Hey Lab friends 👋
AI is good at metaphors — who knew?
When I asked it for some help with this email, it came up with the Hydra. A mythological serpent-like creature with a heap of heads. You cut one off, and two more grow back in its place.
Substack can feel the same. You cut off a head (your weekly post), and suddenly you’ve got a bunch of other stuff to create: -
📝 Notes to promote it
📣 Headlines for socials
🎁 A freebie CTA
💌 DMs to new subs
🎨 Images so your archive looks consistent
🎧 Maybe even an audio version
One head turns into seven. That’s the Content Hydra effect — and if you’re trying to wrestle it alone, it’ll chew through your creative energy fast.
Want to read about both sides of the AI debate. Scroll on down 👇
📋 What’s Inside This Week’s Lab Report
🤖Can you Still do Substack Without AI?
🔬 Spotlight: Meet Dianna Sandora — building her Substack with courage & clarity and an AI assistant called Whisper. This section is for you fiction writers out there.
📝 Lab Notes: Are your Subscriber numbers showing up incorrectly? Mine were. Why it matters and how to fix it.
🧠 Deep Dive (Paid): I’m training myself in sales with the help of a sales guru. But I’m a lab rate who doesn’t play by anyone else’s rules.
“Advice is just something that worked for someone else at some other time.” Deb Burns 😆
I’m learning as much about how I don’t want to sell from him as how I do. Five sales lessons — No punches pulled.
(Skimmers welcome — scroll to the bit that sparks you.)
✅ The “Yes, You Need AI” Side
Substack is a long game of volume + consistency
Posts, Notes, comments, emails, images, replies… it’s a lot. Without AI, most solo creators either burn out or publish less than they’d like. AI shortcuts research, drafts, headlines, images, summaries, repurposing, and yes … writing under direction! There I’ve just said what most others seem to be afraid to come out and say. I see it, every time I see “Let’s be honest”, “The truth is”, “Here’s the kicker”, and a few other giveaways I know AI’s been used to write the content. Even the big guys are using it for consistent output.The bar is rising
More people are using AI to at least speed up their workflow. If you’re not, you risk looking slow, scattered, or less polished compared to peers who lean on AI.Audience expectations
Readers don’t just want one essay a month. They want replies and engagement. That’s something that AI can’t do effectively, that’s your work. But AI can “scale” your presence across the platform.Invisible labor
It’s not just posts — it’s all the background admin: CTAs, promo blurbs, SEO, summaries, cross-promo emails., research. AI gives you a very cost effective backup team.
❌ The “No, You Don’t Need AI” Side
Voice is the true differentiator
Readers aren’t subscribing because you publish three times a week; they’re subscribing because you sound like you and say something that is different. If you rush to churn out quantity with AI, you risk becoming bland and interchangeable.Less can be more
Many successful Substacks thrive on one really good piece a week (or even a fortnight) without AI. A thoughtful essay, well-marketed, can beat five rushed ones that smell of robot sweat. Caveat here though: they probably brought their audience with them.AI can become a crutch
If you over-rely on it, you stop sharpening your own writing muscles. The whole point of Substack is authentic human connection. If your readers suspect they’re reading ChatGPT-lite, trust erodes.
Quality vs. saturation
The inbox is already crowded. More content doesn’t equal better growth — sometimes it equals faster unsubscribes.
⚖️ Middle Ground (where I think you’ll land)
Everyone knows AI is scaffolding. It helps you handle the volume of invisible tasks (outlines, research, formatting, repurposing, design) so you can spend your creative energy on the big picture.
But teach AI your voice, or the voice you want, and it can do so much more — let it clean up your messes. Throw in raw drafts, scattered thoughts, or half-baked rants.
It will hand you back something polished, structured, and almost publish-ready.
That’s not replacement. That’s leverage.
How do you teach AI your voice❓
I’ve got you covered: -
You’ll never sound like BeigeBot 3000 with my mini-course. It shows you exactly how to create a writing voice that feels like you— and train AI to nail it (most of the time 😆.
Commitment phobic?
I’ve got your back
💾 Grab it on Gumroad for $17
🔐 Or be sneaky (smart) and become a paid Substack Lab subscriber for just $8/month — and get it included for free. Cancel any time no hard feelings, we can still be friends.👇
You Can Still Succeed Without AI but…
it’ll take:-
less publishing frequency
hiring help (costly)
Increasing time on Substack. With this you’re risking burnout or your income taking a hit if you reduce your 9-5 hours. This can add a sense of desperation to your Substack which shows and doesn’t lead anywhere good.
The real risk is letting AI into the front seat and handing over the steering wheel. If you use AI to pump out generic content you’re heading for trouble.
🌟 Subscriber Spotlight
Every fortnight I will shine a light on one of Substack Lab’s most engaged readers — a person in the trenches, experimenting, writing, and building right alongside us. Think of it as a peek into someone else’s lab notes.
Spotlight: ✨
This week, I want to shine the light on
Last week I shared her post: … because it’s a great example of how even someone writing fiction can quickly build a paid offering. And her’s is a steal on Gumroad. I’ve bought it myself and I’m using it to get back into fiction writing. Who knows where that will end up but at the moment it’s total fun.
I gave Dianna some questions:
So Dianna — Why Substack?
Because it’s one of the few places where AI isn’t treated like a villain in a dystopian novel. Here, it’s more like a quirky little buddy who hands me matches when my creative fire won’t light. That resonated — so I started sharing my own forge experiments,
What pulled you here instead of other platforms?
Honestly? The people.
😹Facebook feels like a rumour mill with cat memes.
❌’s noisy (and no, I’m not paying for the blue check to dodge ads).
🥴Medium? Let’s just say the spam is real.
🍻Substack feels like walking into a tavern where real storytellers are actually talking to each other.
Best surprise so far?
Notes. They’re not “likes.” They’re sparks. I spend 20 minutes fanning other people’s flames every day, and somehow my own fire keeps catching brighter, Three new subscribers in a week — that’s alchemy.
Your rhythm?
Sundays I hammer out a long post with Whisper, my AI buddy, and plan for the Monday-Sunday posts. They’re sparks —little Notes to keep the fire alive.
Coolest thing Substack has given you?
Connection. Like meeting Deb, who doesn’t just wave from outside the forge but steps right into the heat. It’s magic.
For someone starting from scratch? What would you tell them?
I’d remember Substack is social— love people’s words and share the sparks. And if your own scene fire fizzles, you can grab my free Mini-Forge here. If you want the full spell book, The Fictioneer’s Fore awaits on Gumroad.
Thanks Dianna, I hope some of my readers will head over and check out your site. Or even hope into your Chat, I love the prompts you publish there.
Lab Notes: Did You Know⁉️
Your subscriber numbers could be selling you short
Your profile, the one that shows up when someone hits your profile image, will display your subscriber numbers unless you turn it off. You can turn it off under website/settings/privacy.
What I didn’t know, until this week, is that even if you have your numbers turned off for one Substack, your numbers for any old Substacks you have still turned on, will show up!
This happened to me!!
I eventually fixed it by turning off “show subscriber count”, in my old Substack and on for this one. It took a couple of hours to show up on my profile.
Why this matters?
If you are trying to build trust in your expertise. Having your subscriber numbers showing up as 42, for six months, because it’s stuck on subscribers for an unused Stack, is not going to do your credibility any favours.
🔒 Deep Dive (The Inner Sanctum)
How to Fall in Love with Sales 💘
Free readers, this is where we part ways. Paid Lab Rats? We’re heading into the messy, uncomfortable, and absolutely essential world of sales.