Xplisset Substack Sunday Rollup

What you missed. What it meant. What’s next.

Xplisset Substack Sunday Rollup: What you missed. What it meant. What’s next.

Quick house note up top here.

The furnace heat issue is fixed. The heat came back on Thursday. Thank you for the well wishes. Lemme tell ya I felt them I felt them I felt them.

And yes, metaphorically, the algorithm got cold on me too. Not enough to throw me under the bus, I’m still checkmarked, but three days of radio silence did damage in the simplest way possible: unsubscribes started outrunning subscriptions.

There’s also a weird phenomenon other Substackers with sizable audiences talk about, and I’m seeing it up close. The more you publish, the more you accelerate the rate of unsubscribes. Publishing still brings in revenue when you have a real audience. The hope is that the subscriptions you gain from publishing offset the unsubscribes that publishing triggers. This week reminded me that the math is not automatic.

So I’m saying this plainly.

I need your continued support.

Why there were no Blackout Briefs or Spin Spectrum pieces

This week, the gap wasn’t a lack of intention. It was logistics and life.

The furnace went down. I went quiet. The publication went quiet.

And the platform, like any platform, notices silence.

Here’s what the regular columns are, for newcomers.

Blackout Briefs are my “don’t let this disappear” posts. Tight, fast, and focused. The story the public should have gotten, but didn’t.

Spin Spectrum is the slower work. It’s where I map how the same event gets framed across different realities, what gets emphasized, what gets omitted, and what emotion the framing is trying to activate.

Those pieces are resuming.

The economics of keeping XVOA alive

Free subscribers who cannot commit financially, restack, restack, restack. You’ve been doing that. It has kept a downtrend from turning into a free fall. Thank you.

Monthly paid subscriptions keep me afloat during the dry spells.

I tell my wife, God forbid if something happened and I could not post for a month, most of the bills on my end would still get paid and we would keep a roof over our heads. I’d take a hit in subscribers, but we would get through that month.

So a real shout out and thank you to my monthly paying subs.

Yearly subscriptions are different. They are an injection of growth that buys time.

That is equipment.

That is maintaining equipment.

That is the software subscriptions that keep this operation moving.

I’m going to refrain from turning this into a full call to action, even though XVOA is sinking toward the red zone.

The strategy over the next few days is to publish work so unmistakably high caliber that it makes the support feel obvious.

I will not seek sponsors.

I’m going to keep this thing free, free, free.

And yes, I want to put our progressive ideals to the test.

In a world where the rest of us subsidize the rich with tax breaks, I want this one little corner of the internet to run on a different kind of economy.

Now here’s the exception.

I cannot throw excerpts from my novel in progress, The War After War, out onto the open internet without guardrails.

Author Room

The Author Room itself is open to everyone.

The section containing direct excerpts from the book will be paywalled.

Those who have signed up for the Author Room, I thank you, here is the list.

James

David Gardiner

Frank Talk, Jr.

M J Zupan

Diane Love (St Petersburg FL)

Deborah Hyppa

Anne Harrison

Grace

Thomas N. Lee

The first 20 will not only get access to the excerpts.

They will also get the signed published novel first.

And they will get a mention in the novel.

And let’s not mince words.

If I had a finished manuscript right now, and I put out a query letter stating I’ve got a platform of over 4,000 subscribers, with paid supporters already committed, I’m going to get representation. Some literary agent is going to bite. Proof of readership changes the conversation.

Here is the strategy going forward.

At some point in the next few weeks I’m going to devote seven straight days to finishing the manuscript.

There will not be radio silence like the furnace fiasco.

There will be at least one Author Room update a day with excerpts and progress.

And listen, if you want a mental picture of what I’m building here, imagine being able to subscribe to a Substack style newsletter while George Lucas (WTF, did I just compare myself to George Lucas? Palpatine, please do not Force choke me.) was still conceptualizing Star Wars. Not the finished myth. The messy becoming. The drafts, the choices, the false starts, the breakthroughs.

The video plan

This XVOA Substack right here started on top of the remnants of a dead YouTube channel of the same name. I’m a writer. I’m still working the improvisation muscle.

Here is the boundary that keeps this from becoming a bait and switch.

Every livestream is based on a post in this publication.

The essay remains the primary product.

The video is optional.

And each finished livestream will include a readable transcript formatted for clarity, so you do not have to watch the video.

Already, with just two live videos in the can, the subscriber bump showed up right here on Substack, about three times the new subscribers compared to the essays they are based on.

Not because video is better, but because a live event changes how people experience the post, and how Substack surfaces it.

A lot of subscribers are readers, not passive video viewers. I get that. If you do not like videos, do not worry. I am still going to keep pumping out these essays. Just know the videos sometimes add clarifying points, and sometimes guests and interviews that give a different angle on what I wrote. If you do not want to watch, check the transcript.

If you have an active YouTube account, I have one ask. Go to my YouTube channel, subscribe, and like the video. Here’s why. And here’s why: YouTube needs a burst of real simultaneous activity to relearn who to show the channel to. If even five of us converge at the same time for five minutes, watch, like, subscribe, and maybe drop one quick comment, it gives the system enough signal to start testing it again instead of treating it like a ghost town.

So listen, if you have not watched the video, and you have an active YouTube account watch it there:

Don Lemon Arrested.

A Coordinated Mindf*** In Plain Sight?

That YT channel will be used as a top funnel to bring new subscribers here, and to reach the people who, like me a year ago, would never set foot on Substack.

What’s coming next

Tonight.

My first excerpt release for The War After War.

Next.

A Spin Spectrum analysis of the latest Epstein files drop.

Also on deck.

A piece asking whether the FBI is intentionally leaking unredacted files, if my research finds a there there.

One small ask, depending on where you are

If you can’t pay, restack.

If you can pay monthly, thank you for keeping the floor under this work.

If you can go yearly, you are literally buying time and growth.

And if you feel moved to finally get off the fence, no, not you who has already committed to well deserving writers.

I’m talking to you who just dropped a twenty on some late night impulse buy you barely remember.

Thank you for being here.

Trust me, I’m going to earn it this week.