Welcome to Hook Miners
There’s a weird thing about writing online.
You can spend three hours writing something genuinely useful...
Research it
Edit it
Polish it
Move a comma around for seven minutes like the fate of Western civilization depends on it
And then nobody reads it.
Why?
Because the first line didn’t make them want the second line.
That’s the game.
Welcome to Hook Miners.
Weekly prompt building tools that mine your existing content for proven hook angles so you can write stronger openings faster and easier... without staring at a blank page or mastering prompt engineering.
And that last part matters.
Because apparently, somewhere along the way, using AI became another profession.
You wanted help writing a LinkedIn post.
Suddenly somebody is explaining context windows, temperature settings, XML tags, chain-of-thought prompting, variables, frameworks...
Hold on.
I just wanted a better opening.
That’s why I created Hook Miners.
You bring the content.
I build the machinery.
The machinery digs through what you already wrote and helps uncover the interesting stuff hiding inside it.
The tension
The surprise
The painful truth
The useful lesson
The contradiction
The thing you casually mentioned in paragraph 14 that probably should have been the opening.
In other words…
You don’t always need a better idea.
Sometimes you need a better way to find the best part of the idea you already have.
And here’s the other important part…
The Hook Mining tools are free.
Completely free.
Not “free until you click three buttons and discover I need your credit card.”
Free.
I also build more advanced prompt building tools for paid subscribers.
Those go deeper into writing, marketing, business, content development, and other AI-assisted workflows.
But there’s no pressure to upgrade.
Seriously.
Use the free stuff.
If it helps you, fantastic.
If someday you want the advanced stuff, it’ll be there.
That’s the arrangement.
Pretty civilized, right?
Who Is Hook Miners For?
Mostly people who have something useful to say...
...and are tired of spending half their writing time figuring out how to start saying it.
✍️ Writers & Ghostwriters
You know the situation.
The article is basically written in your head.
The argument is clear.
The examples are ready.
You know exactly where the piece is going.
And then you get to the first sentence.
Nothing.
Suddenly you’re looking at a blinking cursor like it personally offended you.
Hook Miners gives you prompt tools designed to go back into your existing material and ask a better question:
What’s already in here that could become a compelling opening?
That could be…
A contradiction
A surprising observation
A mistake
A confession
A strong opinion
A painful problem
A specific result
A hidden story
An unusual comparison
A question the reader is already asking
The raw material is often already there.
You just need to find it.
📣 Creators, Marketers & Business Owners
Maybe writing isn’t your “thing.”
Unfortunately, the Internet did not get this memo.
Run a business?
You write.
Market something?
You write.
Sell something?
You write.
Post on social media?
You write.
Send email?
Still writing.
Apparently there’s no escape.
So if attention matters to your business, openings matter too.
Hook Miners can help you dig through things like…
Newsletters
Blog posts
Sales pages
Social posts
Video transcripts
Podcast transcripts
Customer conversations
Case studies
Offers
Notes
Rough drafts
Old content
...and uncover new angles buried inside them.
Which is considerably easier than sitting down every morning and demanding that your brain produce another brilliant original thought before coffee.
🤖 People Who Use AI But Don’t Want A PhD In Prompt Engineering
This group may be my favorite.
Because there are a lot of people who want better results from AI...
...but don’t want prompt engineering to become their newest hobby.
Understandable.
Most people don’t wake up Saturday morning thinking:
“You know what would really make this weekend special?
Prompt architecture.”
You have a business to run.
Clients to serve
Content to publish
Things to sell
You want the benefit.
You don’t necessarily want to master the machinery behind it.
That’s my job.
I do the prompt engineering so you don’t have to.
The 10 Problems Hook Miners Is Built To Solve
Let’s get specific.
Because nobody subscribes to a newsletter because they woke up thinking:
“I desperately need more newsletters.”
You subscribe because you want something to become easier, faster, better, or more profitable.
Here are the problems I’m attacking.
Problem #1: The Blank Page
Nothing has been written.
Nothing is happening.
The cursor is blinking.
You are blinking.
It’s a standoff.
Hook Miners gives you somewhere to start.
Problem #2: Generic AI Hooks
Ask AI:
Give me 10 attention-grabbing hooks.
And suddenly you’ve entered the International Generic Hook Championships.
“Are you tired of...”
“What if I told you...”
“Here’s the secret...”
“Imagine a world where...”
Nobody talks like this.
Yet somehow every AI on Earth thinks we do.
Hook Miners starts with your material, not a vacuum.
That gives the model something real to work with.
Problem #3: Trying To Create When You Could Extract
This is a big one.
Writers constantly think they need another new idea.
Another angle.
Another clever opening.
Maybe.
But you may already have ten good hooks buried inside something you wrote last month.
Why keep digging new holes when there’s still gold in the old ones?
Mine first.
Create second.
Problem #4: Template Fatigue
You’ve probably seen these:
101 Viral Hook Templates.
Wonderful.
Now you have 101 new decisions to make.
The problem with templates is that eventually everything starts sounding like a template.
Hook mining starts with the substance of your content and works outward.
That tends to produce something more natural.
Problem #5: Prompt Engineering Overwhelm
There is now an entire vocabulary surrounding the act of asking a computer a question.
And some of it matters.
Good prompts need structure.
Context matters.
Constraints matter.
Sequencing matters.
Examples matter.
Evaluation criteria matter.
But here’s my opinion:
You shouldn’t have to become a prompt engineer to benefit from good prompt engineering.
You should be able to use the tool.
Someone else can worry about the wiring.
That someone is me.
Problem #6: Not Giving AI Enough Context
AI is remarkably good at answering the wrong question confidently.
Especially when we haven’t given it enough information.
Your audience matters.
Your offer matters.
Your voice matters.
Your objective matters.
Your source material matters.
Better prompt building tools help collect and organize that context before asking for the output.
That’s a huge part of what I engineer.
Problem #7: Hooks That Have Nothing To Do With The Content
You’ve seen this one.
An irresistible opening.
Huge promise.
Massive curiosity.
You keep reading.
And then...
Nothing.
The hook and the content appear to have met briefly at a networking event.
A good hook shouldn’t trick the reader into continuing.
It should pull the reader naturally into something worth continuing.
Problem #8: Using The Same Hook Over And Over
Every writer has favorite moves.
You find one that works.
Then you use it again.
And again.
And again.
Eventually your audience can finish your opening before you can.
Mining tools help surface angles you might not naturally look for yourself.
Problem #9: Throwing Away Valuable Content
This one drives me crazy.
Someone spends six hours creating a great newsletter.
Publishes it.
Sends it.
Then mentally throws it in the garbage.
On to the next one!
Why?
That newsletter might contain:
15 social posts
8 hook angles
3 email ideas
2 sales arguments
A story
A contrarian opinion
A future article
Several customer pain points
Content is raw material.
Stop treating it like disposable packaging.
Problem #10: No Repeatable System
Inspiration is terrific.
When it shows up.
The problem is inspiration keeps terrible office hours.
A system is better.
Hook Miners is about turning hook discovery into a process you can repeat.
You have content.
Run the tool.
Mine the angles.
Choose the strongest.
Write.
That’s considerably nicer than hoping the Muse clocks in before your deadline.
What You Get From Hook Miners
Here’s where this becomes useful.
⛏️ Free Hook Mining Prompt Tools
Every week, I create prompt tools designed to help you mine stronger hooks from material you already have.
A tool might help you uncover…
Contrarian angles
Curiosity angles
Pain-driven angles
Outcome-driven angles
Mistake angles
Story angles
Authority angles
Confession angles
Comparison angles
Question angles
Unexpected observations
Strong claims
Hidden tensions
And again…
These tools are free.
You can subscribe to Hook Miners and use the core Hook Mining tools without paying me anything.
Why?
Because I want the newsletter itself to be useful.
Radical concept, I know.
These Aren’t Just “Prompts”
There’s a difference between a prompt...
...and a prompt building tool.
A prompt says:
Write 10 hooks for this article.
A prompt building tool might first:
Analyze the source material.
Identify the strongest ideas.
Extract surprising claims.
Find useful tensions.
Look for emotional stakes.
Identify audience pain points.
Generate multiple hook categories.
Evaluate which angles best match the content.
Help you develop the strongest candidates.
That’s a different animal.
The value isn’t merely in telling AI what you want.
It’s in engineering the thinking process that leads to a better answer.
That’s the work I do before you ever see the tool.
You get the finished machinery.
And Then There Are The Advanced Tools
For people who want to go further, I also create more advanced prompt building tools.
Those may help with:
Business
Marketing
Writing
Content strategy
Messaging
Repurposing
Research
Sales communication
Idea development
Workflow design
And other practical uses of AI
Those are for paid subscribers.
But—and I mean this—
There is no pressure to upgrade.
I’m not going to spend every free newsletter issue grabbing you by the ankles and shaking you until a credit card falls out.
Use the free Hook Mining tools.
Get something useful from them.
If you eventually look at the advanced tools and think:
“Yeah, I want those.”
Great.
If not?
Keep using the free ones.
We can still be friends.
Who Am I?
I’m a prompt engineer with more than 20 years of IT experience.
I’m also a ghostwriter and a life insurance agent.
Which is an interesting combination.
Computers.
Writing.
Insurance.
Apparently I looked at career specialization and said, “No thanks.”
But it gives me a useful perspective.
I understand technology.
I understand writing.
And I understand what it’s like to use tools in actual business situations where the objective isn’t to admire the technology.
The objective is to get something done.
That distinction matters to me.
Because there are plenty of people teaching you how to become a prompt engineer.
And that’s fine.
But my mission is different.
I engineer prompt building tools for business, marketing, and writing users who would rather not become prompt engineers themselves.
You probably don’t want to spend your evening figuring out why one instruction hierarchy performs better than another.
I do.
There may be something wrong with me.
But this works out nicely for you.
I do the prompt engineering so you don’t have to.
You bring the job.
I obsess over the instructions.
You use the finished tool.
Fair trade.
Popular Posts
Hook Miners is still building its library.
So I’m not going to pretend there are 147 legendary posts sitting in an archive you somehow missed.
As more Hook Mining tools are published, I’ll update this section with the best and most useful ones.
That way, new readers can quickly find the strongest places to start.
For now?
Start with the newest tool.
Give it some existing content.
See what it digs up.
Ready To Go Mining?
Here’s the whole idea in one sentence:
Your next great hook may already exist inside something you’ve written.
The problem is finding it.
That’s what Hook Miners is for.
Subscribe and I’ll send you prompt building tools that help you dig through your existing content for stronger opening angles.
No blank-page ritual.
No endless hook-template collection.
No requirement that you become a professional prompt engineer.
Just useful tools designed to help you get from:
“How the heck do I start this?”
to:
“There it is.”
And remember:
The Hook Mining prompt tools are completely free.
Use them.
Test them.
Break them.
Adapt them.
Run old content through them.
See what you missed the first time.
And if someday you want the more advanced prompt building tools, you can become a paid subscriber.
No pressure.
Until then...
Keep digging.
Founder & Creator of Hook Miners
