Good morning. Thanks to everyone who came out to our first Creator Premiere ft. Tejas Hullur and his latest video last night in NYC. There’s something special about experiencing 100+ views in real life and celebrating the art of pressing publish with people who love it just as much as you do.

Who should we feature next? Hit reply and let us know. And keep scrolling to the end to check out some pics from last night. 👇️ 

— Hannah Doyle & Nate Graber-Lipperman

Markiplier’s TV Show Gets Surprise Amazon Prime Release

In a surprise move on Tuesday, gaming creator Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach released the first season of his scripted thriller The Edge of Sleep on Amazon Prime Video. It’s currently the streaming platform’s sixth-most popular TV show, according to viewership database FlixPatrol.

On top of that? Fischbach said he wasn’t allowed to begin marketing The Edge of Sleep (or reveal its home on Prime Video) until the show’s intended release on October 18 (that’s today). But Amazon quietly dropped the first season three days early, and Fischbach’s fans quickly found out.

“I don’t think there’s any conspiracy about this—I think [Amazon] just didn’t expect you guys to find it that soon,” Fischbach said in a video uploaded to his channel on Tuesday.

Catch up quick: The Edge of Sleep originally released as a popular thriller podcast in 2019 with Fischbach as producer and voice actor.

• New Regency (the studio behind award-winning films such as The Revenant) announced a TV adaptation in 2021.

• The TV show (which stars Fischbach) was never released, and the creator began working on a different project—a film adaptation of the video game Iron Lung.

But: Fischbach revealed last month that he’s struggled to land a distributor for Iron Lung.

• So, he laid out “The Plan” in a video in September, suggesting entertainment industry executives wanted proof that Fischbach’s 37 million YouTube subscribers could translate into film and TV viewership.

• “A challenge was put forward to me: If The Edge of Sleep can get into the Top 10, then that can open doors [for Iron Lung],” Fischbach said, asking his fans to watch the former when it eventually became public.

Big picture: The Edge of Sleep has an 8.5/10 rating on IMDb with 4,400 ratings…which came from fans who have already watched it without practically any marketing.

Substack Pushes Live Video Ahead of US Election

Last week, Substack launched Election Dialogues, a series of political conversations hosted by Substack creators and independent journalists including Mehdi Hasan, Taylor Lorenz, and Nate Silver.

The Election Dialogues series runs 10 days throughout October, covering topics from immigration to China’s relationship with the US. During a recent conversation about mainstream media outlets’ role in the election between writers Chris Cilizza and Taylor Lorenz, a small handful of viewers engaged on the Substack site, and over 200 people chimed in on Twitter/X.

Context: Over the last few years, many journalists have left media institutions to spin out their own newsletters, some of which publish exclusively on Substack. When the platform launched a live video feature last month, it enabled creators to stream exclusively on the Substack app.

Looking ahead: As creators and independent journalists build their own followings, they’re effectively hosting their own versions of the nightly news, with Substack as their network. 

Sponsored by Spotter Studio

The AI Software We Trust For Thumbnails

Hey, it’s Colin and Samir 👋🏼 👋🏽 We recently created one of our most successful thumbnails using Spotter Studio—here’s the story.

We wanted to make a video about the future of YouTube, but kept hitting a wall on how to package it in a unique way. Then we ran the title through Spotter Studio, and we saw a thumbnail idea that completely shifted our perspective. It was like getting a fresh set of eyes on the project, it was a design that we just wouldn’t have thought of ourselves. So Colin took that mock-up and turned it into this:

The result? A 13.7% CTR and a unique thumbnail that we felt really proud of.

Spotter Studio has become our go-to creative partner for brainstorming titles, thumbnails, and ideas. It sifts through our top-performing videos and the most-watched content on YouTube to give us ideas tailored for our audience. And we’re not alone: creators using Spotter Studio have seen views jump by 49% when executing ideas that come from the software.

Spotter Studio is expanding—it’s now available in the EU, with even more countries to come. Try it out free for 60 days and see how it can elevate your content too.

AI Roundup: Authentication + Hollywood

AI updates are relentless this week. Here’s what to know →

YouTube is rolling out labels that indicate if a video is made with a real camera and contains unaltered footage and sound. If so, videos will say “captured with a camera” in the description. 

• YouTube is following the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) for determining if an uploaded video is authentic. 

• Creators must use tools with C2PA version 2.1 or higher for the label to appear, so it might take a while to start seeing these tags at scale.

Meta is partnering with film production company Blumhouse (Five Nights at Freddy's, M3GAN) and filmmakers like Casey Affleck to test its suite of AI models called Meta Movie Gen, which turns text prompts into video and aids in video editing. 

The first video from the pilot program, made by filmmaker Aneesh Chaganty, is fittingly titled “i h8 ai.” Movie Gen models are set to roll out to the public next year.

Zoom out: Publish readers are split on AI tools. After we asked last edition, 51% said AI will help improve their workflow, while the other 49% said AI does more harm than good.

➕ Community Tab

Last night was a literal movie, as we screened the finale of Tejas Hullur's four-part docuseries, How To Become More Attractive, Scientifically. 

Over 100 creators came to mingle at the Bio Sites by Squarespace HQ, celebrate Hullur's work, and meet the cast and crew that made it all come to life. One of the video's editors, Hope, met Tejas at our last Publish event, which felt like a full-circle moment. You can see photos from the night here.

Thanks again to Tejas, producer Ken, and their team for sharing all the details. We’re already excited for the next one.

🔥 Press Worthy

• Triller is finally a public company after its fourth IPO attempt.

• Creator economy startup funding drops 16% annually during Q2, according to The Information.

• Instagram announces that photos and carousels with music can now appear in the Reels tab.

• ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, is moving into print publishing.

• Streamer Asmongold steps away from OTK and company Starforge Systems.

• Meta is allegedly suppressing election-related content including the word “vote” across platforms.

📚️ Thank You For Pressing Publish

The content we’re looking forward to reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.

• Read: Mother Jones investigates how lifestyle blogger Jessica Reed Kraus grew her platform exponentially by peddling conspiracy theories—and what it means for Kraus’ millions of mostly female fans.

• Watch: Tyler, the Creator teases his eighth studio album, CHROMAKOPIA.

• Listen: Digitas CEO Amy Lanzi joins the Decoder podcast to discuss how huge advertising companies like hers are using AI to match content creators with brand partners at scale.