Calling Out the Shadows

Neal Winsomer
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Relationships
  • Updated Monthly

Calling Out the Shadows with Neal Winsomer is a Clarity Over Comfort  podcast that draws from the narrative, themes, and frameworks of  the book Calling Out the Shadows: A Father's Stand Against the  Current and continues them in conversation, episode by episode. The podcast is for anyone who may relate or recognize pieces of  their own story: - Fathers and mothers inside high-conflict co-parenting situations - Family members close to the dynamic - Family law professionals, therapists, and consultants working    with clients in contested custody or post-divorce conflict - Co-parenting advocates and content creators building tools and    resources in this space - Authors writing memoir, practical guides, or sensitive stories    of their own - Anyone working to bring a sensitive story forward with clarity    and protection Topics explored in episodes include: - High conflict communication: going more in depth with the    deflective and evasive communication patterns identified inside    the book, including DARVO, gaslighting, parental alienation,    and others - AI-supported court documentation frameworks for self-represented    parents and family law professionals - Co-parenting with a narcissist: parenting plan approaches and    ways to prepare, negotiate, and modify a plan inside high-conflict    dynamics - Working through and building AI prompts for documentation,    communication review, and court preparation - Pattern recognition and protected narrative work for protecting,    telling, and publishing sensitive stories - The four points that anchor the work: clarity over comfort,    transparency over secrecy, structure over spin, love over anger This is not a how-to show. It is not a venting show. It is one  person's subjective account of what he did, why it held up, and  how the framework behind it might apply to others. No claims to  expertise. No prescriptions. What you take from it is entirely yours. The book Calling Out the Shadows: A Father's Stand Against the  Current is available June 16, 2026 in paperback, hardcover, eBook,  audiobook, large print, and a Skimmer's Edition. NealWinsomer.com NealWinsomerPublishing.com

Episodes

  1. The Book Club Email That Can Cost You Even If You Say No

    4d ago

    The Book Club Email That Can Cost You Even If You Say No

    A wave of fake "book club" emails is hitting indie author inboxes, and one reply is enough to make it worse. In this episode I share what is happening in my own inbox, what the scam template looks like, and the rules I am using to handle it. What some scammers are doing: - Generic praise that lifts from your Amazon back cover, never the actual book - A fee ask framed as a "contribution" so it does not read like payment - Zelle, Venmo, CashApp, gift cards, or crypto requests, never PayPal Business or Stripe - Fake personas that imitate real book club organizers, with email addresses at gmail, yahoo, or hotmail A simple rule: if a book club is asking you for money, it is not a book club. And if you reply just to say no, you have already paid them in a different currency, your inbox. More red flags I did not get to in the audio: - Replying triggers about a 10x spam spike. Your address gets resold within 48 hours. - The unsubscribe link is bait. Clicking confirms the address is monitored. Block and delete. - Membership claims in the hundreds or thousands. Real in-person clubs run 6 to 12; real online clubs run 20 to 50. - AI-generated profile photos that look like stock faces. Reverse image search returns nothing. - Pressure close: "we are featuring you Friday, payment needed Wednesday." Real clubs work weeks out. - Same-day or next-day follow-up after you replied. Real organizers reply to your reply; scammers re-spam. - After you pay: scammer ghosts, or AI-written reviews appear and Amazon removes them as fake, or they come back demanding more. - Escalation pattern: fake invoices, fake DMCA notices, fake publisher pitches, fake film options. Same ring, different mask. - Named scams to watch for: Manhattan Book Club (MBC), Goodreads 2026 Reading Challenge group impersonators, fake versions of Silent Book Club (a real org being spoofed). How to verify a real club: - Find the Meetup page, library page, or organization site independently. Do not click links in the email. - Search the club name plus city in quotes. Look for prior author features and confirm with those authors directly. - Check ALLi Watchdog at allianceindependentauthors.org/watchdog for known scams and verified-legitimate services. Where to report: - Phishing flag in your email provider - FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov - Writer Beware via the SFWA site - ALLi Watchdog Desk Calling Out the Shadows: A Father's Stand Against the Current by Neal Winsomer is a memoir and a manual. Available in paperback, hardcover, ebook, audiobook author-narrated by Neal Winsomer, large print, and a skimmer's edition. Calling Out the Shadows with Neal Winsomer. A Clarity Over Comfort Podcast. Consider following the show for new episodes. NealWinsomer.com NealWinsomerPublishing.com info@nealwinsomer.com This episode includes AI-generated content.

    5 min
  2. Pay for Play Book Awards and the Award Winning Lie

    May 28

    Pay for Play Book Awards and the Award Winning Lie

    The pay for play book award system bothers Neal Winsomer, and he is not paying for an award to stick on this book. Episode 06 of Calling Out the Shadows: A Clarity Over Comfort Podcast. Neal Winsomer looks at the pay-for-play book award model where authors pay $20 to $200 to be nominated, and where many of the systems state on their own websites that every entrant at least lands runner-up. The line between "award-winning" and "paid to be nominated" gets drawn. The episode covers: The pay-for-play book award model and the $20 to $200 nomination-fee rangeAward-system websites that print "you will at least be runner-up" on the page itselfThe credibility gap between paid awards and juried awards earned without paymentThe marketing trade-off Neal is making by refusing to buy a bestseller ranking, a paid award, or any pay-to-win labelA case for marketing and messaging with honesty, transparency, and love instead of false presenceA direct call to stand in authority, authenticity, and transparency, not pay-for-playIf Calling Out the Shadows ever carries an award, it was earned without paying for it. Available on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, and other podcast platforms. Calling Out the Shadows with Neal Winsomer. A Clarity Over Comfort Podcast. Consider following the show for new episodes. NealWinsomer.com NealWinsomerPublishing.com info@nealwinsomer.com This episode includes AI-generated content.

    5 min
  3. 10 months down and one month to go.

    May 21

    10 months down and one month to go.

    Episode 05 of Calling Out the Shadows: A Clarity Over Comfort Podcast. Neal Winsomer marks the ten-month point in the journey from blank page to release. The first paperback proof landed in his hand and the case for tracking the process gets made. The other day Amazon showed up with the first paperback proof of the book. Neal started this journey on July 15th of last year. The proof landed in his hands on May 15th. Ten months in. One month and a day to go. There are many people right now that talk about using the abuse of AI or using AI to an abusive standpoint. And then there are others out there saying, no, I do not use it that way. Well, how? Prove it. One of the things Neal wanted to do, and did from the first day, was track his writing time. He can show on a calendar the last 10 months and the writing time, the editing time, the audiobook recording time, the layout work, all of it. As mentioned at the top of the book: 999 hours and 9 minutes. Not a vanity number. There is a point to it. Not trying to be perfect, but being human, and wanting to stop at a certain point. Those last 9 minutes mattered. This brief episode covers: - Ten months in, one month out, and what the proof in hand felt like - Tracking writing time, editing time, audiobook recording time, layout time as proof of concept - 999 hours and 9 minutes, not as a vanity number, but as the record of the work - 51 hours of recording for a 14-hour audiobook, not in the greatest of health, but it was all him - The proof of concept the tracked log gives, versus the people who say "I put in hundreds of hours" with no way to know - Why tracing the journey and blueprinting it brings something different to the validity and authenticity of the work - An invitation for anyone writing, recording, creating: consider tracking it Consider marking that journey and laying out that journey. Other people might be intrigued or engaged with the journey, with the time, with the experience as a whole. Available on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast platforms. Calling Out the Shadows with Neal Winsomer. A Clarity Over Comfort Podcast. Consider following the show for new episodes. NealWinsomer.com NealWinsomerPublishing.com info@nealwinsomer.com This episode includes AI-generated content.

    5 min
  4. Amazon Best Seller Claims and What's Really Behind Them

    May 20

    Amazon Best Seller Claims and What's Really Behind Them

    Bestseller is one of the easiest claims to buy and one of the hardest to earn. Episode 04 of Calling Out the Shadows: A Clarity Over Comfort Podcast. Neal Winsomer breaks down the Amazon bestseller scam, what a real bestseller looks like, and how to catch a fake claim before it sells you on someone who has not earned the title. Amazon has over 16,000 book categories. Many of those categories sell only a few copies per day, and Amazon's bestseller calculation runs every hour and resets every hour. Whoever sells the most copies in a given category in the last hour wins the orange number one bestseller banner for that category. In 2016, entrepreneur Brent Underwood uploaded a picture of his bare foot to Amazon. No story. No words. Just the foot. Priced at the 99 cent minimum, listed in two of Amazon's smallest, lowest-traffic categories, and bought three times by Underwood himself. Within minutes the orange number one bestseller banner appeared on the page. Screenshot taken. Forever after, he could claim Amazon bestseller author. This brief episode walks through: - How the Amazon bestseller calculation actually works and why it makes the scam easy - Sharing the Brent Underwood case as the canonical proof - What a real bestseller looks like (sustained sales velocity, hundreds to thousands of organic reviews, sales ranks that stay low for an extended period) - Some ways to catch a fake claim by checking the global Best Sellers Rank on the book's product page (real deal under 5,000; fraud over 300,000) - Some ways to audit the category the author claims by looking at the number two and three books in that same category - Where to vet beyond Amazon: Goodreads reviews and discussion threads, Writer Beware at writerbeware.blog, the ALLi Watchdog at selfpublishingadvice.org, Authors Guild scam alerts at authorsguild.org, and a reverse search of the author's name plus "scam" or "ResultSource" Stop letting marketing manipulation trick you. Real bestsellers sell to thousands of global readers, not 10 people in a hidden database node. The orange banner is marketing, not proof. Expect more. Dig deeper. See past the shadows of what people are really doing to promote online. Available on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast platforms. Calling Out the Shadows with Neal Winsomer. A Clarity Over Comfort Podcast. Consider following the show for new episodes. NealWinsomer.com NealWinsomerPublishing.com info@nealwinsomer.com This episode includes AI-generated content.

    5 min
  5. You Don't Need to Read, Buy, or Review My Book

    May 17

    You Don't Need to Read, Buy, or Review My Book

    You Don't Need to Read, Buy, or Review My Book. Episode 03 of Calling Out the Shadows: A Clarity Over Comfort Podcast. Author Neal Winsomer on choosing not to ask readers to read, buy, or review his upcoming book. Neal opens: "You don't need to read my book, you don't need to buy my book, and you don't need to review my book. I doubt my book will change your life." He questions why authors let subjective claims about a reader's response come off as objective truths, and shares why he is not asking for five stars. Calling Out the Shadows: A Father's Stand Against the Current is available June 16, 2026, in paperback, hardcover, eBook, audiobook, Library Audio Edition, large print, and the Skimmer's Edition. Calling Out the Shadows with Neal Winsomer. A Clarity Over Comfort Podcast. Consider following the show for new episodes. NealWinsomer.com NealWinsomerPublishing.com info@nealwinsomer.com This episode includes AI-generated content.

    5 min
  6. When the Lie Becomes the Truth She Knows

    May 12

    When the Lie Becomes the Truth She Knows

    Calling Out the Shadows: A Clarity Over Comfort Podcast, Episode 02. Listen to Neal Winsomer walk through what happens inside narcissistic personality disorder when pathological lying crosses the line from deliberate deception into the person's own belief. He shares his experience watching his ex-wife construct narratives over time that, at some point, became absolute and undeniable to her, regardless of evidence to the contrary. The audio episode separates two patterns: lies the speaker knows are lies, and lies the speaker has so thoroughly committed to that they read as truth in her own mind. Examples include being shown a text in real time and being told "you edited my text," and the slow accumulation of crafted narratives that no longer respond to evidence. There is something inside NPD, an element of cognitive dissonance, that lets a person genuinely believe their own constructed truth. Comfort to me would have said argue the lie out of her. A Clarity Over Comfort approach says step back, document, and let a third party hold the picture instead. Calling out the shadows is not about winning the room with a narcissist. It is about leaving a trail others can read. Calling Out the Shadows: A Father's Stand Against the Current is available June 16, 2026 in paperback, hardcover, eBook, audiobook, Library Audio Edition, large print, and a Skimmer's Edition. Length: 504 pages. Audiobook runtime: 14 hours 9 minutes, author narrated. Calling Out the Shadows with Neal Winsomer. A Clarity Over Comfort Podcast. Consider following the show for new episodes. NealWinsomer.com NealWinsomerPublishing.com info@nealwinsomer.com

    5 min
  7. Welcome to Calling Out the Shadows: A Clarity Over Comfort Podcast

    Apr 29

    Welcome to Calling Out the Shadows: A Clarity Over Comfort Podcast

    Welcome to Calling Out the Shadows with Neal Winsomer, a Clarity Over Comfort Podcast. This first episode introduces the show: what it is, what it isn't, who it's for, and what's coming. The podcast draws from the narrative, themes, and frameworks of the book Calling Out the Shadows: A Father's Stand Against the Current, and continues them in conversation, episode by episode.  Topics this season will explore include high conflict communication, co-parenting with a narcissist, parental alienation, AI-supported court documentation, pattern recognition, parenting plan approaches, working through and building AI prompts for documentation and court preparation, and protected narrative work for protecting, telling, and publishing sensitive stories. This is not a how-to show. It is not a venting show. It is one person's subjective account of what he did, why it held up, and how the framework behind it might apply to others. No claims to expertise. No prescriptions. What you take from it is entirely yours. The book Calling Out the Shadows: A Father's Stand Against the Current is available June 16, 2026 in paperback, hardcover, eBook, audiobook, large print, and a Skimmer's Edition. Calling Out the Shadows with Neal Winsomer. A Clarity Over Comfort Podcast. Consider following the show for new episodes. NealWinsomer.com NealWinsomerPublishing.com info@nealwinsomer.com

    5 min
  • 7 Episodes

About

Calling Out the Shadows with Neal Winsomer is a Clarity Over Comfort  podcast that draws from the narrative, themes, and frameworks of  the book Calling Out the Shadows: A Father's Stand Against the  Current and continues them in conversation, episode by episode. The podcast is for anyone who may relate or recognize pieces of  their own story: - Fathers and mothers inside high-conflict co-parenting situations - Family members close to the dynamic - Family law professionals, therapists, and consultants working    with clients in contested custody or post-divorce conflict - Co-parenting advocates and content creators building tools and    resources in this space - Authors writing memoir, practical guides, or sensitive stories    of their own - Anyone working to bring a sensitive story forward with clarity    and protection Topics explored in episodes include: - High conflict communication: going more in depth with the    deflective and evasive communication patterns identified inside    the book, including DARVO, gaslighting, parental alienation,    and others - AI-supported court documentation frameworks for self-represented    parents and family law professionals - Co-parenting with a narcissist: parenting plan approaches and    ways to prepare, negotiate, and modify a plan inside high-conflict    dynamics - Working through and building AI prompts for documentation,    communication review, and court preparation - Pattern recognition and protected narrative work for protecting,    telling, and publishing sensitive stories - The four points that anchor the work: clarity over comfort,    transparency over secrecy, structure over spin, love over anger This is not a how-to show. It is not a venting show. It is one  person's subjective account of what he did, why it held up, and  how the framework behind it might apply to others. No claims to  expertise. No prescriptions. What you take from it is entirely yours. The book Calling Out the Shadows: A Father's Stand Against the  Current is available June 16, 2026 in paperback, hardcover, eBook,  audiobook, large print, and a Skimmer's Edition. NealWinsomer.com NealWinsomerPublishing.com

Information

  • Creator
    Neal Winsomer
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    7
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Neal Winsomer. All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Calling Out the Shadows