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You built the audience. Can you reach them?
You can have thousands of people following your work and still need an algorithm’s permission to reach them. Creators know the drill: you post, you pray, you check the numbers, you try again tomorrow.
A newsletter changes that relationship. On beehiiv, you can build a subscriber list you own, reach readers directly, and turn their attention into a sustainable business with subscriptions, sponsors, a global ad network, and more.
THIS WEEK'S LESSON
I let the robot build my store.
This one's late. Here's my excuse, and it's actually the lesson.
Back in August I made a pile of digital downloads. Canva templates, workbooks, e-books, social post packs. Around 50 of them. I put them in a Shopify store, gave them all a price of zero dollars, and then... nothing. For two months.
Not because I didn't want to sell them. Because selling them meant renaming every single one, writing 50 product descriptions, picking 50 prices, making 50 thumbnails, and clicking through 50 setup screens. I love making things. I hate configuring things. So they sat there, earning exactly what they were priced at.
WHAT I DID: This week I handed the whole mess to Claude, the AI I use every day. Not "write me a caption." I gave it access to my beehiiv account and said: move these into my newsletter store, make every one of them for podcasters, and write the descriptions in my voice.
Here's what came out the other side:
About 40 products rebuilt in my beehiiv shop, each one renamed for podcasters ("Blank eBook Template" became "The Podcaster's eBook Template")
A description for every one, written from my own sales-copy files, not generic AI mush
Prices from $4 to $47, with the small stuff priced as impulse buys and the related pieces grouped into bundles
The old Shopify listings left alone as a backup, so nothing broke while we worked
Did I check its work? Every product. Did it get some things wrong? Yep. It made a couple of duplicates I had to archive. But fixing a draft is ten times faster than staring at a blank form, and for me, it was the difference between "someday" and "this week."
Here's what I figured out: AI isn't going to have your ideas for you. But it is shockingly good at the boring part between having the idea and getting paid for it. The part where most of us quit.
I am over here celebrating that I had to do absolutely zero of the reformatting, the linking, the downloading and the product image making. YAYYYYY!
The store isn't fully open yet. I'm doing a last pass on bundles and pricing. But one product is ready now, and it's the one that teaches you how to do exactly what I just did.
FIRST OUT OF THE SHOP
The Podcaster's AI Playbook
Everybody keeps telling you to "just use AI." So you open ChatGPT, type "write me show notes," and get back something as bland as the instructions on a box of crackers.
The problem isn't the robot. It's the prompt.
The Podcaster's AI Playbook is my 28-page guide to using ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity at every stage of your show:
Getting started: naming, niche research, cover art briefs, a show description that doesn't read like a press release
Creating: episode ideas, interview outlines, show notes from your transcript, titles that get clicked
Marketing: batched social posts, newsletter emails, guest pitches
Monetizing: media kit copy, sponsor cold pitches, affiliate ad reads, your sales page
The Prompt Vault: 28 copy-and-paste prompts, plus how to make AI sound like you
It's built in Canva, so it's yours to edit, print and keep. $12. That's less than one hour of your time back, and you'll get a lot more than an hour back.
THE PLAYBOOK
Turn your pile of files into a product:
Make the list first. Every template, PDF, checklist and old freebie you've got. Put the names in one doc. You probably have more than you think.
Rename for your listener, not the format. "Checklist Template" sells nothing. "The Podcaster's Guest Prep Checklist" tells someone it was made for them.
Feed AI your best sales copy, not a blank page. Paste in a description you've written that worked. Ask it to match that voice. Otherwise you get cracker-box copy.
Price small things like impulse buys. Under $10 for single templates, under $50 for bundles. Nobody needs a sales call to spend $7.
Check every single one. AI drafts. You approve. That's the deal.
Launch one product, not the whole shop. Pick your strongest piece and tell your audience about it. The rest can follow.
Hit reply with the word SHOP and tell me what's sitting in your downloads folder. I'll tell you which one to sell first.
AI PROMPT OF THE WEEK
ASK AI:
"I host a podcast about ______ for ______. Here's a product description I wrote that I like: [paste it]. Now write a description in the same voice for this product: [product name and what's inside]. Rename the product so my listeners know it was made for them. Keep it under 120 words, end with one clear call to action, and suggest a price between $5 and $50 with one sentence explaining why."
National Podcast Post Month!
NaPodPoMo starts November 1! See where podcasting can take you during the 30-day global podcast challenge. You basically post one thing a day for 30 days. Even if you don’t hit all 30 days, it’ll be just the workout you need to build those podcasting muscles.
Brand new to podcasting? This is just the push you need. Been at it a while? Try a little mini-series that complements your work or start something on a completely different topic. I’ll be trying it for the first time with all new content - join me! Go to NaPodPoMo.com and find out more!
Go dig through your downloads folder. Then tell me what you found.
Until next week,
Jess
P.S. The full shop opens soon. The AI Playbook is the first thing in it, and it's the one that'll help you build your own.