New Author Podcast

About New Author Podcast

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.

Publisher

Jerry Evanoff

Category

arts

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

30 Jun 2019

Latest episode

17 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

345 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   17 Oct 2026

   Eliminating “Just” From My Novel (And Other Banned Words) | Ep 372

   Jerry’s deep in his final revision of book three — up to chapter 10 of 43, hunting down “band words” like just, actually, and glanced that sneak into his prose without him noticing, then running each chapter through a layered process of text-to-speech listening, AI grammar review, and ElevenLabs narration before calling it done. He also gets a rude pricing surprise: the discounted ElevenLabs voice rate he’d been using quadrupled the moment a promotional window ended, meaning the audiobook experiment is going to cost considerably more than planned. On the marketing side, he rebuilds his Facebook ad strategy for an upcoming Kindle Daily Countdown using real conversion data pulled straight from Facebook’s own ad chatbot, narrowing his audience, front-loading the budget, and adding a couple of new interest targets, while also sharing a genuinely great month of paperback sales through Draft2Digital. Rich had an eventful week of his own: watching an honest-to-goodness delivery drone drop a package from ten feet in the air on the same day he was expecting his wife’s new MacBook. He also installed Linux on an old laptop and promptly losing two days to antivirus troubleshooting, an ambitious (and ultimately abandoned) attempt to build an AI photo-organizing agent, a concerning thyroid lab result, a lively book club discussion of a surprise bestseller, and the news that he’s heading into federal jury duty on Monday with absolutely no idea what his week looks like. Also: Kit Kats, Halloween candy by the bagful, and a debate over whether software subscriptions are a dying business model. Contact Us Jerry Evanoff Email: ⁠jerry@jerryevanoff.com (mailto:jerry@jerryevanoff.com)⁠ Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠ (https://jerryevanoff.com%E2%81%A0) ⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ (https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/%E2%81%A0) Rich Kacy Email: ⁠rich@richkacy.com (mailto:rich@richkacy.com)⁠ BlueSky: @RichKacy ⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ (https://richkacy.substack.com/%E2%81%A0) Tags writing process, novel revision, self-publishing, book marketing, Facebook ads, AI narration, Claude AI, indie authors, Linux, book recommendations, library life, productivity, craft advice

2. 

   10 Oct 2026

   I Let Claude Build My Website While I Watched TV | Ep 371

   Big milestone episode: Jerry officially finishes the latest revision of book three at 61,718 words and 43 chapters, then dives straight into his final draft pass. He also hands Claude Code a five-file plan for his reader-engagement mystery puzzle website and literally just... watches it build the whole thing from the couch, which is somehow both the most normal and most science-fiction moment of his week. The real highlight, though, is his deep dive into AI narration: after discovering wildly different per-voice pricing on ElevenLabs, he finds a cheap, older-sounding “southern” voice he loves, builds full text-to-speech into his writing app, and creates a complete AI-narrated version of chapter one — which he shares a link to in the show notes and is seriously considering selling as a budget alternative to the $5,000 professional narrators he can’t afford. He also admits he’s probably done with his writers’ club after skipping three straight months, walks through a genuinely fascinating session where he fed Facebook’s own ad chatbot data and then had Claude interpret the results to build a sharper October ad campaign, and shares some surprising demographic findings about exactly who’s buying his books. Rich had a quieter week — planting a fall garden, finally getting his new table saw assembled, treating his wife to a new laptop, and delivering a brutally honest, pretty funny review of his disappointing book club pick. He also shares some real excitement about a new in-person author conference opening up in Texas next spring, headlined by a few recognizable indie-publishing names. Jerry's Chapter 1 - AI-Created Audiobook: https://jerryevanoff.com/books/networking-murder (https://jerryevanoff.com/books/networking-murder) Contact Us Jerry Evanoff Email: ⁠jerry@jerryevanoff.com (mailto:jerry@jerryevanoff.com)⁠ Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠ (https://jerryevanoff.com%E2%81%A0) ⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ (https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/%E2%81%A0) Rich Kacy Email: ⁠rich@richkacy.com (mailto:rich@richkacy.com)⁠ BlueSky: @RichKacy ⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ (https://richkacy.substack.com/%E2%81%A0) Tags writing process, novel revision, self-publishing, book marketing, Facebook ads, AI narration, Claude AI, indie authors, audiobooks, book recommendations, author conferences, productivity, golf

3. 

   3 Oct 2026

   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 Us Jerry Evanoff Email: ⁠jerry@jerryevanoff.com (mailto:jerry@jerryevanoff.com)⁠ Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠ (https://jerryevanoff.com%E2%81%A0) ⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ (https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/%E2%81%A0) Rich Kacy Email: ⁠rich@richkacy.com (mailto:rich@richkacy.com)⁠ BlueSky: @RichKacy ⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ (https://richkacy.substack.com/%E2%81%A0) Tags writing process, novel revision, self-publishing, book marketing, reader engagement, Claude AI, indie authors, home renovation, book recommendations, library life, fantasy football, productivity, golf

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

8,427

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

8 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 77 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

92

Social presence

0

YouTube

74

Engagement

81

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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