Jerry opens this one by botching the intro, confessing to eating Cocoa Pebbles for dinner, and then casually announcing he’s trying to enjoy January in Ohio while snow buries his driveway. So yeah, the bar is high.
In this episode of The New Author Podcast, Jerry and Rich catch up after 16 days and talk about:
Writing & Editing Chaos
Jerry is in the home stretch on Book 2 of his murder mystery series, wrestling the climax chapters (40 & 41) into shape while Word reads the book back to him in a robot voice.
He’s using read-aloud for line edits, then planning a full Grammarly + ProWritingAid pass before sending the manuscript to his editor by December 14th.
Rich is 60k+ words into his Marlowe thriller, averaging huge 3k+ writing sessions on his good days, and accidentally turning his outline into a 100k monster. Dialogue bloat? Oh yes. Future-Rich will cut it.
Process Talk: Word Count, Structure & Overwriting On Purpose
Jerry talks about hitting his yearly word-count goal and still pushing to draft at least one brand-new novel next year while primarily editing and publishing.
Rich explains why he’s deliberately overwriting now (all those side trails and conversations) so he can trim later and keep the good stuff—settings, emotions, subtext—while hacking away the “two people sitting in a room talking forever” problem.
Tech & Tools: Read-Aloud, Headphones, and 11Labs Regret
Jerry moves from earbuds to Beats headphones and falls in love with letting Word read the whole novel to him, catching all the missing little words the brain smooths over.
He looks at 11Labs for text-to-speech, realizes the token system might not cover a full novel the way he wants, and backs away before his wallet cries harder than his characters.
Marketing Panic: QR Codes, Reedsy & Cover Credits
Jerry discovers the harsh truth that some QR codes can “expire” depending on the service, panics, and drops $140 to keep his codes alive for a year—after he already printed notebooks and bookmarks that point to /next.
He dives into Reedsy looking for a legit, vetted marketing strategist who can help him plan a long-term launch strategy for his nine-book mystery series. So far? One partial hit, multiple declines, one ghosting.
On the plus side, he remembers he bought cover credits from 100Covers… twice. Result: six full cover credits in the bank. Book 3, 0.5, 1.5, and more are covered (pun absolutely intended).
Board Games, Bowling Leagues & Black Friday Damage
Jerry goes hard on the PLAAY.com Black Friday sale: horse racing, hockey, bowling, and extra components for golf and baseball
Rich reminisces about terrifying long-haul drives loaded on creatine + bad coffee, hallucinating Rod Serling on the hood of the car back in the day. Perfect thriller-writer origin story.
Life Stuff: Travel, Snow, Fantasy Football & Bureaucracy
Rich and his wife do a 17-hour overnight haul from Virginia to Louisiana towing a van, survive on stimulant coffee, and wake to DMV forms built on what appears to be the Ghost of Napoleon’s Civil Code.
Jerry fights “heart attack snow” on his driveway in Ohio, tries not to rage at winter before Christmas.
If you like hearing two working writers talk honestly about drafting too long, trimming too late, obsessing over word counts, buying way too many games, and trying to market an epic multi-book mystery series without losing their minds, this one’s for you.
Keywords (Spotify / SEO)
writing podcast, indie author podcast, self-publishing, mystery series, thriller writing, word count goals, editing process, read-aloud editing, Grammarly, ProWritingAid, Reedsy marketing, QR code mistake, 100Covers, Black Friday haul, PLAAY.com games, bowling league, fantasy football, long-haul road trip, library job, indie author life
Contact Us
Jerry Evanoff
Website: jerryevanoff.com
Email: jerry@jerryevanoff.com
Facebook: facebook.com/JerryEvanoffAuthor
Rich Kacy
Website: richkacy.com
Email: rich@richkacy.com