Good morning. Hannah here—taking over the top blurb for my last edition of The Publish Press. Grateful doesn’t really cover how I feel about nearly five years of writing and editing the newsletter. Talking with creators and learning from the people I’ve worked alongside has been one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had. Below are some of my favorite stories from over the years. Before we get to that, though, I want to thank a few people:

My co-writer, Syd Cohen, for being the best writing partner and supporter. Kinsey Grant and Lauren Thermos, two of the sharpest editorial minds I know. Alex Hinton and Moy Zhong, for making everything we say look good in print and on socials. Colin and Samir, for setting the newsletter’s tone and vision. Josh, Jenny, and all the Smooth operators that make each newsletter possible.

And to you, the readers—the whole reason we press publish. Thank you for reading, replying, and following along. 

— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

Today’s lineup:

A lot has changed for creators since I started writing for The Publish Press in 2021. The internet moves in dog years, and after working on over 700 newsletters and nearly 2,000 stories, I've been lucky to cover YouTube before Shorts monetization, TikTok before its US ban, and Addison Rae before “Diet Pepsi.”

To wrap this up, I’ll end with some of my favorite stories from The Publish Press. Choosing them is what I’d imagine choosing a favorite kid is like, if you had 2,000 children.

How things have changed: In 2021, I was living in Portland and coming down to LA every few months to work from Colin and Samir's Main Street office. Creators had massive audiences, but major outlets were only starting to cover them. 

Now, I’ve been in LA for over two years, working out of The Lighthouse with the team. Rolling Stone, Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter all have reporters on the creator beat. It's been a privilege to be a part of this community and help cover this corner of the internet as it’s grown. It was taking off like a rocket ship when I started—and isn’t slowing down.

Thanks again for reading along over the years. If you want to stay in touch or talk through any story I've written, feel free to DM me.

Each month, we bring together a group of creators at The Lighthouse Campus in Venice for Coffee with Creators, our event series built around candid conversations, collaboration and connecting with others in the industry.

Last Friday, we sat down with Try Guys founders Zach Kornfeld and Keith Habersberger to discuss how their approach to creating has evolved over 12 years on YouTube.  

Today, the Try Guys have a slate of premium shows and their own streaming service, 2nd Try. Kornfeld and Habersberger told us one principle now guides how they build it all: Build audience depth over width.

Here’s what that looks like →  

Know who’s watching. Try Guys’ audience is 80% women aged 18–35, and the studio model is centered around making content that feels like a safe space for those women—like their docuseries on a cast member Marissa Rivera’s infertility journey.

Makes shows, not videos. “Shows signal to brands that this is a property,” Kornfeld said. On the audience side, each show in the Try Guys flywheel serves a different purpose—some drive viewers to 2nd Try, some are meant to be binged, and some are targeting a broader audience. For example, Without a Menu was added to 2nd Try in a bingeable format, as they found that many of their audience members wanted to watch it like a Netflix show.

Understand why audiences leave. “There was a lot of data that said female millennial viewers who left YouTube left for short-form and reality television,” Habersberger said. “Well, we're an unscripted studio. How could we make a reality television show that still exists within our universe?” From there, Killer Dinner (a murder-mystery-style reality format) was born.

Worth noting: Habersberger told us that focusing on audience depth came as “phase four” of their business—after prioritizing virality at Buzzfeed, building a creator studio that can stand on its own, and reckoning with a public fallout.

Their parting advice? Find collaborators.

“There's a growing pain with it, but if you build in that time and surround yourself with other collaborators, it just makes what you do ten times better,” Kornfeld said.

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As part of US states’ ongoing efforts to hold platforms responsible for allegedly addictive features and child endangerment, TikTok has agreed to pay Alabama at least $100M and enact restrictions for teen users. 

Here’s what happened:

*Publish partner content