I pay $5/mo for a 13k newsletter list

Here's how you can too:

Cross-posted from AI Marketing for Storytellers.

Sometimes it’s easier for me to show you what’s possible than to try to explain it in a giant wall of text.

So here’s my video overview on ditching your newsletter provider — or at least understanding what you’re actually paying for — and how authors can start taking much more direct control over their marketing lives.

We’re talking: saving lord-only-knows how much money, getting out from under clunky drag-and-drop platforms, using AI agents to help with newsletters, translations, reader data, and workflows, and realizing that a lot of the expensive “magic” you’ve been paying for is actually just infrastructure with a UI you didn’t choose and don’t like slapped on top.

➡️Highly relatedly, Novae and I are teaching our first AI Marketing Mastermind on June 6 & 7th. ⬅️

This isn’t “here are ten prompts and good luck.” This is about changing the way you think about your author business — from scattered tools and expensive subscriptions to systems you own, understand, can actually use and that will grow with your career over time.

You do not need to be a programmer.

You do need:

  • basic AI familiarity

  • a strong willingness to learn

  • curiosity instead of panic

  • and either Claude Pro with the downloaded desktop version and/or OpenAI Codex desktop

Day 1 / Cassie lane:
Systems, copy, voice, and publishing infrastructure. Specific talking points:

  • systems thinking for authors

  • Claude Cowork and OpenAI Codex workflows

  • keeping files and business info available to AI

  • using Supabase to store publishing information at scale

  • connecting AI to Shopify for direct sales

  • building your own newsletter system

  • generating marketing copy, blurbs, descriptions, and social hooks

  • building databases and systems for your author business

Day 2 / Novae lane:
Visuals, motion, and audio. Specific talking points:

  • AI image generation for covers, mood boards, social graphics, and ads

  • creating ad creatives at scale

  • building a cohesive visual brand with AI

  • AI filmmaking for book trailers, teasers, and social video

  • using ElevenLabs/audio generation to bring videos to life

  • integrating text, visuals, video, and audio into one marketing strategy

If you’re newer to AI and you want to skip a few months of flailing, this is your invite to get on board.

And if you’re already a subscriber who is used to drinking from the firehose with us every week: yes, there’s a dealio behind the paywall for you. This won’t be wildly different material so much as Vastly More Structured — built for people who want the map, the tour, the toybox, and enough guardrails to actually use everything without wandering into the woods and becoming a cryptid.

Come build smarter author systems with us.

xo!

Cassie