Release update from the team. If you're newer here: HeyNews is the AI newsletter tool we build. It learns how you write from your past issues, then drafts new ones in your voice from stories you pick. This channel is where we share what changed and hear what's broken.

Here's what shipped today, in plain terms.

• Paste a link list straight into Compose. If your next issue starts as a pile of links in a spreadsheet, doc, or Slack thread, you can now paste the whole list into Compose. HeyNews pulls out the links, removes duplicates, and shows you what it will add before opening anything. The links become one-off stories in your draft selection, in the order you pasted them. Big lists keep processing even if you close the window, and you can retry any that fail.

• Drafts keep your closing lines, and every link gets checked. Generated drafts are better at keeping the parts that make a newsletter feel like yours, like your sign-off or your "hit reply and tell me" line. Before a draft is saved, HeyNews also verifies that every link comes from a story you selected or a reusable link you approved, and catches unfinished placeholders. If a check fails, it rewrites the draft once. If the second try still fails, nothing gets saved and you can run it again. We'd rather give you no draft than a draft with a link we invented.

• More room to build your issue. Compose gives the story pool and your selected stories more space, and on smaller screens you can switch between the two without losing your place. If you have several ready AI Writers, you pick one before the story workspace opens and can switch later from the header. Select Best moved to a quieter spot and got an Undo, and Write Draft now sits right below your selected stories.

• Scheduled drafts know what day readers get them. If an automation prepares your Friday issue on Thursday, the AI Writer now writes with Friday in mind, following the lead time and timezone you saved. No more "happy Thursday" opening a Friday issue.

• Refine with AI keeps running if you leave. You can refresh the page or navigate away while a saved draft is being refined. When you come back, Compose restores the work in progress or shows the finished copy as unsaved changes for you to review. The draft stays locked while the refinement runs so another edit can't overwrite it, and if it fails, your previous copy is untouched.

• Easier to tell which newsletter you're working on. The sidebar now groups everything by the publication you selected, and the publication name shows up in page headers. Saved work lives under Issues, past writing and AI Writers under Voice & past issues, and publishing platforms, archive feeds, and file imports under Connections & imports. On mobile, Dashboard, Compose, and Issues stay one tap away.
  

• Plus smaller fixes: older links to the Publications and Connections & imports settings pages open the right page again, Compose asks before you leave with unsaved changes, and when an archive check finds no usable issue, the connection now says so and points you toward the newsletter's RSS feed or public archive.

Full notes: https://roadmap.heynews.co/p/whats-new-july-18-2026-I9hjk0
If the new Compose layout gets in your way, or a link check blocks a draft it shouldn't, reply here and I'll take a look.

Let's create the first opportunity ourselves. If you're open to a cross-promo or a recommendation swap, post below with:

• Your newsletter and its niche

• Your list size (rough is fine)

• What kind of partner are you looking for

Scroll the replies, find a fit, and take it to DMs. Jobs and gigs deserve their own visibility, so start a new post for those anytime.

I'm Cagri, one of the founders of HeyNews. I've spent my career in SEO and growth, and I've written more newsletter issues than I can count, most of them the slow way. That's roughly why HeyNews exists.

Your turn. Three things:

1. Who you are and what you do

2. What you're building: a newsletter, a media brand, a company publication, or just an idea so far

3. One thing you could use help with

That last one matters. It gives the rest of us a reason to reply.

To get this channel going: post any newsletter question below, and I'll answer it personally. Whether it's growth, monetization, writing workflow, deliverability, or using AI without sounding like AI, whatever you're stuck on.

No question is too basic. The "dumb" questions usually help the most people, because everyone else was too embarrassed to ask.

Every new issue of the HeyNews Newsletter shows up here as it goes out.

Each issue gets its own thread. Comment with what you'd push back on, what you tried after reading, or what we should cover next. The newsletter is written for the people in this room, so this is also where we take requests.

This community is now open. Whether you run a newsletter, write for one, or you're still deciding whether to start, you're in the right place.

Quick channel map:

• - Intros is where you say hi.

• - Ask for Help is for questions and feedback.

• - Wins and Show & Tell are for sharing what worked and what you made.

• - Opportunities covers jobs, gigs, and cross-promos.

• - Resources is for tools and links worth passing on. And every new issue of the HeyNews Newsletter lands in Hot Off the Press for discussion.

One ground rule to start: be generous. Answer questions when you can, and when you share your own stuff, do it in Show & Tell or Opportunities with enough context to be useful to others.

Go post an intro. We read everything.