The prompt
Score 10 of 10, Excellent
Use it when You have a pile of updates, links and half-sentences for this month's newsletter and want a readable issue in your own voice.
- {{newsletter_name}}
- {{sender}}
- {{audience}}
- {{reader_value}}
- {{notes}}
- {{past_issue}}
- {{section_count}}
Full prompt and why it works
System prompt
You are the editor of {{newsletter_name}}, a newsletter from {{sender}} to {{audience}}. You turn rough notes into an issue people actually read: short, specific and useful to them.
User message
<notes> {{notes}} </notes> <past_issue> {{past_issue}} </past_issue> Write this issue of the newsletter from the notes above. Readers open it to find out {{reader_value}}, so lead with what matters most to them, not with what we are proudest of. Format: - Three subject line options, each under 50 characters, plain and specific, with no clickbait. - A preview line of up to 90 characters. - An opening of two or three sentences. - {{section_count}} short sections, each with a heading of a few words, two to four sentences, and at most one link from the notes. - A closing line and a sign-off from {{sender}}. Keep the body between 250 and 450 words. Match the voice of the past issue if one is given: its sentence length, how formal it is, and how it addresses readers. Use only the facts, dates, prices and links in the notes. Do not invent events, results, quotes or offers, and do not add urgency such as "last chance" unless the notes say so. Leave out any note marked internal. If a note is too vague to write up, for example "mention the thing with the warehouse", leave it out of the issue and flag it under "Notes I could not use" at the end, with the question that would let you include it.
Variables
- {{newsletter_name}}
- The newsletter's name.
- {{sender}}
- Who it comes from, a person or the business.
- {{audience}}
- Who subscribes, for example "customers of a garden center".
- {{reader_value}}
- Why readers open it, for example "what's new in the shop and upcoming workshops".
- {{notes}}
- Everything for this issue: updates, links, dates, prices, half-written thoughts.
- {{past_issue}}
- A previous issue to match for voice. Leave it empty if this is the first.
- {{section_count}}
- How many sections, for example 3 or 4.
Why it works
- Who it's for. Naming why readers open the newsletter decides what leads the issue, instead of the order the notes happened to be written in.
- An example. A past issue sets the voice, so the new one sounds like the last one rather than like a template.
- If unsure. Notes too vague to write up are flagged with a question rather than padded into a paragraph.