Good morning. Fitness creator Ashton Hall shared his intense five-hour morning routine, opening the door to over 900 million views and almost as many memes. With a wake-up call of 3:52am and multiple Saratoga Water ice baths on the agenda, you can say we’ve been 1) inspired and 2) pretty busy this morning.

— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

BookTok Creator Launches a Book-to-Film Media Company

Morgann Book got her start on TikTok in 2020 vlogging about her job at Dairy Queen, which quickly evolved to videos on romcom books and nearly 3 million followers.

Now, the BookTok creator is starting her next chapter: launching Bookish Media, a content house and production company making book content, producing film and TV adaptations of books, and showing the behind-the-scenes along the way—starting with her new weekly podcast, Off The Shelf.

“In an ideal world having a book in the book club that we read, get the rights to, and end up producing the movie is the full circle of Bookish Media,” Book told us. “You harness this incredibly niche audience who got to grow and read this book with you first.”

Book is spearheading content for Bookish, while her business partner Thomas Johnston, founder of Shifted Digital, is leading film and TV adaptation. Johnston said they already have a few projects in development.

“We know the [film] development process is so, so long and I think that’s where people like Morgann and talent in the space more broadly can come in and help keep the buzz alive for a piece of material and that’s a big through line of what we’re trying to do at Bookish,” Johnston said.

Zoom out: Over the past few years, BookTok has reshaped the publishing industry, from bookstore displays to author discovery. Print sales have increased by 30%, and major movies like It Ends With Us and Netflix’s forthcoming The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo have found massive initial fan bases on TikTok before getting the greenlight for adaptation. 

Now, brands like Bookish Media and Unwell’s new podcast with BookTok creator Kierra Lewis are lighting the path for a new era of BookTok—where creators own more of the production process.

How This Channel Quadrupled Views in Two Months

Lagarto Films, a Puerto Rico-based YouTube channel specializing in choose-your-own-adventure-style videos, has gained 7 million views on its 131K-subscriber channel in the past two months.

Context: Lagarto Films, created by filmmaker Adrián Rivera, has uploaded dozens of action-comedy short films since 2017. Until about a month ago, Lagarto Films made interactive films through unlisted videos that viewers could click on at the end of each video. 

How it works now → Each 10-minute short film has multiple decision points—anything from experimenting with potions to chasing a criminal as a police officer. Viewers make decisions by selecting different numbers on their keyboard, taking them to a new timestamp in the video. With multiple possible endings, viewers can participate in the story several times.

Big picture: Although choose-your-own-adventure videos are not new to YouTube, most series like these still rely on unlisted videos to tell the story. Lagarto Films has combined all of the decisions into one video, ushering in a new way to keep YouTube audiences actively engaged.

Sponsored by .store

Your Beacons Store, Now on a .store Domain

For creators, a link-in-bio is like the front door to your online store. But when it’s long, clunky, and forgettable, it’s hard to convince even your most loyal fans to step inside.

But good news: .store Domains (the official domain for creators selling online) and Beacons (the all-in-one platform for creators to monetize) are teaming up.

Make the link to your Beacons storefront shorter, smarter, and easier to share. Now, your link isn’t just another link—it’s built to sell more with the most OP domain name!

A .store domain just makes sense. It’s memorable and instantly tells the world where to find your products. Get more eyes, more buys, and more sales with a domain name that sticks. We use a .store domain for our Publish Press merch with presspublish.store.

If you’re a creator that’s using Beacons already or thinking of starting, this is your sign. And when you do, get your brand on the most OP domain name (for free).

Coming Soon: Christina Kirkman’s Comedy Podcast

Comedy creator Christina Kirkman is taking her talents to podcasting with her new show, Life’s A Joke.

Quick background: Kirkman, represented by Underscore Talent, got her start on Nickelodeon’s sketch comedy show All That when she was 10 years old. Now 32, she creates comedy content on Instagram and TikTok for a combined audience of 3 million.

Her goals: Kirkman wants to provide advice to younger adults through anecdotes of her past. “I’m creating something that I wish would have existed when I was in college, in my twenties,” Kirkman told us.

Life’s A Joke is available on all major podcast platforms on March 27.

👀 Creator Moves

• Healthy Gamer is looking for a content researcher who can parse through medical literature and suggest relevant story ideas.

• FaZe Rug is hiring a creative producer to join his team in San Diego.

• Andrew Video is looking for a founding video editor to structure stories and convert long-form videos to short-form content.

Looking to bring on new team members? You can post opportunities on our (free) job board here.

🔥 Press Worthy

• Amber Alerts are coming to TikTok.

• Ludwig is vlogging a two-week trip through Japan with no map or smartphone.

• Mojang Studios held its Minecraft live keynote exclusively on YouTube.

• Roblox promises to increase discovery for creators through a revamped home page.

• TommyInnit is going on a comedy tour through the US, UK, and Australia.