Besides our own creativity and love for writing, children’s book authors usually don’t need many tools. I, for instance, usually just use my good old Microsoft Word (or Google Docs), my graphics software, and some really simple drawing equipment if I’m doing the illustrations myself. But having authored more than 40 books, I’m now using what I consider to be the best tool for children’s book authors on a regular basis.

A few years ago, though, I gave this one tool a try (and only because I saw so many successful authors use it, albeit of other genres). And I’m so very thankful I did, because it changed everything for me. I consider it the best tool for children’s book authors. So today, I wanted to share and show you how and when I use it. Because the reason I find it so incredibly valuable, is because I can use it throughout the ENTIRE book creation process, no matter what phase I’m in.

.

MY FAVORITE & BEST TOOL FOR CHILDREN’S BOOK AUTHORS: PUBLISHER ROCKET

.

The name of this tool is ‘Publisher Rocket.’ It is not children’s book specific, but since this is such a popular tool among writers of other genres, I often get asked if this is also applicable to children’s books. And I’m happy to report that it is.

Rocket’s official tagline is “sell more books & ebooks on Amazon.” But I think this tagline doesn’t really do this tool justice, because it doesn’t fully bring across how much it will help you shape your book. So let me show you how exactly Publisher Rocket helps me with all of my books.

Today I’d like to share:

The reason I believe this to be my best tool for children’s book authors is because I truly make use of it throughout the entire book-creation process. I use it:

1. BEFORE I start writing my book,

2. BEFORE I publish my new book, and then again

3. AFTER it has already been published.

So, let me illustrate how I use this tool for each of these stages.

1. PUBLISHER ROCKET USES BEFORE WRITING:

.

I absolutely love my passion projects, but I wouldn’t want to write something that wouldn’t find or attract any readers.

So if I already have a certain topic or idea for my children’s book in mind, I can use Rocket to validate it, by checking how it is performing on Amazon.

Here, I can validate the topic or idea by either:

• checking how a keyword is performing with Rocket’s KEYWORD ANALYZER, or
• looking at how other similar books are performing by using Rocket’s COMPETITION ANALYZER

Alternatively, if I’m not quite sure what topic to write about, I can use Rocket’s different features to reverse-engineer and see what is performing well within the market and then adjust, tweak, and shape my book accordingly.

Rockets Competition Analyzer is fantastic for this type of research. If I know that books about unicorns (for example) are selling well, I may consider making my book’s main character a unicorn, instead of an elephant.

2. PUBLISHER ROCKET USES BEFORE PUBLISHING:

.

As you may know from my book How To A Self-Publish Children’s Book, I am such a big believer in thinking about marketing even BEFORE your children’s book has been completed and published. Smart and savy authors keep marketing in mind throughout the entire creation process.

So this is where Rocket’s KEYWORD & CATEGORY FEATURES come into play, because I can use these to find:

• Keyword(s) for my Title (finding your perfect title)
• Keyword(s) for my Subtitle
• Keyword(s) for my Book Description
• Best-fitting Categories

Whenever I share how I go about my children’s book adventures, I emphasize how very important it is to use keywords and keyphrases in a book’s title and subtitle to help potential readers find our precious books.

.

But how exactly do I find my keywords?
And how will I know whether they are good keywords?

.

And that’s where Rocket’s KEYWORD FEATURE helps me out. Not only does it help me (1) find new keywords that I may have never thought of on my own; it also tells me exactly (2) how often a particular keyword has been used in Amazon’s search bar, as well as (3) how profitable this keyword may be and (4) how competitive it is.

Now, for many aspiring children’s book authors, working with keywords is a fairly new concept. And that’s why I find this tool so invaluable, because it provides me with information I otherwise wouldn’t have. Without Rocket, the keywords I choose would be pretty much a hit or miss scenario.

But how does this tool help me with my category selection?

Amazon has more than 19,000 book and ebook categories. Here, Rocket’s CATEGORY FEATURE helps me in three amazing ways:

1. It helps me find fitting categories based on my entered search terms

2. It tells me ALL the categories other (competing) books are using (!!!)

3. It tells me exactly how many books I will need to sell in order to rank among the first 10 books in any given category

So if I believe I can’t beat a category’s number of book sales in order to rank among the first 10 books, I often decide to move on to find another category. Because if my book doesn’t show up on the first page of my chosen category, my book may never get a chance to be seen, as many buyers usually don’t click though more than one or two search result pages.

3. PUBLISHER ROCKET USES AFTER PUBLISHING:

.

But what if you’ve already published your book? Would Publisher Rocket still be able to help you? The short answer here is yes. Here, we can use Rocket to:

• Check & adjust our current categories
• Check & adjust our current keywords 
• (ADVANCED: Creation of Amazon book ads) 

Because we can change, tweak, and adjust our previously chosen categories and keywords we used to initially set up our book, Rocket is still valuable, even after we’ve already published our book.

I won’t go into too much detail about Amazon’s book ads here; just know that this is an additional and advanced option Rocket is very useful for as well.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to create Amazon ads, I’ve found the perfect little AMS course for you right here. It’s absolutely FREE, and that’s the course I used myself to learn how to set up my Amazon ads for my children’s books.

So, no matter WHERE you’re currently at in your book creation process, Rocket will be extremely useful. But you may be wondering WHO this tool is for? Is this tool useful for brand-spanking-new authors, or just for those that are a bit more experienced?

Let’s find out.

Who Would Benefit From Using Rocket?

Now, you may be wondering who this tool is for. Who would benefit from giving Publisher Rocket a try?

.
• WRITING MORE THAN ONE BOOK:

If you’re planning to write more than one book, than I would definitely recommend this tool, mainly because the keyword and category setup can be so very time consuming, with lots and lots of uncertainly as to whether or not certain keywords or categories are performing well. Instead of changing my keywords and categories and waiting to see if my book sales are increasing (or decreasing), I simply check via Rocket how these are performing beforehand.

.
• RUNNING AMAZON BOOK ADS:

If you’re planning to run Amazon book ads, then this will be such an incredible time saver! Because Amazon only charges you if someone actually clicks your ad, it makes sense to add as many keywords to your Amazon ad as you can. Amazon allows authors to add up to 1,000 keywords per ad! I’ve tried to come up with that many keywords on my own, but I was never able to come up with more than a couple hundred (which took me forever). With Rocket’s AMS Category Feature, finding this amount of keywords is now a matter of minutes.

.
• YOUR VERY FIRST CHILDREN’S BOOK:

But what if this is your very first children’s book? Would you still benefit? Should you still invest in this tool?

Rocket comes with a 30-day money back guarantee, so you can check it out and see what you think. I personally believe you’ll find it so incredibly helpful, as it’ll safe you so much time, which can then be used to write your next beautiful children’s book. More importantly, though, it will help you find the best-performing and most beneficial keywords and categories.

MY FINAL THOUGHTS:

If you’re anything like me, than your children’s books are most likely passion projects. But that doesn’t mean we can’t infuse it with something that we KNOW is performing well on Amazon.

If you have gone through my Story Idea Workshop (absolutely free, if you’d like to check it out), then you already know about my secret sauce formula that helps you make your book both intriguing and relevant to your little readers. And while this formula in and of itself is powerful in helping you with your story creation, it gains this extra creative input by using Publisher Rocket, a resource that is based on actual data collected from actual book buyers.

This was a super long post that took me forever to put together, but I really feel that if you want to invest in an author tool, then this should be the one. Because I truly believe in its incredible applicability! To me, it truly is the best tool for children’s book authors!

So if you’d like to give Publisher Rocket a try, you can find it right here so you can give it a go risk-free for an entire 30 days.

And if you get your very own Rocket, let me know! I’d love to celebrate your successes via this incredible tool with you!

xo
~ Eevi