DAVE CHESSON’S GOAL IN LIFE is to make you a successful author. That’s right. He’s a wildly successful author who created a business using everything he learned while learning to promote his own books. You’ve probably heard of his company. It’s called Kindlepreneur, and its expertise is book marketing for self-publishing authors, though I can tell you that I’ve learned everything I know about maximizing my own books’ impact on Amazon through his instruction. So no matter who’s publishing you, listen up and read along as Dave – a writer, an app developer, and the host of the Book Marketing Show Podcast – and I give you a guide to book marketing for every author.
Dave: Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Marion: Well, it’s a joy, and I particularly love your language on your website. You describe yourself as “a book marketing nut.” And that just makes the whole experience just so much more welcome than so much more of the and marketing stuff we see online. In fact, there’s probably a bazillion people online teaching people how to promote books, and I warn against most of them. You, however, have the kind of background that creates some authority here, and a track record that assures us of your expertise. So let’s just set this up for people a little bit with that background, you were born a military brat, you’ve lived everywhere. You grew up to be a commissioned officer in the US Navy, became a nuclear engineer, worked in defense cooperation, and spent long periods of time deployed on submarines. So just replay for us the moment you decided to become an author.
Dave: Yeah, well actually my entire life, I never thought that I was meant to write, because as I grew up with dyslexia. And so someone like me struggled like mildly in English class. And so I turned to physics because I was like, “Oh, I can do this.” You know? But the truth is, is that just because we do this doesn’t mean that that desire inside of us ever just goes away. So it’s always been there, but now fast forward bit in my military career, and the military had just deployed me to Korea. And not just to like the US base in Korea, but as in on a Korean base with no US presence. So I was like all alone. And by the way, they don’t speak English very well there. You might think they do, but it’s not. And so they said, “Hey, since we’re sending you all the way out here, we don’t have any support systems for your family. So you have to do this two year tour without your wife and kids.”
And I was like, “Huh.” So I was like, “Okay.” So my wife and I had this conversation. She said, “Hey, Dave, what are we doing all this for?” And I was like, “Well, what do you mean?” She’s like, “Well, I mean, do you have this goal to be an Admiral?” And I’m like, “No, not really. And I’ve seen those guys and I don’t want to be like that.” And no disrespect, but that was not my thing. And she’s like, “Well then what is it?” And I said, “I don’t know.” And so we started thinking about it, and we were trying to decide on exit plan. How do I get out of the military? And more importantly, how do I get out of this traveling 9:00 to 5:00 job and not just jump into another traveling 9:00 to 5:00 job?
Our goal was to be together as a family. Now, when you’re on the other side of the world, and oh, by the way, you’re getting deployed on military ships like crazy. You never know when you’re going to be in port or not. So what can you do when doing that? Like, you can’t do a brick and mortar business. You can’t go get a master’s degree or some kind of step up or whatever. And so I started learning a little bit about the writing process. And I started to look at this thing called Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). And it would allow me to write my own books, and then upload it to Amazon. And then Amazon sells it as well as maintains all of the supply chain logistics. Basically, you write, you upload and they take care of it. Now, most of us who have self published know that that’s not how it really goes.
You don’t just click publish and puff, you’re successful. But for me though, I had to figure out why and what is it that I could do in order to make my books successful? Because, it wasn’t just about writing. It wasn’t just about being able to get a check in the box that said, man, I’m a self-published author and people are enjoying my books. I mean, that’s great. But for me, my goal was I wanted my writing career to supplement my military career, so that I could be home. And when that was the moment, that’s when I was like, I am going to dig in, I’m going to learn and apply everything I have to figuring this out. So that one day I could reach that goal. And that is exactly how it all kicked off.
Marion: It’s gorgeous. And I love that. And the phrase,”self-publishing,” still is said with some degree of loathing by so many people. I sometimes think we need to change the phrase. Because, I’m of the opinion that it’s an adventure and that it’s one that can be conquered and really enjoyed. So let’s talk about that. You ended up getting involved with publishing companies, marketing books, and sitting in on those meetings where they decide which book to promote. And along the way you developed a real insight into self-publishing. So first, let’s just talk about that. Let’s talk about why self-publishing? Why did you zero in on helping people create a successful self-publishing experience?
Dave: Well, for me, I had no other option. Being in Korea, I couldn’t try to work some deal and get an agent. And also too, let me put it out there. My writing has improved dramatically over time, because I’ve treated it like a skill. Every day that I write each day, I’ve gotten better over time. So back then I might not have even been prepared, but fast forwarding to now, because of my work with Amazon and the Amazon algorithm and understanding what makes the online book market work, I’ve become a consultant to multiple publishing companies as well as to New York Times bestselling authors. And so this has really brought me in from seeing it way back when, to what it is now. And let me say that when self-publishing first happen, the majority of publishing companies look down on self publishing.
The publishing world’s very traditional. I would also say, I think it’s a very fair statement to say that they’re a little bit averse to change and they’re a bit slow to pick up on the new things that happen.
Marion: Yeah.
Dave: That’s a very fair statement and not very controversial. So when this self-publishing thing happened, a lot of them looked at Amazon and looked at KDP and they just looked down on it. And they thought, this is not the future. It’s a fad. It’s not going to happen. But here’s what they started to see. They started to see more and more of the self-published market taking over. They saw the power of why they should work with companies like Amazon or BNM Press. And they started to see what was happening to their market share as this was occurring. But here’s another really cool thing.
The publishing market started to get really smart about it. And they started to say, “Huh, let’s look over at this pool of cell published authors. I can see some really talented people in here. I can see authors who I can clearly see their books are doing well because they’ve got all these five stars, their books and their writing must be great. The market shows it.” And every one of those self-published authors has learned how to market a book. They understand a market, they have a following, they have an email list. So now publishing companies are looking at some, no name author who just sent in their manuscript to be checked. And then they’re looking over at this other group of proven authors who already have a following. And again, without reading their books, they know people like it.
Who do you think their start and to work with? And so we’re starting to see published companies look at the self-published pool as the pool to go after then the ones who haven’t. So I would say to a lot of the authors out there thinking, I’m going to start with publishing, be very careful, because I would say that every month that goes by, publishing companies or looking at self-publish off authors as the better way to go, because they have a track record. Because they have experience. And because they have something more to bring to the table than just a manuscript.
Marion: Yeah. It’s such a great point. Where are they getting these authors from? I say this to people all the time. Write an op-ed, write a piece. That’s where the eyeballs are, if you want to attract some attention and writing into the pool of the successful self-published authors is a great piece of advice. Also, the fact is that people think that the Big Five publishers do a lot of book promotion. They’re shocked when I tell them how much promotion I did for myself being published with the Big Five. So they get really anxious though, and think they’re utterly on their own when they’re in the self-publishing field. So you seem to have stepped into that and given them the skills they need, and these are skills they need and skills we can learn. So that seems to me to be a huge piece of understanding for a writer. So let’s just talk about when an author needs to begin to think about something more than just the initial of idea of a book and start to think about these skills that they’re going to have to successfully self public.
Dave: Yeah. When it comes to marketing, there are so many different ways that somebody can market a book. And truth be told is that I tell authors all the time, don’t try to do everything. Don’t try to dabble in all the different things you can do in marketing. But instead, try to focus in on one or two and do them really well. That being said, though, I like the word that you used, skill. Because, that is exactly what it is. It’s a skill. And just like juggling, right? You can’t just all of a sudden pick up 10 balls and you’re just nailing it. You have to practice it over time. So one of the biggest pieces of a device that I give authors is that when the moment comes that you really want to take this seriously, you really want to do this. I tell people to try to split their time so that there’s the clear time to write. And there’s the clear time to learn and market.
And that’s from the day you put your first finger to the keyboard. This is important because a lot of times people will write their book and they’ll format it and they’ll have it ready and they’ll go to put it on KDP. And then the next question is great. Now what do I do? And the truth be told is that the more you get into it, the more you’ll realize a lot of your marketing efforts start before you even come close to publishing your book.
You know, there’s a lot of things that would really help you, so that the moment you launch your book, you have a lot momentum with it. And you’re not kind of stuck there with your hands in your pocket thinking, oh, what I do now. And so that’s why I think the greatest step, the greatest recommendation I can give is kind of split your time. Be very intentional about when you write and be very intentional about when you learn or when you start your marketing. And that will be a strong path to what I call a writing career, rather than just kind of the end point of a hobby.
Marion: So you referred to KDP. So why don’t you explain what KDP is, for those who don’t know?
Dave: Sure. So KDP is Kindle Direct Publishing. And it’s your ability to basically upload your book to Amazon and then for Amazon to put it out on their market for their shoppers to see and purchase. And when people purchase it on Amazon, Amazon takes care of sending them the necessary files so that the shopper is good to go.
Marion: Great. That’s so helpful. Which gives your eyes to the wonderful title of your company Kindlepreneur, which is stellar at book more promotion. But you also have a whole raft online and I’ll put all the links in the transcript of this conversation that I’ll run on my website. You have a whole raft of articles, apps help on writing, formatting and more. And your apps amaze me. They include an Amazon sales rank generator, a book description generator, a QR code generator, an ISBN code generator, and tool you call Publisher Rocket and Atticus. And, I’m fascinated by Atticus right now. It’s a book writing and formatting tool. And you describe it as if Vellum, Google Docs and Scrivener had a baby that this would be Atticus, which is funny, but true. It’s like all in one writing software. Give an idea of why people need all in one writing software. I mean, you’ve talked about why they need this to start the skills and when they need to start the skills of marketing. But writing software sometimes also trips people up. What’s the upside to writing software?
Dave: Yeah. Well currently what happens with authors is that they’ll choose a writing software. Maybe they use word, okay. Which word is great, but word was built for writing everything. It wasn’t specialized for things like, especially long form things like books, but you can do it. Or say you use Scrivener, which was designed for long form writing. So you start writing on that. And then the moment comes that you want to start working with your editor. You can’t do that inside of Scrivener. So most people export it into word. Then they email back and forth with their editor until they finally have the copy that they want. And then finally they buy another software. You know, one of the most popular one is Velum, and they upload it and Velum, and then they start to work and turn it into a professional book, both for ebook and for physical book.
And then when they’re done, they export that. Now here’s the thing, though. We just experienced three sets of software, and even more so is that process I just talked about, by the time you’re done, you probably have five or six word documents on your computer that say final version, final, final. This is the final all caps final.And it’s like, if you talk to any author… I know you’re laughing, because you’ve seen that, right? You probably have a couple yourself. I know I have. And I’ve even uploaded the wrong final version to formater and learn the hard way of, oh my goodness. The conclusion wasn’t edited. That was the wrong version. Oh, oh. And so why is it that authors can’t just have one spot where they can write, they can collaborate and then they can format and everything is there.
Even better, is that the moment that you are… Say, you need to do an update, you want to change the back matter to add a new book that you just wrote? Well, a lot of people are having to re-upload and rework and then reexport. Whereas with Atticus, you could just go in there, make the change and hit the button again. You’re good to go. And so we really got to work on doing that. We started by developing what I’m calling basically, it’s like Velum, but with more capabilities and it’s much cheaper and it works on all computers. Whereas Vellum right now only works for Mac.
And we also added a writing component as well, so that you can write inside of it. Probably in January, we’re going to be adding the collaboration component. And this is the one that I think I’m just super excited, because what it would allow you to do is you could send a link to an editor. The editor could open it up. It would look just like word for them. They can make changes. You can see it real time. And then when you’re good to go, you can basically cut their connection. And now your book is all set. You don’t have seven or eight different file versions on your computer. And what I love even more so is you can control who has access to it. And so you can collaborate with editors. You can collaborate with arch readers, all of it.
Marion: And it no longer is going to say “Final, final, final. No, I mean it, damn it, this one really is the final, final, final.” Yeah, just got three emails from somebody today. “No, don’t read that one. Sorry.” You know, and it’s like, okay, we need to control this a little bit. And I think that people just don’t understand that they’re even using writing software when they write with Word, for instance. I think there’s just not this mentality that it’s writing software. It’s a blank page. I hear people say, “Oh, let me open up a blank page.” And I just love the language difference.
And once you start to realize you’re using writing software. Wouldn’t you like to use writing software that facilitates all of the things you need to do, including sending it to the publisher? And so when we go to send to publisher, we talked about Velum, which creates eBooks. And it begs a question of what format to choose to publish in. You start this thing thinking I want to write a book. You write that book, and then how to discern where and how to self-publish. Let’s talk a little bit about the choices. I think self-publishing even within itself has got myriad ways to end up as a “book.” What are they?
Dave: So, one of the things that we had discussed earlier is that when you’re working with a publishing company, you had said it yourself too, is that they signed you and then they’re like, all right, great, it’s up to you now. We expect this many copies to be sold by this quarter. And if you don’t, you’re not going to hear from us anymore. And so, by the way, I just wanted to reiterate that, that’s a real thing. So even if you do get signed, you’re going to have to learn how to market the book. Now, with regards to self publishing, it is so easy these days as compared to what it used to be. Because you can export a EPUB file, which is an e-book version. And that EPUB file will work on all the online markets for the e-books. Okay.
So you could take that e-book file and you could put it on Barnes & Noble Press, iTunes KoBo. I could list like 20 other markets. They even have online markets that will automatically source it out to all the online markets for you. Something like Draft2Digital. You just put it on them and, puff, it’s on like 20 different markets. For the print book, you can export a PDF file. And it’s got to be a special PDF file. It’s got to have certain things inside of it. And then when you take that file, you can send it to Amazon. You can send it to Barnes & Noble. And what’s awesome about those markets is that if somebody goes to Amazon and they click the print version of your book, and then they buy it, Amazon will immediately send the digital file to the nearest printing press to that shopper, they’ll print the book right there. They call it Print on Demand, and then they send the book right to them and it’s all taken care of.
And so that same PDF can work on all the different markets. So what’s awesome for self-published authors is that you can take a software like Velum or Atticus. You can make it look the way you want, very intuitively easy to do, click export EPUB, Export PDF, and now you can turn around and literally upload it to all the different markets and have your book everywhere. Which is really awesome. Way back in the day it really wasn’t that case. And on top of that too, there were all these different file formats that you could choose. They finally got their act together. Amazon used to accept mobi files. They were like the only one for their eBooks, but now they’re like, okay, just kidding. We’re not accepting mobi anymore. We’ll just take EPUB. So they all came together, which is good.
Marion: It is good. And as a result, I find myself every day, numerous times arguing that this is the greatest time in the history of the world for writers. And I hear this dead silence on the other side of the phone, and people will say, I can’t. I just want somebody else to do it all. And I say, no, you really don’t. And I can tell you why. I spent three to six months promoting my books published by the Big Five publishers. I wrote the letters myself to the features editors and the science editors and the book review of the 100 top newspapers in the country, all of the leading magazines, the online sites. I mean, it did it all myself. Why? Because every publicist at every publishing house has 59 clients per season or more, and you don’t get a lot of attention. This way, you have the ability to direct your attention where it needs to be directed and get this expertise.
So, first of all, what do you think? I think it’s an exciting time. I think it’s a doable thing. I think these skills are learnable. I mean, obviously you agree with me or you wouldn’t have your company. But what about this time in history? Is it the best time in the history of the world for writers? You can disagree with me if you want. It’s fine.
Dave: I think the answer is yes and no, because it’s a little bit different than it was back in 2007. When Kindle Direct Publishing first came out, I’m not going to lie, back then you could write anything and you probably made a lot of money. Because, it was such a new market. There weren’t many books out, but at that time, like I said, the publishing companies just thought that self-published was like the worst thing. They looked down on it. It was kind of like, well, you couldn’t hack it as writer for the real companies. And so now you’re just going to be putting your book on Amazon. But then there were authors that started to buck that system. In about like 2013 or so we saw what was it, Hugh Howey and his Wool series. And he, not only became really famous and really successful, he then started to say, well, why would I go with a publishing company now? You’re just going to cut all of my revenue. You’re going to take in some of that when I’m already doing it myself.
I don’t know if he was the first, but in my mind, I like to mark him as that. Where he was the first one to point out of like, “Hey, I already taught myself how to do this. I don’t need you. I can make more money on my own than with you.” And all of a sudden that was this shift and this mentality. And then now we’re in today where yes, there are more writers out there. Yes, the system, some people complain that well, it’s too convoluted or too crowded. First off, no, it’s not too crowded. The desire for eBooks and print books and audio books has grown exponentially since those days. More or more people are digesting these books, the market size is bigger, but yes, you are going to have to learn a little bit more about making sure that you stick outside of the crowd.
I tell a lot of authors, Hey look, most of the people that are sitting down to sell, publish a book, what they did was they wrote it. They then paid somebody to format it and they put on an Amazon and then they twirled their fingers than they hoped Amazon would make the money. That’s, I would say, a large percentage of the people doing it. Those who are here listening to this podcast, reading Kindlepreneur. So you guys are proving that you are taking this much more seriously than that, and you will see a much higher return on your efforts because you’ve clearly shown that. And so to go back to the answer, I say, back in the day, you could write anything, make money, but at the same time, it was like, you didn’t have the tools. You didn’t have the ability. You had to work harder to get it on there. And you got looked down upon. But now yes, there are more books out there. And so that might be a little bit harder, but there’s so much more information to really kind of separate the hobbyists from the careerists.
Marion: Yeah, there are. And that’s a great answer, far more textured than mine. And I appreciate that. I published three books with the big houses, and then I self-published my book, The Memoir Project, under a different title, because there was a downturn in the market. I think it was 2008 when I started the project. And I learned a lot about self-publishing. Self-published it, sold all the copies that we printed. And then, and only then I took it to my agent in New York and she said, “Oh, I love this book. Let’s take it out.” And we changed the title and we republished it and with Hachette, specifically with Grand Central, but it was a fascinating insight into how you can self-publish a book, take it to the market, if you want, and do what you want, sell it however you want to sell it.
And I built my whole business around own that book. So there’s a million different ways you can go with it too, which is kind of fascinating. And along the way, of course, I learned a lot about Amazon. So let’s talk about Amazon. People go to Amazon and look for books that they want to see, right? But there are these categories. They think they want to read a mystery. They think they want to read cookbook on chocolate or whatever. There are these 14,000 categories. And Amazon uses your information on their site to decide what to show you. I think that’s a really important point. And Amazon wants to get this right. So how does a writer flip that to his or her benefit? Tell us what authors need to know about how to make that Amazon category aspect. Just starting there. So, that the Amazon calculations put that book in front of somebody.
Dave: There’s a lot of things that Amazon uses to try to figure out how to put the best product in front of the right customer. Because, let’s face it. If you go to Amazon and you type in romance book and they show you Goth, or they show you science fiction or something like that, and they constantly show you the wrong thing, you’re going to stop using Amazon. So they really, really want to get it right and to show the right thing. Now, that being said, though, Amazon is not a human. They’re using these calculations in these systems to try to figure out what products should go where. Now, honestly, though, Amazon is probably like the biggest giant source of information. A lot of people don’t know this, but Amazon’s company makes more money from something called AWS than they do their own market.
The Amazon website. Because, two-thirds of the internet is run on AWS. So they own like two-thirds of the internet. And they’re in the business of data. So when we go to amazon.com, they’re not only looking at the products they put up there, but they’re looking at how we interact with those products and what kind of garners your attention. So coming back to books and keeping all of that information in mind, here’s what usually happens. Shoppers choose two ways to look for books. They either start at the search bar and type in some description, and then Amazon presents them with a list of books, or if they’re an avid reader of a certain type of book. Say, for example, you just love literal PG cultivation books. Okay. It’s a sub sub genre of fantasy. I’m a fan of that.
So I’m just going to throw that one out there. Then you go to that category, you select it. And you look for the latest books that come in. You’re like, sweet. I haven’t read that one. You click and buy. But Amazon says though that 66% of all of their shoppers start with a search bar. And here’s the cool part out of that 66%, 89% of them always end in a purchase. So I would say for an author, you’ve got your categories. And then you have what’s called the keywords. And the keywords are what helps Amazon to try to figure out what you should show up for. So say you write a historical romance. That’s like a “second chance” style, and it’s wholesome and family, right? Well, people might go to Amazon and type in “wholesome Christian historical romance.” And based off of the keywords that you gave Amazon, as well as the category, you selected, Amazon and a bunch of other factors, but Amazon can say, huh this latest book that this person just created might be a good one to test and show in front of our, our shoppers.
So then they’ll place it there. But here’s the other thing that goes with the market too. Once they put you up there, if shoppers continue not to click on your book, then Amazon goes, huh, okay. Well that must not be the right book for that search term because nobody’s buying. And so it will move further down the ranking and so forth. But here’s the thing though, is that they use a lot of factors and it’s not just one or two terms. And so what’s really important for authors is that we really need to make sure we make the right choice in choosing the right keywords to go after. We want keywords that our shoppers really look for. We want keywords that shoppers actually buy books for. And once we have this information, we can better position our book on Amazon. And so I would say that, especially for new authors, using keywords and making sure you get your book in front of the right shoppers is a really great way to get your foot in the door.
But I’ll also caveat that by saying that that’s not the only thing that’s there. Your book cover is real, really important. I know we always say the whole, don’t judge a book by its cover, but oh my goodness, it’s so true. Because if I type in litter PG cultivation and it’s called literature role playing games, and then it’s cultivation. So it’s usually like a guy stuck in a video game. Now you heard all that. And I like this example, because as a litter PG cultivation reader, game lit is another word. I will look at the books. And if that cover doesn’t feel like my kind of genre, if it doesn’t feel like it’s what I’m looking for, I won’t click it. It might have a really cool title, but I won’t give it a chance. And so I think that this is a really good thing for authors to understand, is that your cover really fits with the way you’re trying to position it.
So just to kind of recap on what I said, was that Amazon’s a calculation trying to figure out, and you could say the same thing for any online market, whether it’s Barnes & Noble. So they’re a calculation and they’re trying to figure out to get the right book in front of the right person. And so by you selecting your keywords, right, and choosing the right categories, you help them get it in front of them, but you still need to attract that market once you’re finally in their view. And so that’s where your book cover can really play a major difference maker.
Marion: That’s wonderful. And you’ve got a fabulous article on keywords that I will link to in the transcript that I’ve read a couple of times, that explains how keywords work and what are they. And really this remarkable experiment you did with them that shows us the data on why there’s no way to get to the end of this piece and not want to get the right keywords attached to your book. The other thing that you talk about really, really well, I’ve heard you do several times, is the subtitle. And I read titles of books all day long. People send me their work, and I can tell you from my first book, I wanted a title that was just God awful. But I wanted it so badly, because it was a quote from Emily Dickinson, and my editor, of course, God bless her, just said no.
And she said, because it won’t sell. And it was a phrase from my favorite poem of Emily Dickinson’s and it was “The “Hour of Lead.” Now who is going to buy a book called “The Hour of Lead?” But I was 26, and I was convinced that it had that literary feel to it and all this. And when I saw the book and the title that Houghton Mifflin chose and the subtitle that they chose, I got it, for the first time. I thought, oh, they’re trying to sell the book. I see. So the subtitle, give us a little bit of a boost here so that not everybody puts just really gauzy information in that subtitle, please.
Dave: Yeah. One of the things I like to say is when you’re confuse you lose. Okay. And so this comes to our market. Say, I go to Amazon and I type in, well… Let’s just stick with the litter PG thing, right? If I type in litter PG cultivation, game lit, whatever these terms are, I’m going to first look at the cover and try to see which cover feels right. But then I’m going to go to the title and subtitle, and I hope that they validate that this is the right kind of book.
So, especially in fiction authors, and also I say this for memoir as well, is that it’s okay if you want to have an artsy title. Okay. Like, that’s cool. I get it. It’s art. But please help to solidify what the book is about in the subtitle. It’s a wonderful opportunity. So say you choose something that sounds very sci-fi. But then you put in litter PG, game lit, adventure. Now I know, okay. It is my kind, let me at least click on it and investigate a little more. I’d also pivot to nonfiction and say too, like you may say… What was that title you gave?
Marion: “The Hour of Lead?”
Dave: “The Hour of Lead.” Let’s pretend that that was actually a non-fiction. You could still have some cool title like that. But then you can say in the subtitle, you know how to break the habit and feel great while you’re busy now. Just in those three statements, I basically said, what this book will do for you, the results you will get and who this is for. And if I’m reading these titles and subtitles, and I can answer those three things by looking at your cover title and subtitle, you’re going to have a much better conversion rate on Amazon. And so that’s why I always say, you need to answer those three questions from your title, subtitle and your book cover. And the more in line they are together, better chance that I’m not going to be confused, the better chance I’m going to click, the better chance I’m going to buy.
Marion: Perfect. And I’m going to let us wrap it up there because the whole beauty of that is you’ve just shown us how we can get that conversion rate, how we can get to the buy place. Before I let you go, just tell me, I’m just so curious what it feels like to see and speak with, and to see all those books that you’ve had some part of. What’s your word for that? What kind of job satisfaction have you achieved in the number of books that have come from what you’ve taught people?
Dave: Well, I’ll give one example. I went home for Christmas a couple years ago, and one of my cousins was sitting there and he was reading one of my books and he didn’t know that it was my book. And so at first though, I sat down to him. I was like, “So how’s the book. What do you think?” You know, just in case if he came back, I was like, this book’s terrible. I’d be like, “Oh yeah, well, I’m going over to the …” And now he’s like, “Ah, this is amazing.” I was like, “Cool, cool man.” And he looks at me and he is like, “What?” I’m like, “I wrote it.” His mouth dropped. To me, that was like the coolest thing ever.
I don’t know. It was awesome to find that out. And another fun story that I have too is my grandmother, her name’s Muzzy. She’s my Muzzy. And when I told her I was leaving the military and that I was going to be an author. She was like, “But Dave, you got nine more years and you can have retirement in the military.” Because you know, my entire family is military. So they know the retirement thing. I’m like, “But Muzz, I’m going to be a writer.” And she’s like, “But Dave, you’re leaving a career.” I’m like, “No, I’m starting a career.” And she’s like, “But Dave, I just don’t think that’s very mature. Your family is going to depend on you.” I’m like, “Muzz, I’m a multi bestselling author.” And she goes, “Wait, what?”
I was like, “Yeah.” And all of a sudden she goes… And next thing you know, when she’s playing Bunco with her friend, she tells them all about her grandson, the best selling author. And I know that sounds like pride or so. And I wouldn’t say that it’s really in the elk of pride. It’s more or less major satisfaction of all the time and effort where we bled over our keyboard, doing our best to weave the best tail and to impart the best knowledge and to find that even people around me be being able to enjoy that without even knowing it was me. That was just awesome.
Marion: That’s great. And when you get books in the mail from people who have used your products, do you have the same sense of deep satisfaction?
Dave: Oh, I’ve got one entire bookshelf that is full of it, and that is my bookshelf just for those. And yeah, it’s got a special place in my heart. I really enjoy that. It means a lot. Even more so, my kids have benefited from some of them too. We’ve gotten a couple of kids books, and it’s really neat to tell your children about how you might have helped somebody to put that story together that they love. It’s just a really neat feeling.
Marion: Yeah. It’s the at best. Well, thanks Dave. I so appreciate you coming along today.
Dave: Yes, ma’am, and again, thank you for having me.
Marion: The author was Dave Chesson, the author and entrepreneur. Read more on him at kindlepreneur dot com, where you’ll find links to all of his classes, apps, and a simply remarkable range of free articles on how to promote your books. I’m Marion Roach Smith, and you’ve been listening to QWERTY. QWERTY is produced by Overit Studios in Albany, New York. Reach them at overit studios dot com. Our producer is Adam Claremont. Our assistant is Lorna Bailey. Want more on the art and work of writing? Visit marionroach dot com, where I offer many online classes on how to write memoir. And thanks for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe to QWERTY and listen to it wherever you go. And if you like what you hear, please leave us a starred review. It helps others define their way to their writing lives.
