Yesterday, I was got this email from a struggling newsletter copywriter…

(Who asked to remain anonymous, but let’s call him Kaz)

Check this out…

KAZ:

Alin, I love reading your emails.

I’ve been writing my own newsletter for almost four years and I hate to admit it but revenue wise this has been my worse year yet. I’ve got three core products I’ve always sold and none of them are really doing well anymore.

And honestly I’m not happy writing them anymore.

I kinda regret bringing AI into my writing workflow.

At first, I was just using it for research and then I started using it to outline my newsletter and then eventually I started taking chunks of it’s writing for my newsletter. It was great. I was writing faster. It felt like it was nailing my voice. There didn’t seem to be a big difference in what I was doing before to after AI minus the fact that it would take me an hour to write the newsletter instead of four hours.

But now it’s been a few years and I’m not enjoying it anymore.

I feel like I used to like writing. I don’t feel like I like to write anymore.

And as I mentioned my sales are tanking. I wish I could sell like you but I don’t have the stomach to be that direct.

Anyway I’m rambling. Sorry for the long email. But any advice would be amazing.

If you use this for your one of your email, please don’t share my name.

Thanks.

NOT SHOCKINGLY…

Kaz isn’t the first one to tell me he’s using AI MORE and liking it LESS.

The ProCopywriters 2026 survey found that 74% of copywriting use AI (up from 59% two years ago) while 64% say they’d eliminate it if they could.

(But now they’re cocaine addicted and have no idea how to get off the drug…)

Even worse…

YOUR READERS & BUYERS LIKE IT LESS.

Case and point…

Jay Clouse had a tweet the other week getting massive traction where he asked people…

“Are you reading more or less newsletters this year than you were last year?”

90% of the comments said…

LESS! WAY WAYYYY LESS.

The #1 reason was…

AI SLOP.

It’s gotten to the point where we’ve officially hit “inbred media.”

(AKA Claude is having “Consensual Content Intercourse” with all his cousins… gross! 🤣)

Claude is researching other newsletters written by Claude shipped to people’s inboxes that are now summarized by their Claude bots and no one has any clue why people aren’t reading, replying, or buying!?

When I write it out…

It sounds OBVIOUS!

Yet, you still have a bunch of copywriters and creators who haven’t figured it out yet.

If that’s you…

HERE’S EXACTLY WHAT I’D DO…

1 — Figure out if you even enjoy writing. If you don’t enjoy it, don’t be a writer. Stop following the “easy $10K/mo” goombas on X telling you copywriting is easy money. It’s not.

2 — If you enjoy writing, start a daily email list

3 — Don’t worry about monetizing your email list… worry about falling in love with writing

4 — If you need to pay bills, get a freaking job and write in the morning before work (like the rest of us did to build our full-time copy businesses)

5 — Write every single day for a year

6 — After a year, decide if you want to keep writing or not

Even if you make $0 off your daily email list…

You’ll have written every single day for a year which will give you more clarity, more ideas, more stories, more copy skills THAN not writing at all or worse, outsourcing your writing to AI and becoming miserable.

I don’t care if you use AI.

Use it to build websites, do your expenses, fill out spreadsheets.

The crap that doesn’t bring you joy.

That’s what you should outsource to AI.

But I’m telling you…

We’re finally getting data from people who outsourced their JOY and WRITING to AI…

And it ain’t good.

They want back in.

And now they gotta start over cause they screwed the pooch on this one.

Enough harpin’ from me.

If you want some more inspiration of what human writing can do for your sales and joy...

Here's a video I recorded breaking down a BANGER email I wrote (without Claude) for an old client of mine:

​"I ATTACKED MY CLIENT'S COMPETITOR" VIDEO​

👆👆👆

Hope this inspires you to get back to writing yourself.

Your friend,

Alin “Email Goat” Dragu

P.S. Have you unsubscribed from a newsletter you USED to read but now is clearly AI? Reply to this and let me know.