Today’s post is a guest piece from Timo Mason. He walks through the eight steps he uses to write every article with AI, and the one step he never hands over.
Timo writes Write Your Way To Wealth, where he teaches Substack writers to use AI to grow an audience and earn from it. He built this workflow over more than 100 Substack articles.
He and I go back a while. His Article-to-Post Prompt ran in our Blueprint last November, and again in Vol. I of the Build to Thrive Vault, where 50 creators shared their best prompts. It turns a long article into LinkedIn and Twitter posts, with the hook built around the reader’s interest instead of the writer’s story. I particularly recommend it, and you can read it here. This post is part of a guest post exchange between us.
Here’s why I wanted it on Build to Thrive. Last week I asked who still has a moat. AI is making more of what customers pay for easy to copy, so every owner has to answer one question: what would your best customer actually lose by switching? My answer was to use AI to make the work cheaper, and to use what you learn from that work to make the business more valuable.
That starts with a split. You keep the judgment, and the work that repeats goes to a setup that does it the same way every time. It’s the idea behind how a prompt becomes a machine, and it’s what I teach in AI in 20 Minutes, my free 20-minute live classes on Zoom. The replay of a 20-minute class I taught recently is free on the AI in 20 Minutes page.
Timo runs his writing on that same split. He picks every idea, writes from his own experience instead of AI research, and approves each section before moving on. Then he hands the repeat work to a setup he built once: a tool that links each new piece to his older ones, tracked links that show which article sent which sale, and saved setups for thumbnails, titles and Notes.
Swap “article” for “proposal” or “customer visit” and that list looks like a small business. Watch steps 4 and 5 closely.
The article below is Timo’s, in his words.
JS
Howdy, 🤠
Most Substack writers either avoid AI completely, cause they’re scared it’ll make them sound like a robot, or they hand it the whole article and publish whatever comes out.
Both cost you every week:
One burns hours you don’t have, and the other slowly kills the voice your readers subscribed for.
Today, I’m sharing the practical 8-step Claude workflow I use to take a Substack article from idea to published, developed from writing 100+ Substack articles.
Big thanks to Juan for letting me share it here. :)
Let’s goo! 🤠
My 8-Step AI Article Workflow
Step 1: Start With the Idea (Zero AI)
The first thing to know about my workflow is that I don’t use AI for ideation.
I already have enough ideas. Always more than enough, honestly.
So when I sit down to write, I already have the idea in mind.
The point is: AI shouldn’t decide what you write. You do.
That’s actually one of the things that makes this workflow different from what most people do. Many creators outsource their thinking to AI from the very start.
Step 2: Build the Outline in Claude
The LLM I use to write articles is Claude, and in there I have a project, with my Article Architect.
It includes the system prompt I use for my articles, plus two files in the knowledge base: an article example and a target persona reference for the specific person I’m writing for.
What’s a target persona reference?
It’s basically a document that describes exactly who you’re writing for. Their struggles, their goals, how they think. So every article is written with that one person in mind.
Once I’m in Article Architect, the first thing I do is build out the full outline.
I don’t start writing yet. I figure out the structure first.
This is where I decide what sections the article will have, the order they go in, and the point of each section.
Only once the outline looks right do I move on to actually writing.
[Juan’s note: This works for a team, too. Write one page about the customer you serve best, what they struggle with and what they want, and give it to everyone who writes to customers, along with any AI tool they use.]
Step 3: Write Section by Section
Once the outline is locked, I start writing.
I do it section by section, not all at once.
Also, I don’t use AI for research. I don’t look for studies or outside sources.
I always write from personal experience & opinion. That’s my whole philosophy.
So I take whatever context I have saved (a story, a lesson, an observation) and paste it into the Article Architect. Then Claude and I build the section together from there.
Once every section is written and approved, I’ve got the full draft.
That’s when the real finishing work begins.
Step 4: Run the Internal Linker Skill
Once I have the full article draft, I run the Substack Internal Linker skill first.
It analyzes the article I just wrote and suggests internal links to articles I’ve already published on Substack.
It’s connected to a Notion database of all my published articles. It scans all the titles, compares them to what I’m writing right now, and finds spots where I could naturally link back to something I wrote before.
Why does this matter?
Internal links keep readers on your Substack longer. They discover older articles they missed. And it builds a web of content that makes your whole newsletter feel more valuable over time.
The skill handles all of that automatically. I don’t have to manually scroll through 50 articles trying to remember what I wrote six months ago.
[Juan’s note: Look at what makes this step possible. Timo keeps one list of everything he has already made, so a tool can search it for him. Most businesses have the same kind of material, like past quotes, answers to common questions and old proposals, spread across inboxes and folders.]
Step 5: Run the Product CTA Linker Skill
After the Internal Linker, I run the Product CTA Linker skill.
Same idea, it analyzes the article draft and finds natural spots where I can add links to my digital products.
The part I’m really proud of is that it automatically creates UTM links.
What’s a UTM link?
It’s basically a tracking tag added to the end of a URL. So when someone clicks a product link inside an article and buys something, I can see track exactly which article sent that sale.
So instead of just knowing “someone bought the Article Architect today,” I know “someone bought it from this specific article.”
That’s the kind of data that helps me figure out what content actually converts.
[Juan’s note: Swap “article” for “ad,” “referral partner” or “service” and this is a question every owner should be able to answer: which part of my work brought in this customer? Timo set it up once, and now the answer comes with every sale.]
Step 6: Create the Thumbnail
After the two skills, I create the thumbnail.
And for this I actually use ChatGPT, not Claude.
I have a GPT set up specifically for my Substack thumbnails. I always give it this reference image, and it generates a thumbnail that matches my brand.
Step 7: Generate the Title
After the thumbnail, I create the title.
I use the Headline Hero skill, which spits out a list of potential titles based on the perfect Substack headline formula.
Step 8: Publish + Turn It Into Notes
Once the title is done, I publish the article.
Right after publishing, I use the Article-to-Post GPT.
I paste the article into it and it creates multiple Substack Notes from the content.
Why ChatGPT and not Claude for this?
I compared both and for Notes, I preferred ChatGPT cause it’s superior at punchy short-form writing.
So that’s the full split in my stack:
Claude for the long-form article writing, ChatGPT for the visual and short-form stuff around it.
I then use the Notes to promote the article after it goes live.
You Decide, AI Does the Heavy Lifting
Remember the line from the start: AI shouldn’t decide what you write, you do.
That’s the thread through all 8 steps.
The idea and the stories come from you, AI helps with the structure and the writing, and then it handles the busywork you’d normally skip:
Trackable product links
Article interlinking
Thumbnails
Titles
Notes
If you found this article helpful, check out my publication, Write Your Way To Wealth. :D
I talk a lot over there about using AI to grow a loyal audience of 1,000 subscribers & make Your First $100 from Substack, so you can escape the 9-5 hell.
If that sounds interesting, I’d love to welcome you into the Wealth Writer Gang + you will also get the free 6-day Substack Side-Hustle Sprint to get you started👇
See ya over there, :)
Timo Mason🤠
One more thing from Juan
Timo’s piece teaches a habit worth borrowing: decide what only you should touch, then build the repeat work once so it runs the same way every time. He did it for articles. Most businesses have the same kind of work sitting in follow-ups, quotes and weekly updates.
If you or your team want help finding that work in your own week, I’m teaching a free 20-minute live class on Zoom, How to Find 5 Hours Hiding in Your Business, on Thursday, November 5, from 12:00 to 12:20 PM ET. You’ll leave knowing which task to hand to AI first.
Here’s a 2-minute story to set it up. Frank is a made-up owner of a small HVAC and refrigeration company, and every new job waits on the follow-ups he writes at night at the kitchen table.
And if you’d like more from Timo, you can follow Write Your Way To Wealth.
Build Assets. Create Leverage. Thrive on your Terms.
Juan