Workflow 014: The Newsletter Workflow

I run two newsletters. One weekly, one monthly, for two completely different audiences.

I write almost none of them anymore, and every word in them is mine.

This workflow pulls my best posts from LinkedIn and Facebook, weaves them into a newsletter using my previous sends as the format reference, and emails me the draft. The AI is selecting and assembling. It isn't writing from scratch, because everything it uses I already wrote.

I'm a writer by trade, so that distinction is the only reason this exists.

What this replaces

Writing two newsletters from a blank page, on two different schedules, forever.

I started writing young, worked as a journalist, and my first job online was as a writer. Copywriting, then ghostwriting. Written content was my whole trade before AI existed.

So the resistance here wasn't practical, it was personal. I wanted the newsletters to still sound like me, because writing is the thing I'm actually good at.

The unlock was realizing I already write every week. Just not in the newsletter.

Blueprint

Your posts become the source. Your past sends become the format.

Trigger: a weekly scheduled run. Inputs: your best social posts from that period, plus your archive of previous newsletters. Output: a drafted newsletter in your email platform, and an email telling you it's ready.

The sequence:

1. Pull my posts from LinkedIn and Facebook for the period
2. Pick the strongest ones
3. Weave them into a single piece with a through line
4. Format it the way I've always written that newsletter
5. Draft it into my email platform
6. Email me that the draft is ready

Two newsletters, two separate runs. Different audiences, different sources, different rhythms, no overlap.

Organize

What has to exist first:

• Consistent posting, since the posts are the raw material
• An archive of your past newsletters, ideally with performance data
• A clear definition of each newsletter: who it's for, how often, what it covers
• Your email platform connected
• Somewhere the format reference lives, so the AI can see how you actually write

I loaded a document of every way I've written these newsletters over the years. Six years of one, five of the other. That archive is what teaches structure, and the open rates tell it which topics landed.

You can't skip this by describing your style. Show it the real sends.

Systematize

You are my newsletter writer. Every [FREQUENCY], draft my newsletter.

Which newsletter: [NAME]
Audience: [WHO THEY ARE AND WHAT THEY CARE ABOUT]
Format reference: my archive of past sends, attached

Source material:
Use my own posts from [PLATFORMS] over the last [PERIOD]. Pick the
strongest ones, based on what people responded to.

How to write it:
- Everything in the newsletter must come from something I actually wrote
  or said. Never invent a story, an example, or an opinion.
- Take the stories from my posts and weave them into one piece with a
  through line. Don't paste posts side by side.
- Follow the structure of my past sends: how I open, how I transition,
  how I close.
- Match the length and rhythm of the archive, not a generic newsletter.
- Where two posts cover the same ground, pick the better one.

Then:
- Create it as a draft in [EMAIL PLATFORM]. Never send.
- Email me that it's ready, with a one-line note on which posts you used.

If there isn't enough source material this period, say so rather than
padding it.

How to set it up

1. Gather your past sends into one reference document per newsletter.
2. Note which ones performed, so it knows what works and not just what's typical.
3. Build the skill with the source rules and the format reference.
4. Run it manually for a few cycles and correct the output into the skill.
5. Schedule it once the drafts stop needing rewrites.

Can one workflow serve two newsletters?

Keep them separate. Two audiences means two sets of source posts, two format references, and two schedules. Sharing a workflow between them is how content bleeds across audiences that shouldn't hear the same thing.

Assign

What the AI does: select the posts, find the through line, assemble the draft, match the format, and put it in the email platform.

What stays human: approval, and the writing that fed it in the first place.

I approve every newsletter myself. My assistant checks them too, because I ship and launch a lot and things change fast, but the final send is mine. That's a deliberate choice about the one channel where people gave me their email address.

There's a distinction here I keep coming back to.

The AI isn't authoring. It's retrieving and assembling. Every story in that newsletter is one I already told, in my own words, on a platform where people responded to it. The workflow is choosing which of my words to reuse and how to thread them together.

That's why a writer can live with this. It isn't a machine writing as me. It's a machine organizing what I already wrote.

Rule of thumb from this build: let AI assemble your words, not invent them.

Integrate

The newsletter workflow sits at the end of the content chain:

• The content planner decides what I talk about that month
• I record, and the repurposing engine turns it into posts
• The posts go out and people respond, which shows what landed
• This workflow harvests the strongest of those posts into the newsletter
• I approve and send

Nothing gets written twice. The newsletter is the last stop for material that already proved itself somewhere else.

Tomorrow: another one from the stack.