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Blazing Trails
EDITOR'S NOTE: Welcome to our first Sunday edition. We could tell you what this is—but we’ll just show you.
Kick back, take a read, and hit reply to let us know what you think—we want to make this worth your Sunday.
SUNDAY STORY
Why Kraig Adams Made His Videos Private
Kraig Adams
The hiking YouTuber takes the road less traveled when it comes to content—making videos with minimal dialogue and not participating in short-form. “I enjoy long-form videos, I don’t know if it’s good or bad for the algorithm or making money.” Adams said in a recent podcast. “I’m just trying to create the best thing I want to create.”
Most of his videos are over an hour long and feature hiking destinations set to ambient music.
Adams started making hiking content in 2016. Two years later, he was nominated by the Shorty Awards for breakout YouTuber with nearly 50,000 subscribers. Today he has over 650,000.
He recently started utilizing the membership feature on YouTube where subscribers can join for $10/month. They gain access to his archive with hundreds of videos, travel vlogs, and gear reviews. For those interested in filmmaking, the archives reveal how his style has changed over the years and provide material for how to be a YouTube creator.
He continues to expand his members-only library on a regular basis, with q&as and archives of livestreams. YouTube highlights members so they stand out in the livestreams and comments, and allows him track who they are and how long they’ve been supporting.
Our Take
Most YouTube creators opt for subscription sites like Patreon or Subify instead of launching a membership on YouTube. This is because YouTube takes 30% of the transaction and a site like Patreon lands somewhere between 5% and 12% depending on the plan.
Additionally, YouTube audiences have come to expect free, ad-supported content, making them less likely to take out a credit card for their favorite creators. Kraig is using Channel Memberships in a clever way we've never seen before by putting his library behind the paywall. What he may lose in discoverability, he could gain in revenue.
🤝 CREATOR SUPPORT
Publish Press readers share a problem they're facing and creators and Colin & Samir respond with their advice.
Q: What do you do if you have a large following but want to make a content pivot? What is the best way to do so without losing mass amounts of viewers in the process?
A: You can go about it a couple of ways—creators can start another channel, like what Corridor did with Corridor Crew, and what Dylan Hyper did with his Dylan channel. Or you can prepare your audience ahead of time by letting them in on why you’re changing, documenting the process, and what they can expect leading up to the new content.
This is actually something we did with The Colin and Samir Show. The first 10 episodes were made on our second channel so we could experiment with the format and the process. Once we got it down, we brought it to the main channel and now, one year later, it’s our main format.
It’s definitely scary but it’s even scarier to keep doing a format that you no longer want to create.
Changing in public is the competitive advantage that creators have over more traditional media. When audiences get to grow with you, it builds a true community that will stick with you wherever you go.
Facing a creator problem you want help with? Share it here→
🤔 DID YOU KNOW?
Matt D'Avella / The Publish Press
Matt D’Avella has doubled his Instagram Reels performance since January.
D’Avella initially started posting Reels in November with a quantity over quality approach, posting 7 Reels in the span of 2 weeks, which averaged around 68,000 views.
In January he tried something different. He brought up the quality of his Reels to match his YouTube videos, adjusting the lighting, using a better mic to record voice overs, zooming in on his headshot, and started using a custom text visualization throughout his Reels. Since the adjustment, he’s averaged 130,000 views per video over 18 Reels.
🔥 PRESS WORTHY
Why etsy creators are switching to Shopify.
Call Her Daddy interviews socialite and felon Anna Delvey.
How web3 creates a space for creators to lean into their niche.
Long-form videos are having their moment.
There’s something so soothing about thoughtful, well-designed spaces.
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