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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: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠BlueSky: @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

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: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠BlueSky: @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

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: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠BlueSky: @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

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: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠BlueSky: @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

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: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠BlueSky: @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

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: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠BlueSky: @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

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: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠BlueSky: @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

Episode 362 opens with Jerry literally making a fantasy football draft pick mid-recording (Houston Texans defense, sixteenth round, no regrets), a genuinely funny multi-minute detour about Rich's display name blending into his window blinds, and then gets into some real news: as of July 31st, Jerry's current job no longer exists which means his whole writing-at-lunch routine is about to change. On the book side, Jerry's chugging through book three (now two-thirds done, 92% of his yearly word goal) while Rich has been squeezing writing time in between library patrons, hitting nearly 4,000 words on a genuinely tricky structural challenge: a dual-protagonist mystery told entirely from the secondary character's point of view, Watson-to-Holmes style, where you only ever see the main character through her actions. They dig into how Jerry's homemade writing app is evolving, a chapter-review feature that's started flagging when characters act out of type, editable AI personas, and a running list of tiny quality-of-life fixes. Jerry also shares real numbers from his second Kindle Daily Countdown: strong page reads, a higher-than-expected Facebook ad click-to-sale percentage, and cautious optimism about his marketing approach. Along the way: a rough round of golf, a driveway maybe getting redone, a subtropical thunderstorm scare tied to a childhood tornado story, and yet another entry in the ongoing cookie/snack addiction saga (Stouffer's potato bake this time, if you're keeping score). Contact Us Jerry EvanoffEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠BlueSky: @RichKacy⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ Tagswriting process, novel revision, self-publishing, book marketing, Kindle Daily Countdown, Facebook ads, AI writing tools, Claude AI, indie authors, discovery writing, mystery writing, career change, golf, productivity

Episode 361 kicks off with Rich recording under the alias Captain Beefheart for reasons nobody fully explains, a Steven Wright joke about the Grateful Dead, and Jerry teasing some mysterious "big news" he can't talk about yet (subscribe if you want to find out when he finally spills it). From there it's a genuinely packed episode. Jerry had a monster writing week — book three jumped over 9,000 words and he's now sitting at 85% of his yearly goal — and he keeps building out his in-house writing app, adding an import feature, a Kanban board, and a sneaky Claude-powered database check so he can see who's actually using it (spoiler: he's watching). Rich has been quietly writing again too, cranking out 4,400 words in the app and getting genuinely excited about a new project: a midlife-crisis trilogy called "A Series of Fortunate Disasters," a Nick Hornby/Bill Bryson-style comedic road novel set in Scotland, with the first book title, log line, and everything already sketched out. Along the way you get Jerry's writers' club pushing back on his new paranormal mystery direction, a rough patch of Ohio golf (an 87 followed by a soul-crushing 51 in brutal heat), a power outage that had Jerry crawling off his recliner like "a fat guy rolling off a chair," Rich's airline travel disaster trying to get his wife to Virginia, and both of them nerding out over AI models (Opus 8 vs. the new Sonnet vs. a mystery model called Kimi), email platforms (MailerLite's price hikes vs. Email Octopus), and marketing strategy (Kindle Daily Countdowns, promo stacks, Facebook ads). Oh, and there's a whole segment on bears eating salmon that Jerry cannot stop watching. It's a lot, but somehow it all still ties back to actually writing books. Contact UsJerry EvanoffEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠BlueSky: @RichKacyhttps://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ Tagswriting process, novel revision, self-publishing, book marketing, Kindle Daily Countdown, email marketing, AI writing tools, Claude AI, indie authors, writers club, developmental editing, productivity, golf, wildfire smoke

This week, Jerry finally has the kind of update that makes a writer breathe like a human again: real progress. Book 3 is moving. He adds 13,970 words over the last two weeks, pushes the manuscript past 21,000 words, gets about a third of the way through the rewrite, and starts sounding like somebody who can actually see the road instead of just the potholes. Which is nice, because for a while there this book sounded like it was trying to kill him in the woods and hide the body under developmental edits. A big chunk of the episode is Jerry walking through what that progress actually looked like. He talks about writing Chapters 8 through 11, building out the mountain-top data center setting, working through the locked-room mystery mechanics, and trying to hit his July 31 first-draft target. There’s also some fun process talk about his custom writing app, which he keeps improving while actively using it, because apparently rewriting a novel was not enough of a side quest on its own. Then there’s the AI stuff, which is honestly some of the funniest material in the episode. Jerry explains how Claude is now spinning up little helper agents for coding tasks, and instead of giving them boring technical names, he has it naming them after 80s TV characters. So now Higgins, Magnum P.I., Sonny Crockett, and MacGyver are apparently doing software support inside his writing workflow, which feels both deeply ridiculous and weirdly perfect. Rich has a quieter update, but not an empty one. He’s still fighting brutal heat, library understaffing, and the general life problem of never quite getting left alone long enough to write. But he does finally start again, putting some words down longhand on Thirteen Days of Madness, a Scotland-set project he describes as a more comedic cousin to Lost in Translation. So while Jerry is sprinting, Rich is at least back on the track, which counts. There’s also a lot of classic New Author Podcast life clutter in here: golf, library millage drama, Dairy Queen writing sessions, an ice cream cake victory lap, book club talk, Facebook ads for the next Kindle Countdown, driveway replacement plans, garden suffering, and the eternal mystery of what Substack is actually supposed to do for authors. In other words, a very normal week for two guys who are absolutely not making any of this look calm. Contact Us Jerry Evanoff Email: ⁠[email protected]⁠ Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠ ⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich Kacy Email: ⁠[email protected]⁠ BlueSky: @RichKacy ⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ Tags writing podcast self-publishing indie author mystery writing book rewriting writing process AI for writers Claude AI writing app Kindle Countdown Facebook ads Substack golf author life The New Author Podcast

This week, Jerry actually has real writing progress to report, which is nice, because lately Book 3 has felt like one long hostage situation involving outlines, rewrites, and editor notes. He adds 5,643 new words to Networking Murder, pushes his yearly total to 15,240, gets the green light from Super Editor Cee, and starts moving through the early chapters for real. So yes, the rewrite is still a monster, but at least now it is a monster with momentum. A lot of the episode lives in that weird middle space writers know too well, where progress is happening, but none of it feels clean. Jerry talks about drafting Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, figuring out how to open the story, balancing plotting with actual words on the page, and using his custom writing app to keep everything moving. He also gets into how AI tools inside VS Code are helping him improve the app on the fly, which is either a brilliant productivity move or the kind of side quest that programmers tell themselves is productivity. Probably both. Rich, meanwhile, is stuck in the creative mud. He talks about being in the doldrums, not writing, not editing, cleaning fountain pens, getting notebooks ready, and basically circling the runway while waiting for his brain to commit to takeoff. He has some new story ideas, and it sounds like he is close to jumping into something just to get moving again, but right now he is still in that familiar writer state where the work has not stopped existing, it has simply wandered into the fog and refused to answer questions. There is also plenty of regular-life chaos in this one. Jerry is running on fumes after a Paul Simon concert, a barking dog, almost no sleep, and three straight days of golf. He talks through the concert in a way that feels exactly right for an 84-year-old legend: a strange first set, a stronger second half, a fantastic encore, and the kind of traffic leaving the venue that makes you question every decision that brought you there. Rich has the opposite problem at the library, where the heat, the crowds, and a brutal solo day at the desk leave him feeling like he got worked over behind a woodshed. They also get into NFL nostalgia, World Cup fan clips, Substack confusion, vacation-property temptation in Myrtle Beach, and the ongoing truth that writer life never stays politely inside the writing lane. This episode feels like one of those honest midseason check-ins where nobody is pretending they have cracked the code, but both guys are still showing up, still thinking, and still trying to build something worth finishing. Contact UsJerry EvanoffEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠BlueSky: @RichKacy⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ Tagswriting podcastself-publishingindie authormystery writingbook rewritingwriting processAI for writersVS Codeauthor lifePaul SimongolfSubstackfootball nostalgiaThe New Author Podcast

This week, Jerry and Rich start out where all serious writing podcasts should: with World Cup fans losing their minds in America, Buc-ee’s getting the kind of free advertising money can’t buy, and the growing realization that half the internet is now just Europeans discovering that the United States is not, in fact, one long action-movie chase scene. So yes, before we get to books, there is a lot of joy, chaos, and international confusion. On the writing front, Jerry finally has some real progress to report. After what felt like endless plotting purgatory, he adds 1,744 new words to Book 3, Networking Murder, bringing his yearly total to 10,435. He talks about skipping Chapter 1 for the moment, writing Chapter 2 instead, and slowly getting this full rewrite to feel like an actual book instead of a giant outline glaring at him from across the room. There is still a mountain left to climb, but for the first time in a while, it sounds like forward motion instead of controlled panic. A big part of the episode is Jerry walking through the weird middle ground of rewriting Book 3 almost from scratch while also building tools to help himself do it faster. He talks about using AI inside VS Code to improve his writing app in real time, adding plotting features, fixing bugs, and generally trying to make the software match the mess in his head. So if you enjoy hearing an author say, “I’m under deadline, rewriting a novel, and naturally I decided this was also the time to improve my custom writing software,” this one is very on brand. Rich brings a very different kind of writing update, and honestly it is one of the more interesting conversations in the episode. He talks about hitting a wall with The Dark We Hide after a conversation with an old girlfriend who asked the most dangerous writer question possible: “Why are you writing this story?” That sends him into a spiral about theme, purpose, AI, literary fiction, and whether he is even working on the right kind of book. Throw in a papal document about artificial intelligence, and suddenly this episode becomes part writing update, part existential ambush. There is also plenty of regular-life chaos mixed in: Jerry dealing with dizziness, birthday celebrations, a golf schedule that finally looks normal again, a mystery plant gift called a red hot poker, football replay therapy for old Browns trauma, and Rich battling garden thieves that may or may not be possums eating his cantaloupes. In other words, the usual calm, dignified routine of two writers staying completely focused on their craft. Contact UsJerry EvanoffEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠BlueSky: @RichKacy⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ Tagswriting podcastself-publishingindie authormystery writingbook rewritingAI for writersVS Codewriting appliterary fictionWorld Cup fansauthor lifegolfstory structureThe New Author Podcast

This week, Jerry and Rich both show up looking like they’ve been dragged behind their own projects for a few miles. Rich is getting swarmed at the library now that school’s out and kids are pouring in for summer programs and free lunches, while Jerry is staring down the reality that Book 3 is no longer a revision job. It’s a full rebuild. So yes, this one has that fun “everything is under control if you don’t look too closely” energy from the jump. Jerry talks through where he is with the Sam Norris series, including the fact that Book 3 has basically been blown up and rebuilt from the foundation. The core murder setup, victim, and some character pieces are still there, but the structure, location, and a lot of the moving parts are changing. Which means he has about five months and change to write, revise, edit, and publish a brand-new version of the book. No pressure. Just the kind of light, relaxing summer challenge every writer dreams about when they make a preorder live too early. Rich, meanwhile, is deep in the weeds building AI writing agents to help him keep track of continuity, clue placement, character logic, and all the little details that try to sneak out the back door when you’re writing a mystery. He talks about the “co-author core,” the “continuity guardian,” the “puzzle keeper,” and how these tools are helping him revise The Dark We Hide one chapter at a time without turning the whole thing into bland machine mush. It’s actually one of the more interesting AI-for-writing conversations we’ve had, because this isn’t about having AI write the book. It’s about having AI act like the world’s most obsessive assistant editor. There’s also a lot of real-life author stuff packed in here: Jerry juggling a big weekend work install, golf finally returning after a wet spring, plotting at Buffalo Wild Wings, and playing old sports games whenever his brain needs a break; Rich trying to edit while the library turns into a summer zoo and while he keeps tinkering with 3D-printed train storage like a man who absolutely does not need another hobby. So this episode lands in a very honest place: writing is messy, revising is harder than drafting, and sometimes progress looks a lot like tearing the whole thing apart and trusting yourself to build it better the second time. Contact UsJerry EvanoffEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠ Rich KacyEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠BlueSky: @RichKacy⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠ Tagswriting podcastself-publishingindie authormystery writingbook rewritingdevelopmental editingAI for writerswriting toolsauthor lifelibrary lifeplotting novelssports simsgolfThe New Author Podcast

This week, Jerry and Rich show up for what Jerry calls “real podcasting,” which means no editing, a sagging microphone, and two writers trying to sound calm while both of them are standing in the middle of some very specific chaos. Jerry opens with the results of his recent promo run for Book 1: 98 total orders for the month, including 92 discounted copies of Book 1, 6 copies of Book 2, 1,037 page reads across the two books, and 4 preorders for Book 3. Not a moon landing, not a disaster, and very much the kind of real-world author math that can leave a person both encouraged and slightly annoyed at the same time. A big chunk of the episode is Jerry walking through what those marketing numbers actually mean. He talks about Facebook ads bringing in 286 clicks at about 33 cents each, a small number of direct sales from the ad, one sale from his email list, and the uncomfortable reality that Amazon rankings fall off a cliff the second the promo momentum slows down. There’s also a good conversation about cold email lists, pruning inactive subscribers, and the weirdness of trying to build real readers on Substack when the notes feed often looks like a convention of writers waving at other writers. Then the episode shifts into writing mode, and this is where things get spicy. Jerry is not gently revising Book 3. He is staring down what sounds an awful lot like a near-total rewrite. He talks about keeping the murderer, victim, and core backstory, but likely changing the setting and reshaping the whole thing into something more futuristic and AI-heavy, possibly involving a data-center-style environment and a trapped-in-place setup. So if you enjoy hearing an author describe the exact moment a book stops being “a draft that needs help” and becomes “a full summer project,” this episode absolutely has that energy. Rich brings his own form of chaos, which is much nerdier and honestly pretty great. He has gone deep into building custom AI writing agents, including a co-author core, a deep drafter, a continuity guardian, and a puzzle keeper. He explains how he’s feeding them system instructions, voice samples, genre guidance, and dynamic context so they can help challenge his writing, catch continuity problems, and track mystery clues instead of just smiling and telling him he’s brilliant. It is a very Rich Kacy update: part writing craft, part experiment, part beautiful descent into the weeds. There’s also some fun side-road stuff in here too: Jerry golfing between plot crises, buying unnecessary-but-clearly-necessary gear at Micro Center, playing old football board games, updating Etsy after a surprise multi-book order, and getting ready to appear on Dave Gardner’s gaming podcast. So this one lands in a nice honest place: part publishing recap, part writing reckoning, part AI lab experiment, and part two guys trying to keep all the plates spinning without dropping one on their own foot. Contact Us Jerry Evanoff Email: ⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠ Website: ⁠⁠https://jerryevanoff.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠ Rich Kacy Email: ⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠ ⁠BlueSky: @RichKacy⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠ Tags writing podcast self-publishing indie author Facebook ads Amazon attribution book marketing Substack AI writing tools Claude AI OpenRouter mystery writing book rewrite author life Etsy for authors The New Author Podcast

This week, Jerry is knee-deep in promo-stack numbers, Facebook ad stats, Amazon rankings, and the slow, humbling reality that book marketing rarely arrives like a fireworks show. Book 1 is in a Kindle Countdown deal, the promo sites are rolling, the emails are out, and the results are... fine. Not awful, not magical, and very much the kind of real-world author experience nobody puts on a motivational poster. Jerry breaks down what sold, what got clicked, what did not get opened, and why the long game still matters more than one big spike. Rich talks about his trip to the far north of Michigan, where he and his family watched hawk migration, saw thousands of blue jays, added a pile of lifers, and froze in weather that sounded more like late November than late May. So if you’ve ever wanted a writing podcast that can pivot from Amazon attribution links to birding in the Upper Peninsula, this episode has you covered. The writing side gets interesting too. Rich talks about building a Claude-based AI co-writer with system instructions, writing samples, and enough setup to make a normal person walk directly into the woods. He also experiments with Google Labs Flow to animate his book cover art for The Dark We Hide, which leads into a fun conversation about how weirdly good these tools are getting and how fast that shift is happening. It’s equal parts useful, exciting, and a little unsettling, which feels about right for AI in 2026. Jerry also gets into Book 3 plotting, feedback from Super Editor Cee, a possible paranormal edge to Chapter 1, and the ongoing process of trying to turn a decent mystery draft into something sharper and stronger before the real writing begins again. There’s also talk about Etsy orders, Amazon ads, an old babysitter buying books, and the possibility of going to Killer Nashville because apparently neither of these men knows how to have one hobby at a time. Contact Us Jerry Evanoff Email: ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠ Website: ⁠https://jerryevanoff.com ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://jerryevanoffauthor.substack.com/⁠⁠ Rich Kacy Email: ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠ ⁠BlueSky: @RichKacy⁠⁠ https://richkacy.substack.com/⁠⁠ Tags writing podcast self-publishing indie author Kindle Countdown Deal Facebook ads Amazon attribution book marketing Claude AI Google Labs Flow Substack bird watching mystery writing author life Killer Nashville The New Author Podcast