New Author Podcast

Jerry Evanoff
  • 5.0 (8)
  • Arts
  • Updated Weekly

First time authors Jerry Evanoff and Rich Kacy take you through their writing, publishing and marketing strategies. You'll get to hear every success and every mistake along the way.

  1. 1d ago

    Raccoons, a Blown-Out Knee, and a Table Saw Bought With Inheritance Money | Ep 370

    Good news to open: last week's missing-chapter cliffhanger resolves itself, as Jerry's backup-hunting with Claude paid off and book three is back intact, now sitting at 57,381 words and over 70% through its second edit. He also gets real numbers back from his contractor on that long-gutted upstairs bathroom — a jaw-dropping $25,000 quote that gets an immediate, dad-approved "absolutely not," followed by a cheaper plan-B option that would simply restore the original footprint instead. Between a slow golf foursome, a twelve-and-a-half-hour workday migrating systems for his new job, and three straight Browns wins fueled by a crock-pot beef-and-potatoes good-luck ritual he's now handed off to his dad, Jerry keeps chipping away at his reader-engagement side project: a mystery puzzle he's now calling "Wordle meets Encyclopedia Brown meets Clue," complete with detective rank tiers and streak tracking designed to quietly funnel solvers toward his books. Rich had a rougher, more domestic week — a sudden knee injury that swelled up overnight, a splurge on a weighted blanket and a table saw courtesy of inheritance money, a failed experiment brining catfish, and more frustration with rigid civil-service rules as a coworker situation at the library comes to a head. He also shares two genuinely great book recommendations (Richard Osman's new thriller and his book club's current pick), a newly discovered chef he can't stop reading, and an author friend's wildly successful Kickstarter for a gorgeous limited-edition book. Contact UsJerry EvanoffEmail: ⁠jerry@jerryevanoff.com⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠rich@richkacy.com⁠BlueSky: @RichKacy⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ Tagswriting process, novel revision, self-publishing, book marketing, reader engagement, Claude AI, indie authors, home renovation, book recommendations, library life, fantasy football, productivity, golf

  2. Sep 26

    We Found a Taser at the Library (And No One Will Claim It) | Ep 369

    This one opens with a genuine cliffhanger: right before recording, Jerry discovers chapter one has vanished from his writing app, and spends the whole episode with Claude in another tab hunting through backup files to recover it (you'll have to listen to find out if it worked). From there, Jerry unveils a genuinely clever idea for capturing reader contact info from his 4,800 free-promo downloads — a weekly mystery puzzle inspired by Encyclopedia Brown and Wordle, complete with streaks, shareable results, and an email signup, all coded with help from an AI admin he's named Jack Sterling. He also works through more editing (now up to chapter 17 of 42), a rain-delayed Browns win, a surprisingly lucrative $153 sports betting parlay, a slow-cooker beef stew recipe, his ongoing weekly "clutter bag" decluttering project, and a scheduled contractor visit to quote out that long-gutted upstairs bathroom as he gets more serious about a possible move. Rich had a reading-heavy week finishing his independent author judging assignments — and delivers a genuine, enthusiastic recommendation for a thriller called "The Hunted" that's free on Biblioboard. He also shares one of the stranger library lost-and-found stories in recent memory involving a taser, a roll of peppermint Life Savers, and an unclaimed condom that nobody at the library will own up to. Contact UsJerry EvanoffEmail: ⁠jerry@jerryevanoff.com⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠rich@richkacy.com⁠BlueSky: @RichKacy⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ Tagswriting process, novel revision, self-publishing, book marketing, reader engagement, Claude AI, indie authors, book recommendations, library life, real estate, fantasy football, productivity, golf

  3. Sep 18

    Free Promo Results: 4,900 New Readers and What It Actually Means | Ep 368

    Jerry hits a huge milestone this episode: the full second revision of book three is officially done, powered by an absurd ten-day stretch off work that also included two high school football games, a Top Golf outing in the rain, a casino stop that reminded him why he quit going, and roughly a dozen fantasy football drafts (including a Claude-built auction tracker he's using for real this time). He also shares hard numbers on his free Kindle promo's aftermath — nearly 4,900 downloads translating into real page reads and full-price sales across the series — plus real, specific figures from a realtor visit about what his house could sell for with a few renovations, and his early conversations with a contractor about finally finishing that gutted upstairs bathroom. Along the way: new features rolling out in his homemade writing app (split-screen notes, custom sections, and text-to-speech), an Amazon A+ content update bragging about his bestseller rankings, and an honest admission that he's quietly drifted away from his writers' club after eight years. Rich's stretch was a mix of comfort and chaos — baking croissants from scratch, hitting new personal bests back at the gym, actual progress on his Thelma & Louise-style story, and then a rough patch: a federal jury duty summons, a deep dive into long-term care insurance that he does not recommend doing for fun, a full-blown library staffing crisis, and his wife's new blood pressure and cholesterol diagnosis putting their nightly ice cream habit in jeopardy. Contact UsJerry EvanoffEmail: ⁠jerry@jerryevanoff.com⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠rich@richkacy.com⁠BlueSky: @RichKacy⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ Tagswriting process, novel revision, self-publishing, book marketing, Kindle free promotion, Claude AI, writing tools, indie authors, real estate, fantasy football, career and life updates, productivity, health

  4. Sep 5

    Free Book Giveaway Results: #1 in Multiple Categories with 4,600+ Downloads | Ep 367

    Big marketing episode this week. Jerry runs a full free Kindle promo for book one and shares the play-by-play numbers as they happen: 187 downloads day one, then an explosive 2,500-plus after hitting FreeBooksy's massive email list, eventually landing him at #1 in Private Investigators, #1 in Amateur Sleuth, and #9 overall in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense on Amazon. He walks through real-time strategy conversations with Claude about adjusting Facebook ad bids, pivoting Amazon ads from book one to book two, and building the case for keeping a low-cost ad running for a few weeks after a promo ends to catch tail-end buyers — with actual dollar figures on total spend versus book two sales. He's also kicking off ten days off work packed with golf outings, a house call from a realtor to explore what selling might look like, and no fewer than six separate fantasy football drafts, including another custom Claude-built auction tracker fed with years of league history. Rich had a quieter, more domestic week — some real progress on his Scotland travel narrative, a deep dive into judging duties for his indie author competition, a DIY oven motherboard repair, a return to the gym with his wife, and growing frustration with being chronically short-staffed at the library. Also: mango overload, chocolate lava cake rationing, and a debate over what "Cinny Toasties" are actually called. Contact UsJerry EvanoffEmail: ⁠jerry@jerryevanoff.com⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠rich@richkacy.com⁠BlueSky: @RichKacy⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ Tagswriting process, self-publishing, book marketing, Kindle free promotion, Facebook ads, Amazon ads, Claude AI, indie authors, mystery writing, book reviews, real estate, fantasy football, productivity, career reflection

  5. Aug 28 ·  Bonus

    A Dream Inspired My Next Murder Mystery (And It's a Little Soapy) | Ep 366

    This episode has a little bit of everything. Jerry keeps grinding through the edit of book three, technically hitting his "chapter 11" goal by splitting oversized chapters into smaller ones (a trick he's fully owning at this point). But the real highlight is a genuinely fun creative tangent: a vivid dream sparks the concept for a soap-opera-flavored murder mystery for book four, complete with secret affairs, swingers, a wedding gone wrong, and Jerry himself as the prime suspect — with careful attention to keeping it tonally consistent with his amateur-sleuth series rather than turning graphic. He also books a two-month winter stay in Myrtle Beach, then almost immediately starts wondering out loud whether he should just move there permanently, going as far as calling a realtor the very next day to start exploring what selling his house could look like. Along the way: a free Kindle promo launching September 1st, tweaks to his Facebook ad strategy using AI-generated image variations, a BookBub rejection, and a very excited detour into a long-awaited Star Wars strategy game release. Rich had another writing-light week but brings real texture: genuine frustration with feeling stagnant at his library job after two and a half years, teaching his first Canva video-editing class, prepping a Mary Shelley-themed quarterly bingo night, and weighing in on the growing author uproar over Meta's advertising platform changes. Oh, and they may have just invented chocolate lava cake mango ice cream. Contact UsJerry EvanoffEmail: ⁠jerry@jerryevanoff.com⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠rich@richkacy.com⁠BlueSky: @RichKacy⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ Tagswriting process, novel revision, mystery writing, self-publishing, book marketing, Facebook ads, Kindle free promotion, BookBub, indie authors, career reflection, real estate, Myrtle Beach, productivity, plotting

  6. Aug 22

    Buffalo Wild Wings Trivia, Skechers Deals, and a Slow Writing Week | Ep 365

    Both hosts admit up front this was a light writing week, and honestly, it makes for one of the more entertaining episodes. Jerry's stuck in his familiar Friday-Saturday-Sunday-writing, rest-of-the-week-nothing rut, though he does get real editing done on a tense "trapped on a mountain" chapter he's excited to read to his writers' club. He also goes deep on the strategy behind timing a BookBub submission against a Kindle Daily Countdown for book three's November release, and admits to a genuinely impressive (and borderline unhinged) side project: feeding Claude six years of his fantasy football league's ESPN history to build a live auction draft-tracking app and analyze everyone's bidding tendencies ahead of his 27-year-old league's draft. Rich, meanwhile, had a much stranger week — getting labeled a member of the Gestapo by an irate library patron over a phone-on-speaker incident, dealing with a self-appointed mahjong league enforcer, and, after digging into how Anthropic's new AI watermarking actually works, deciding he's done using AI for his own writing altogether. It's a good, honest conversation about what that watermarking really means for authors going forward. Also covered: a deep dive into what "BW3" actually stands for, a fantastic buy-one-get-one shoe deal, mango smoothies, and Jerry's early planning for a golf-focused winter escape to Myrtle Beach. Contact UsJerry EvanoffEmail: ⁠jerry@jerryevanoff.com⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠rich@richkacy.com⁠BlueSky: @RichKacy⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ Tagswriting process, novel revision, self-publishing, book marketing, BookBub, Kindle Daily Countdown, AI writing tools, Claude AI, AI watermarking, indie authors, library life, golf, productivity, winter travel

  7. Aug 15

    How Do You Make an Amateur Sleuth Believable to the Police? We Debate It | Ep 364

    This one starts with a genuinely useful craft conversation: Rich is stuck on how to make his amateur-sleuth protagonist believable when she's embedded with the police, and Jerry walks through how he solved the exact same problem across his own series — building real tension and a slow-earned trust with law enforcement instead of just handing his character access. From there it's a packed episode. Jerry's deep into the first revision of book three (and admits to a little chapter-splitting "cheating" to hit his weekly goal), locked in a three-year hosting renewal, and has somehow built or upgraded six separate Claude-coded apps in about a week and a half — a historical stats site for his 12-year-old golf league, a fantasy draft tendency tracker, a live auction-draft tool for his 27-year-old fantasy football league, and more. He's also building a dedicated no-distractions writing desk to fix his home-office focus problem. Rich's week was quieter — recovering from being sick, celebrating a 38th anniversary, going deep on mangoes, and realizing after years of listening to a favorite writing podcast that almost none of the guests actually make a full-time living from books. Then the two of them dig into real news: major AI companies moving to watermark AI-generated output, the EU regulation behind it, what it could mean for authors using AI, and (because of course) a tangent into philosophy, consciousness, and Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. Contact UsJerry EvanoffEmail: ⁠jerry@jerryevanoff.com⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠rich@richkacy.com⁠BlueSky: @RichKacy⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ Tagswriting process, novel revision, mystery writing, self-publishing, book marketing, AI writing tools, Claude AI, AI watermarking, indie authors, writers group, craft advice, golf, productivity, fantasy football

  8. Aug 7

    "Write Your Action Scenes in Reverse": The Best Writing Advice Jerry's Ever Gotten | Ep 363

    Two weeks off means twice the stats and twice the news in this one. Jerry closes out the first draft of book three — 45,512 words, 29 chapters, finished just two days after his own deadline — right in the middle of switching jobs and getting his driveway redone. He also shares real numbers from his book two Kindle Daily Countdown, which quietly outperformed his book one promo and is still generating page reads weeks later. Rich, recording this week as "Marcel Proust," has had a rougher stretch — sick, exhausted, barely writing, dozing off in his truck on lunch breaks — but the two of them dig into something bigger going on in the writing world: AI-detection tools like Pangram flagging (and sometimes wrongly canceling) authors, and where each of them personally lands on using AI in their process. Jerry's fully embraced it for everything except the actual prose; Rich is still wrestling with it. Along the way: a genuinely great piece of writing advice about staging action scenes in advance, new finance-tracking and blurb-storage features Jerry's building into his writing app, some very specific golf scores, a mysterious "Storycraft Academy" ad that may or may not be a scam, and Rich's ongoing battle with rock-hard, drought-baked fence post holes. Contact UsJerry EvanoffEmail: ⁠jerry@jerryevanoff.com⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠rich@richkacy.com⁠BlueSky: @RichKacy⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ Tagswriting process, novel revision, first draft, self-publishing, book marketing, Kindle Daily Countdown, AI writing tools, Claude AI, AI detection, indie authors, career change, writers group, productivity, golf

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

First time authors Jerry Evanoff and Rich Kacy take you through their writing, publishing and marketing strategies. You'll get to hear every success and every mistake along the way.

Information

  • Creator
    Jerry Evanoff
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2026
  • Episodes
    343
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Jerry Evanoff
  • Show Website
    New Author Podcast

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