Slash Your Newsletter Production Time: How AI Can Transform Your Content Workflow

Many local publishers spend hours every week hunting through websites, social media posts, and press releases just to find relevant stories for their readers. It's a massive time-sink that can quickly lead to burnout.

But what if you could cut that production time down to just one hour per issue?

Shane Brady, who runs two successful local newsletters in Ontario, Canada, has cracked the code on efficient newsletter production. His newsletters reach a combined 13,000 subscribers across two small Canadian towns, and he manages it all while holding down a full-time job.

His secret? A streamlined workflow that leverages RSS feeds, Slack integration, and strategic use of AI.

When Shane first launched his newsletter, he found himself spending 3-4 hours per issue just gathering content.

"I was originally checking about 50 different websites - news sites, local business social media, government resources, press releases - it was just completely scattered," Shane explains. "I had this crazy Google Forms tracker and was manually copying everything. It was chaos."

This probably sounds familiar if you're in the early stages of your newsletter. You're constantly checking a dozen tabs, taking screenshots, copying links, and trying to organize it all into something coherent.

Shane's first breakthrough came when he started using RSS.app to consolidate content sources. Rather than visiting dozens of websites individually, he began pulling content from various sources directly into a centralized feed.

But the real game-changer was connecting that RSS feed to Slack.

"The RSS feed now feeds into my Slack app, which creates a content stream for me," he says. "From there, I can quickly select what I want to include in each newsletter."

This simple automation eliminated hours of manual checking and introduced a more systematic approach to content curation.

The final piece of Shane's workflow involves using AI to further optimize his content selection process.

After aggregating potential stories through his RSS-to-Slack pipeline, Shane inputs the top candidates into ChatGPT along with his subscriber engagement data from Beehive (his newsletter platform).

"I took all my insights from Beehive and baked them into my ChatGPT customized prompts," Shane says. "I ask ChatGPT to analyze what content would perform best based on past subscriber engagement."

This approach has produced surprisingly accurate recommendations.

"After eight months of publishing three newsletters weekly, you've got thousands of click reports and data points," Shane notes. "When you feed that into ChatGPT, it becomes pretty damn good at predicting what your audience wants."

The AI helps narrow down his content selection to 5-10 high-potential stories, then provides auto-summarized versions that Shane can quickly review and personalize.

For many local newsletter publishers, keeping track of community events is one of the most time-consuming tasks. Shane solved this by investing in a specialized event calendar service.

"The event calendar has saved my life," he admits. "I can quickly curate events for the newsletter and just copy-paste them back in. Plus, the calendar itself gets about 20,000 hits a month, which creates another sponsorship opportunity."

The calendar automatically pulls in events from Facebook and other local calendars, with a submission portal that allows community members to add their own events. This creates a virtuous cycle where the calendar becomes more valuable as more people use it.

By implementing these systems, Shane reduced his newsletter production time to about an hour per issue. But the benefits extend beyond just saving time.

"My churn rate got so much better after implementing AI-based content curation," he says. "I even had subscribers comment, 'I read this top to bottom and you literally nailed everything I wanted to know.'"

The streamlined workflow not only made the newsletter more sustainable from a production standpoint but actually improved its quality and reader engagement.

Ready to reclaim hours of your week? Here's how to begin implementing a similar system:

The automation handles the heavy lifting of content discovery and initial curation, freeing you to focus on adding your unique local perspective – the element that makes local newsletters truly valuable.

Remember that while AI can help with selection and summarization, your local knowledge and personality remain the secret sauce that keeps subscribers opening your newsletter issue after issue.

As Shane puts it, "No one's going to read a ChatGPT script and summarization of a press release. That's when my locality comes in and I'm able to put the local spin on all those things."

By finding the right balance between automation and personal touch, you can create a sustainable newsletter operation that doesn't consume your entire life – even if you're juggling it alongside a full-time job.

Before we dive into this week's insights, I want to make sure you know about all the resources available to support your local newsletter journey:

🎙️ The Podcast - Deep-dive conversations with successful newsletter operators sharing their playbooks and lessons learned | Link

📧 This Weekly Newsletter - Quick, actionable tips delivered straight to your inbox every week | Link

🧠 1:1 Consulting - Personalized guidance tailored to your specific newsletter challenges Link

🚀 Launch Accelerator - A structured program to help you go from idea to profitable newsletter in record time | Link

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