Superstar Sale · Faceless Videos

Overview The rail The pick Policy gates Repos & infra Test results 🧪 Pair test plan

Overview

Playbook published + verified 2026-09-30Pipeline = test Round 1 · no channel yet

Verified foundation: Sleepless Historian (~700K subs on ~309 two-hour uploads), Monkey Mind 101 (307K subs on 26 videos), and the active "Your Life at Every Rank/Level of X" format cluster (Master POV, Lucas Grant, Biz Life POV, Willie Finance) all check out. The RPM ladder is independently confirmed ×3 sources — finance $10–25, sleep $3–8, gaming $1–5 — the same-sub-count 5x revenue spread is real. Revenue figures quoted by the source video are vidIQ's own estimates and are treated as directional only.

Discord channel	`#faceless` (Super Star Sale guild)
Playbook	format-cloning-youtube-playbook_2026-09-30 — `docs/research/` in the superstarsale repo
Rail	Playbook → format pick + 30-topic list → AI pipeline (script → TTS → ffmpeg assembly → thumbnail) → YouTube upload (unlisted staging → public) → AdSense RPM via YPP
Deadline	Feb 1, 2027 — new YPP applicants' watch-hour bar doubles (4,000h → 8,000h). Apply when green, before then.
Owner agents	`superstarsaledev` + `superstarsalemarketing`

Never apply to YPP below the thresholds: a declined review locks reapplication for ~30 days — the most expensive mistake available on this rail.

The rail (class procedure)

Verify the playbook before building. Channel examples, RPM ladder, and policy constraints checked against independent sources (done 2026-09-30 — see the playbook's verified-claims table). Never trust the video's own revenue numbers.
Pick ONE format + niche. The format must be a verified active cluster; the niche picked by RPM ladder math before video one. Bias: high-RPM storytelling formats that survive the no-advice rule.
Topic list first: 30 distinct, searchable subjects on one locked skeleton. The list is the inauthentic-content defense — same format forever, substance never repeated.
AI pipeline: script from the format template (storytelling, zero advice) → TTS voiceover → ffmpeg assembly (chapters, loudness-normalized) → thumbnail legible at phone size. Every artifact passes the policy gate before upload.
Staged upload: unlisted first, disclosure toggle ON, title pairtest-* for tests. Public only after the full pipeline survives end-to-end.
Mike steps (agent cannot do these): create the Google account + brand channel, pass 2FA, AdSense payee/tax, YPP application when green.
Run the loop: ship on cadence → track watch-hours vs 4,000h → apply to YPP before Feb 1, 2027 → after format-proof, clone the skeleton into the second channel — never two formats on one channel.

The pick (from the playbook's Recommended section)

Slot	Choice	Why
Format	POV narrative ladder — "Your Life at Every Rank/Level of X"	Verified active cluster; format proven transferable across jobs/wealth/samurai/banking; naturally story-shaped, so it dodges the AI-advice exclusion
Niche	Money/wealth history and storytelling ($10–15 RPM band)	High-RPM tier without advice content; evergreen; fully pipelineable
Dark horse	Betrayal/revenge story narration ($12.82 RPM, 21x growth signal)	Low competition, automatable; higher research cost per video
Phase-2 channel	Sleep/lean-back long-form ($3–8 RPM)	Watch-hour math is unbeatable for YPP thresholds (4,000 views ≈ 4,000h at 50% retention — 12x better than 10-min content); capped revenue makes it a threshold tool, not the income channel

Format-lock ≠ copy-paste: YouTube's July 16, 2026 inauthentic-content policy demonetizes at channel level for "same script structure re-rendered with different nouns". The skeleton repeats; every video's subject must stand alone.

Policy gates (verified 2026-09-30, enforced by the test plan)

AI disclosure on every upload — realistic synthetic voice requires the altered-content toggle at upload. Undisclosed = labels applied for you, up to YPP removal.
No advice, ever — the channel tells stories about wealth; it never advises. AI personas giving finance/health/legal advice are an explicit ad-revenue exclusion (July 2026 policy).
Substance-distinct — no two uploads cover the same or reskinned subject; the 30-topic list is the proof.
Borrowed authority must be real — every named entity in titles/scripts/thumbnails is real, searchable, and treated factually. Zero fabrication.
One niche per channel — and zero affiliate/store links here: this business monetizes via AdSense only (isolation from the IG rail cuts both ways).

Repos & infra

Thing	Value
Playbook + topic list	`docs/research/` in microspaces/superstarsale
Pipeline tooling (verified on this machine)	ffmpeg 9.0.1 (`C:/Users/mikeb/bin/ffmpeg`) · TTS via agent · yt_dlp (yta-venv) for research pulls · script/template generation agent-side
Staging	Unlisted YouTube uploads (link-accessible, unsearchable) — nothing public until the pipeline passes end-to-end
Money rail	AdSense + YPP only (Mike-only payee/tax/2FA steps) — no affiliate links on this rail
Issues	microspaces/superstarsale, label `pair-test` (until the pipeline gets its own repo)

🗂️ Roadmap

Live roadmap, managed as GitHub issues (superstarsale issues). Add or close items on GitHub — ☑ = done, close as “not planned” to remove.

Test results

🧪 Pair test plan — projects/superstarsale-faceless-videos-test-plan.html: the live two-tester walkthrough (playbook decisions / AI pipeline / channel & first publish / watch-hour rail / policy probes), with the results-and-issue log filled in as we go in the #faceless thread. Round 1 (Flows A+B) needs no accounts — it can start any session.

Verification to date: playbook published + live (HTTP 200, title verified 2026-09-30); channel examples and RPM ladder independently verified ×3 sources; watch-hour math computed (4,000 vs 48,000 views per 4,000h — 12x); policy constraints (AI disclosure, inauthentic content, no-advice, Feb 2027 doubling) multi-source confirmed.