How to Build an AI Prompt Library (with Examples)

Creating an AI prompt library can be a game changer if you’re a freelancer looking to work more efficiently and earn more from your writing. In this guide, we’ll show you how to build one from scratch and share practical examples.

What Are AI Prompts for Content Writing?

Let’s start with the basics. You may be familiar with what a prompt is: a helpful hint or nudge in the right direction that indicates what needs to be done. An AI prompt is an instruction given to an AI tool for what you would like it to do.

An AI prompt for content writing, therefore, is the instruction or set of instructions you give to a generative AI tool (such as ChatGPT or Scribe) to get it to help you write your content. The key here is that it helps you write; the finished article is up to you.

To explore in more depth the different types of AI prompts that could be useful for content creation, have a look at our earlier post: How to Write AI Prompts for Content Creation.

What Is a Prompt Library?

While we’re covering the basics, what do we mean by a prompt library? Essentially, we’re talking about a list of prompts that you’ve had success with (or you’ve seen or been recommended), and you keep them organized so that you can find and use them again.

What Are the Benefits of Having a Prompt Library?

Now that you know what an AI prompt library is, why should you have one?

If you’re using AI or considering using it, it’s likely because you’re hoping it will save you time and effort. As a freelancer, your time is valuable. The more efficiently you can work, the more you can earn from your writing, right?

Knowing that you can use generative AI to help you become more efficient in your writing is one thing, but it will only save you time if you’ve figured out how to use prompts to make it work for you. And once you’ve found something that works, you’ll want to remember it for next time.

By keeping a note of the prompts that have produced helpful results, you can save time in future. And by keeping them organized in a library, you can further save time by making them easy to locate.

How to Build an AI Prompt Library

Now that you know why you should have an AI prompt library, how do you go about putting one together? Here’s our step-by-step guide, including some examples to help you on your way.

1. Start Now

Even if you’re just starting out with using AI for your content writing, you can save yourself a lot of time by setting up your library now. Yes, it might need some tweaking as you progress, but that will always be the case (see step eight).

It is, however, never too late to make a start. If you’ve been using AI for a while, you’ll have more to add to your library at the outset. But you’ll not only benefit in the future from having them organized – you’ll also learn a lot about your prompts as you do so.

2. Set Up a Digital File

Scribbling prompts down on scraps of paper or on Post-its stuck to your computer screen might work if you only have a few, but paper copies can get lost or damaged. And you can’t copy and paste from handwritten notes, so you’ll still have to spend valuable time typing them out each time.

Instead, set up a file on your computer and name it clearly. For example:

Prompt Library

You could be more creative, of course, but you’ll need to be able to find it easily.

You can use whichever software tool you prefer for housing your library: a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, Google Sheet, or Word document, for example. As a freelancer, you’re in charge, and you don’t need to worry about sharing your prompts with a team, so go with what works best for you.

3. Collect Your Existing Prompts

If you haven’t been keeping a copy of prompts you’ve used, you can go back through your chat history and copy them from there.

As you go back through, you’ll probably see how many times you’ve had to refine an initial prompt or repeat one. You’ll see which have been successful, so those will be the ones to collect for your library. You might have one like this from our earlier post:

Generate an engaging introduction of no more than 200 words for a blog post announcing the opening of a nineties-themed coffee shop. Highlight the ambience, décor, and menu. Please use a friendly, enthusiastic tone.

For now, just copy and paste your successful prompts into the file you set up at step two. Don’t worry about the order or doing anything else at this stage.

4. Decide How to Organize Your Prompts

Now that you’ve collected your successful prompts in one place, you’ll need to organize them so that you can quickly and easily find and reuse them.

As a freelance content writer, for example, you might want to sort your prompts by:

• Content type
  – Blog posts
  – Social media posts
  – Newsletters
• Client
  – B2B
  – B2C
  – Academic
• Task
  – Topic ideas
  – Outlines
  – Keywords
  – Meta descriptions
  – Introductions
  – Summaries

There may, of course, be some overlap between the categories. This is your library, and there’s nothing to stop you from putting the same prompt into two or more categories.

5. Extract the Generic Elements

To make your library more applicable to any situation, you could extract the elements of your prompts.

Taking our earlier example, you might need help coming up with the introduction to a blog post, but it’s unlikely you’ll need to do so again for the opening of a nineties-themed coffee shop. Take out the project-specific parts:

Generate an engaging introduction of no more than 200 words for a blog post announcing the opening of a nineties-themed coffee shop. Highlight the ambience, décor, and menu. Please use a friendly, enthusiastic tone.

With a slight rewording to accommodate the need to replace those parts, you’re left with something like this:

Generate an introduction for a blog post on the following subject. Include the given keywords. Use the specified tone of voice and word count.

You can then add a list of the mix and match elements to the prompt as a reminder to yourself:

Subject: [for you to add]

Keywords: [for you to add]

Tone of voice: [for you to add]

Word count: [for you to add]

6. Add a Glossary to Mix and Match

Often, you’ll get the mix and match elements from your content brief (e.g., the subject, keywords, and word count). Sometimes, however, it might not be covered – or you could be writing for your own blog or social media. And sometimes, words fail you in the moment.

You could make your life less stressful and your work more efficient by including a glossary of terms or short prompts for things like:

• Tone of voice: e.g., friendly, informative, persuasive
• Sentence structure: e.g., emphatic, complex, rhetorical
• Vocabulary: e.g., accessible, technical, relatable

You can then mix and match those with your prompts. For example, using the same main prompt as before but adding the mix and match elements, you could have:

Generate an introduction for a blog post on the following subject. Include the given keywords. Use the specified tone of voice and word count.

Subject: Making a Prom Dress

Tone of voice: Informative

Keywords: DIY prom dress

Word count: 200

7. Take Inspiration from Others

If you’re still struggling to find prompts to fill your library, you could look into what works for other content writers. Networking is great for lots of things, but as the conversation almost inevitably turns to AI, you could discover what prompts your fellow writers have found helpful.

Or you could have a look online. SEMrush, for example, has a library of prompts for content writers and marketers. As well as taking inspiration from the prompts themselves, you can see how others have categorized them and whether that might work for your library.

8. Use, Review, and Improve

Now that you’ve set up your library, you need to use it. As you use your library, you may find better ways to categorize your prompts so that you can find them. And as you use your prompts, you might make further tweaks to make them work for you.

If you view your library as an ever-evolving, improving document, you’ll be well on your way to getting the best use out of AI.

9. Continue to Learn

Just as your library will evolve over time, so will the AI tools themselves. If the sudden explosion of AI into seemingly every area of life has taught us anything, it’s that technology is capable of advancing at a fast pace.

By keeping up to date with the AI tools available to help with content writing and the skills you’ll need, you can ensure you’re making the best use of them. And that will include going back to step eight and reviewing the prompts in your library.

You might, for example, want to add details of the date you created and last used a prompt so that you can keep tabs on those that might need adapting to a new version of the tool you’re using.

AI Prompting for Writers and Editors

One way in which you can learn about using AI prompting to help with your freelance writing career is to take a course. Our AI Prompting For Writers And Editors course even includes a downloadable prompt library with over 130 prompts. Having subscribed to the course, you can use that library as it is, or, following our steps above, adapt it for your own use.

You can even try a couple of lessons from the course for free!