free version of Publisher Rocket?
No. And there is no free trial either. You can watch Youtube videos to see how Rocket works and this article and the pictures in it should show you everything you need to know.
2. Is Publisher Rocket the same as KDP Rocket?
Yes. Even now, the software’s PC icon says ‘KDP Rocket’. It started out as KDP Rocket but was renamed Publisher Rocket later.
Final Thoughts: Is Publisher Rocket Worth it?
In my opinion, it is. If you use Publisher Rocket wisely, even for just keywords and categories, you will earn your money back within a week or worse, a month. So in the end, it pays for itself. For me, it’s even more reliable in terms of return on investment than ads.
The best thing about the software is that it is a one-time payment software. You buy it today and you own your license forever, enjoying all new updates. Google SEO tools like Ahrefs or Ubersuggest cost almost the same as Publisher Rocket annually because they are subscription-based.
KDP Rocket saves you time and earns you more money. You won’t spend time blindly experimenting with keywords and categories and Rocket also helps you determine if your topic or story idea is too competitive or has no audience.
