The Dave Chesson Interview: Part One

Dave Chesson is the undisputed authority on self-publishing and is the founder of Kindlepreneur, the deepest well of self-publishing knowledge ... anywhere!

Cards on the table

I spoke to Dave Chesson in 2021 while conducting a series of interviews for Grindstone Literary, the company I own that hosts one of the largest Debut Novel Prizes in the UK and helps connect aspiring authors with agents. Originally, this interview was intended for a podcast series we were starting, but that never got off the ground due to manpower issues. Since, I’ve been looking for a way to share Dave’s amazing insights into self-publishing, so here are all the best bits, along with some commentary and thoughts I’ve had since we spoke.

And if you don’t know who Dave Chesson is, or what Kindlepreneur is, check out their website here. I personally owe much of my self-published success to Dave and the teaching of Kindlepreneur. His insights, tools, and the research his team conducts and delivers to authors for free is pretty staggering. From a regularly updated blog and YouTube channel through to research tools like Publisher Rocket (which is amazing), and Atticus, a Vellum rival to help with formatting for Kindle and print, Kindlepreneur is a tremendous resource, and one I still use very regularly, even now.

The [best bits of the] Interview, Part 1

Note: This interview has been cut down and edited for clarity and flow for reading, but the utmost care has been taken to preserve the content. Enjoy!

Morgan Greene: I think the issue that is on a lot of our writers’ minds here at Grindstone is, you know, what is the right decision to make? Is traditional publishing the way to go if you want to make a career as an author? Or do you think there’s still a career to be made in self-publishing alone?

Dave Chesson: Well, I think there’s a path to success in both sides, but the path that you have to take to get to success is going to be, you know, vastly different between the two. The [traditional] publishing side is … trickier. Okay. You see, the way that publishing companies work is that they accept a certain number of books per quarter that they're going to publish. And there are a lot of factors that go into just them deciding it, but the biggest part of it is: which ones do they think will make the most money? That’s usually the decision matrix that a lot of these publishing companies are doing.

Now, yes, you could say, well, a good story would be a part of that. But to most of these companies, it’s metrics that make them believe that it will sell. That’s about understanding what the market wants right now, and you just happened to write that book at that time. Or it could be that you are a big-time, you know, marketer, you’ve got a huge e-mail list, a big following, something of that magnitude. These things trigger them to say: “Yep, we have a high chance of making money from this.”

Now once you’re one of those books that is accepted, you get a publishing deal. The thing about it is these companies do not have an infinite amount of revenue or cash to apply to the book for marketing. So, instead, they look at — and let’s just come up with an arbitrary number depending on the company — but say they they they publish twenty books per quarter, okay, they may only have the funding to really give two or three of those twenty books the best chance. Okay, then, so they’ll then select out of those twenty the three books or so that they believe need the most, or should get the most of their attention, and then they roll up their sleeves and they go at it.

Now, if one of those twenty books is a Stephen King book, then clearly that one’s going to get the attention, whereas maybe you, as a new author, won’t. Now this doesn't mean you won’t succeed, but what ends up happening is, is that the publishing company helps you to then take the book, format it, you know, give it a book cover. You know, they use the existing resource that they have to do that. But then what you’re gonna find out is they’re gonna turn to you and say: “Great, hey, here’s what we expect. We expect you to sell this number of books in this quarter.”

And a lot of authors are usually shocked by this because they’re like; I thought, you guys are gonna do this? They’re like: “Oh yeah, we're gonna do stuff.” Oh, okay, what are you gonna do? “We're gonna do stuff.” All right. And then they look at you and they say: “But what are you going to do?” Now here’s the kicker — and a lot of authors really run into this — is that if you don't hit that mark — okay, And sometimes they won't even tell you what the mark is, alright — but if you don't hit the said mark, you might not hear from them again.

And then this causes a lot of problems for authors because they feel like their book is held in purgatory or in gaol. Because they don't have the ability to do Amazon ads, they don’t have the ability to change things up. Most of the time [authors] say: Hey, change up, these keywords, or do this. Publishers won’t even respond at that point because they took a bet on you, a very low-risk bet on you, and it didn’t pan out, and they move on.

So, that is one part of it. Now if say, for example, you are able to hit the [sales] mark and then some because you’re really good at marketing, okay. And you do a great job or you really did use the resources you have, like your e-mail list or network or something like that, you know, that’s one thing. Or if you’re one of the real lucky or famous authors in their, say, twenty [books per quarter] that gets their attention, then that’s when you become that book that everybody looks at, that every author thinks they’re going to be when they get signed a publishing deal.

All right, now this isn’t to say that [traditional] publishing isn’t a good thing or bad thing, okay? It’s just really the nature of the beast, and that’s really how a lot of it goes. Now, there are going to be some fringe cases, and there are maybe some amazing publishing companies out there that only signed the three that they have the money for — I get it. But I’m just talking generally how to understand the market.

Now let’s turn to the other side, which is self-publishing. With self-publishing, the big difference is this: You will get your book published. You don’t have to go through a gatekeeper. You don’t have to hope that an agent happens to read your book and actually likes it, or that a publishing company just happens to say: “Man, we need a book on this,” and then you show up with that book. You know; none of that.

Instead, though, it’s for you to format the book, work with an editor, make a book cover, okay. And then just like for most of the published authors, it’s also for you to sell the book and market it. The big difference at this time point though is that the self-published author gets a much higher profit than the published author because the publishing company is going to take their cut and usually that cut is pretty big and so, therefore, a lot of self-publishers have seen a lot more success because all they have to do is sell one book.

Whereas, with the published company, because of the deal, sometimes they have to sell four books just to make the same amount as the self-publisher. And so this really kind of causes a lot of a lot of anxiety issues and things inside the market. And so a lot of authors look at publishing companies; they’re like: this is it, this is the thing to do. But the reality of it is a lot of times authors are like: well, I could have done that. I would have made more money. So that’s a big part of it.

The other thing that kind of happens as well, though, and this is a major shift in the industry okay, is, that way back when self-publishing first started, most publishing companies thumbed their nose at self-publishing, all right. They looked down on it. They thought it was, you know, terrible, was going to ruin the market, you know. And only the traditional way of publishing is the right way. However, though, recently they’ve started to look at, uh, self-publishing like free agency in sports. Okay, you know, in American football, you know I gotta bring up—

Morgan Greene: Dave, sorry to interrupt; you might have to explain free agency for UK listeners over here!

Dave Chesson: Yeah, so in American football or a lot of American sports, honestly, what ends up happening is that there is some athlete, and they used to play, okay, they have all these stats. They’ve done really good and their contract is up. And so now they’re looking for a new team, Okay, they’re free to be picked up with a contract. Okay, so they're open to joining a new team. And so when it comes time in American sports, the team owners are looking at the list of free agents and they’re like: “Oh man. Hey, look at this guy here. This guy’s got great stats. Let's pick him up and let’s add him to the team.”

And so that’s kind of how we, we call it with self-publishing now is publishing companies are looking at all these self-publishers and they can see their stats, they can see how much they’re selling, they can see how big their e-mail list is or how they’re how much their social media following is. And now instead of having to just pour through book after book after book to find something that’s good, they now go to Amazon.

They're looking at self-published authors and they’re saying: “Wow, this person. And clearly, right? They have a thousand five-star [reviews]. You know, we don’t even have to read the book. We know they can write because clearly the reviews are there and, hey, look at that Amazon best-seller rate. Boy, they’re selling a lot of books. Hey, let’s go sign this guy up and get him on our team.”

And now this self-published author has a much better situation because they have proven sales, proven capabilities, and the publishing companies are usually going to sign a much better, more author-friendly contract with them because they’re ready to make money together. They’re not taking a bet on this person because they can clearly see the stats. This person has done well. And so we’re starting to see publishing companies go from looking down on self-publishers to looking at them as a pool of free agents, a pool of authors that have proven records that they can sign and therefore increase the chances of their success in sales.

Morgan Greene: I mean it’s really interesting that you say that, because in a lot of other creative spheres like acting, and I know, kind of, comedy as well, especially, you know, if you want to get a gig and you want to get signed by an agent, you send them a sizzle reel or a showreel, showcasing what you can do and, you know, your funniest, your best bits.

And I never felt that a pitch from an unknown author is kind of quite like that. Whereas, like you say, you know, if you’ve got a string of self-published bestsellers out there and then you’re floating that to an agent and you’re saying: Okay, here’s my 20,000 sales, you know, here’s my sales figures to show that I am a sure thing. You know, a safe bet, like you say, that’s a much stronger position I think to come in from.

And that kind of brings me on to my next kind of point which is, for me, from where I’m sitting and doing a lot of market research and things, the path seems to be for self-published authors, for the ones who really make a success of self-publishing is that they get to a certain point, and then inevitably they get picked up by an agent and then they switch to a traditional or kind of hybrid model.

So, you know, I always find it really interesting that you know they make their name in self-publishing and then kind of do that lateral step into into traditional publishing. And you know from my point of view, that seems to be the the move, really. But I’d like to hear your thoughts on that as well.

Interestingly enough — and sorry to interject here into my own interview — I recorded this with Dave in 2021, at which point I’d self-published, I think somewhere around five or six books in my DI Jamie Johansson series. After this interview, I moved to Canada, and honestly completely forgot I made this point in the conversation, wrote a standalone book, pitched it to agents including my sales figures and stats, and got picked up pretty quickly off the back of that.

Flash forward, and I’m in contract with a publishing house for two books, have more on the horizon, and am selling audio, translation, and potentially screen rights, too, for both my back catalogue and the new books. So, without realising, I made this observation-prediction for sustainability as a self-published author, and then unknowingly fulfilled it. And, sure, juggling both trad and indie stuff isn’t the easiest and my deadlines have never been tighter, but it’s definitely solidifying my long-term earnings pipeline and I still firmly believe that it’s a great way to get into trad if that’s the longterm goal, or a great way to diversify your income streams and raise brand awareness if you want to keep your attention on indie in the longterm.

Anyway, back to the interview!

Dave Chesson: Here’s the problem that publishing companies are running into, okay. Say you’re an established, self-published author. You have multiple books under your belt because you’ve done this multiple times. You have a great cover designer. You know how to format. You have your editor you like working with. And you have your process for launching a book. A lot of self-publishers at that point look at the publishing company and say what exactly do you offer me that I can’t do myself?

And by the way, you guys are looking at taking 70% of my profit. That’s, I mean you’re going to have to prove to me, the author, that you're going to triple the overall book sales in order just to make me the same amount of money if I just did it myself. So it’s coming to a point where a lot of self-published authors, especially as they get better and better at it, are looking at them and being like; you don’t offer anything for me and that’s a huge amount of my profit. But I have to give you for what exactly? And so you’re seeing, actually, a lot more authors reject publishing offers or publishing deals.

And so publishers are now shifting from looking for All-Stars to looking for maybe rising stars, where people are more apt to jump on it than not. So that’s one really big factor that’s kind of playing into that. And I think that any author really needs to ask themselves too — I mean, there’s a prestige to saying you're a published author, I get that, but this comes down to you really saying — what is it that you’re going for? Like what is your overall goal and if it is to be a published author, then there’s no greater way to prove to a publishing company than showing them the numbers.

And by the way, I say this to self-published authors all the time. I think the number one figure that publishing companies like to see isn’t just sales or anything. I mean, clearly, sales are good, but they love to see e-mail lists. The bigger your e-mail list is, the more it means your next book will sell. Because, say you wrote one book and got really lucky, you hit the market, all right. Pretend you wrote a vampire romance novel right after Twilight came out, okay. You would have made a lot of money just because of the surge in the market. But that doesn't mean your second book's gonna actually sell, or you’re third, in a completely different thing.

Whereas if you have an e-mail list … that just translates to money to a publishing company. They see that and they say, you know, he could write a brand new book, which of course, if he sides with us, clearly he’s gonna have to write a brand new book. And that e-mail list is totally money in the bank. That person is going to be able to use that e-mail list and sell more books. And so they really like to see that. So I would say one major tip not to authors, two to be exact, is; one, build your e-mail list. It’s super important. And two, when you do a pitch to a publishing company or you do a proposal, definitely include those kinds of numbers in there.

This is an extremely important point here. Any self-publishing expert, any guru, any course, anyone with any experience in self-publishing will tell you that an email list is gold dust. You need one. You need to build one. But, damn, it’s tough. People don’t want to sign up for email lists anymore and giving away a free short story or novella to potential readers who don’t know you won’t help; believe me.

It’s also very hard to convert from an existing social following as people already get updated about your books, so why do they need to be spammed with emails? They probably don’t, so they probably won’t sign up. So where does that leave authors? Kind of in the shit. Having an email list to take to publishers is amazing, but I also think that there is some quid-pro-quo at work with publishers, and they can definitely help you get to where you want to be so long as your relationship with them, and your agent, is mutually beneficial.

Sure, they want authors with existing platforms, but it’s the power of your voice and their voice combined which is what’s louder than the surrounding crowd. There can be symbiosis, and there should be for authors who want to have a foot in both worlds. While self-publishing has been great for me to get myself out there, prove my worth, and land an agent, now, it’s my agent, the agency, and the publisher who are opening doors that were previously closed to me, and remain closed to the vast majority of indie authors.

Alright, back to it.

Dave Chesson: So long as [those numbers] look decent, because that’s way better than a no-name author who sends in a book and nothing happens. And to kind of cap on this, all right, is … there’s a story I like to tell authors, that there was this woman who used to travel by train, all right, single mother. And she would constantly scribble down her book. She’d take her child to the coffee shop and write out this book. And she just, like, devoted a major portion of her life to creating this book. She got an agent. And they continued to send the book to publishing company after publishing company after publishing company. And they kept rejecting it and rejecting it, rejecting it.

Finally, after the eleventh rejection or so, the agent says, all right, that’s it, I’m going to pull some strings and I’m going to see what I can do with this twelfth publishing company, and he calls in a favour. He’s like, guy, I need you to read this book. Please, just read the book. And the publisher said fine, alright, I’ll call in your favour, sure. Instead, though, he takes the first chapter and he hands it to his twelve-year-old daughter. He says, here you read it.

Morgan Greene: She comes back, hungry for more … and everybody knows where this is going but, go on, who doesn’t love this story?

Dave Chesson: Yeah, the daughter comes back, she goes: Awesome, where's Chapter 2? He goes: Oh, did you like it? She’s like: Yeah! Where's Chapter 2? And the guy looks over at the cover and he’s like, huh? Harry Potter. Interesting. Maybe we should give this a try. See? This true story illustrates the fact that, here, within the hands of 12 different publishing companies. Was one of the greatest money-making books, I would say in recent times by far—

Morgan Greene: Of all time!

Dave Chesson: Honestly, I mean, yeah. There's some argument to that, but yes, it's really close.

Morgan Greene: Alright, yeah. I mean excluding the Bible …

Dave Chesson: Right. [Laughs] I think that was the one I was going to go with. But here’s the thing though, it’s like, here was a phenomenal book. You know, I don't think anybody would argue that is not a well-written, great book. And yet it got rejected over and over again. Sometimes publishing companies, they're making decisions not by the quality of the story, but by the belief on how much money it will make. And so I tell authors that yes, writing a great book is a really big part of it. But if you really want to work with the publishing company or really get your name out there, you know, or get your foot in the door, having some numbers to back it up really opens that door wider.

Morgan Greene: I think that’s vital. And as you said, you know, if you’re pitching to a publishing company, they’re all all business really. But, you know, a big part of the journey of the writer, especially in the UK, is looking for an agent. And from where I am now, you know, I’m speaking to some of my dedicated readers and my advanced readers, and we’re going back and forth and they’re asking me if I have looked at indie publishers and that kind of thing.

And very much what you said, you know, earlier was that for what I’m spending per month on ads now … if I was only going to make a 50% profit share of that, they would need to be spending at least twice what I’m spending now and advertising with the same efficiency or better efficiency for it to even be as profitable. And, you know, they perhaps aren’t looking at scaling in the same way that I am, or at the bids or ACOS of their books as closely as I look at my own.

But going with a traditional publisher can obviously turn your, say, few thousand pounds or a few hundred pounds a month ad budget into tens of thousands of pounds a month ad budget or hundreds of thousands per year. Which is obviously, you know, potentially very lucrative. But for me the thing that I’m not so much grappling with, but kind of trying to consider in the long-term: is it just potential book sales that is kind of driving me towards perhaps looking for representation, or looking for a publisher, or is it the doors that are opened by gaining representation, you know, that will help to supplement that income as a career author, you know? Things like translation rights and film adaption rights. Those are the kind of the other boons I think that come with potentially seeking representation, at least with the right agent.

I was kind of driven towards that after this interview. And I did look for representation, and those doors are opened through the right representation. But I can’t stress that enough: the right representation. The wrong agent is worse than no agent. If you go with the first person despite them not being a great fit, you just lock yourself into it and might end up in a worse position than being a free agent, as Dave called it.

Something to consider when pitching, definitely.

Morgan Greene: I think it’s a question of; do you want to just sell lots of books and try and make a living out of that as a self-published author, or do you intend to, you know, diversify away from your self-published books, and you know what is the best path to that? So, I think, what you're saying, and using a successful self-publishing business as a showreel is a great way to branch out from self-publishing to traditional if that’s the ultimate goal, or even, just, you know, the next step in your writing career.

Dave Chesson: Yeah, absolutely. And there’s a lot of different flavours to this as well. This isn’t just, you know: There’s one path, right? I’ve seen some very successful published author or self-published authors then sell their rights to certain countries. A buddy of mine sold his rights to the Japanese market, meaning that he no longer had self-publishing rights in that market, and a Japanese publishing company took it. They understood what Japanese people wanted in a book, cover, and gotta rewrite the blurb and present it and translate it, took care of it all, and he made a lot of extra sales without ever having to [do it himself].

So there’s a lot of different ways if you’ve created a successful book. Whether you’ve published or self-published, there are a lot of different ways to increase your revenue, add different revenue streams and things like that. But when it comes down to just self-publishing or publishing like we talked about in this episode, I think it’s incredibly important for authors to really think through that and understand and to go to your point about agents and stuff like that, just like a publishing company; you're going to have to truly gain the attraction of an agent.

You have to convince them it’s a good book. You have to convince them that it’s worth their time. This is a business to them too. They only make money if they’re able to convince a publishing company to sign you. Again, those same things that I talked about with numbers and stuff. That helps with getting an agent as well. An agent knows what publishing companies want, and if they see those numbers, you’re going to have a lot more agencies, agents say yes and, you know, and do extra work to get you there because they believe in you more.

This is such a wonderful insight here, from Dave. It’s so easy to get bogged down in the sales and pitching and business side of things that you can easily convince yourself that a good sales record will instantly translate to a big publishing deal, or easy representation. Hint: it doesn't.

Though I found representation, I still had plenty of rejections on the road to it. My agent, though, didn’t take me on just because I had prior sales. However, it definitely helped grab her attention, and it reassured her that what she was reading in my pitch — the novel I was pitching — wasn’t just something she liked, but also something with saleable value.

The crux of it is that what you’re pitching to an agent has to: one, wow them subjectively. They have to love it because they’re going to be shouting about it to publishers, pitching it with passion. So they have to love it. Secondly, it has to be something they can sell. Because if they can’t sell it, what’s the point? You have to be aware of the market in some sense, writing something that can be comped to other novels. And that, combined with a track record of success, is what provides the best chance of landing an agent and then getting a deal.

So, because I did that, I got a massive publishing deal with Penguin for seven figures, right? Wrong. I got shot down and rejected by nearly two dozen publishing houses before we found a home for the novel in question. It’s not to say that the novel wouldn’t have sold – and hell, I hope it’s even a fraction of a shade of a Harry Potter story in the end – but the reality is that it’s probably not fate, it’s just how the industry works. It’s cruel, and it gives no quarter. I would say that unless you can take a few body shots and keep swinging, perhaps consider a career outside of writing!

This is where we’re going to cut off part one of this interview, but don’t worry, there’s still lots to come and I’ll get part two up next week! Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed this so far. And if you have, subscribe to The Greene Machine and you’ll get part two right to your inbox. Just hit the button below.

Thanks for reading. See you next time!