Starting a publication
A publication often starts before it has a name. A subject keeps following you around, or your private notes begin to feel like something other people might want to read.
At that point, the audience may be imaginary and the schedule undecided. You can still begin. Some publications stay personal. Others support an existing business or find support from readers.
Start with one piece you care about. It will tell you more about the publication than a week spent planning it.
Before anything is published, names, formats, and schedules can feel urgent. A finished piece gives those decisions something real to answer.
Write about something you know closely or a question that refuses to leave you alone. Use the form the material asks for, whether that is an essay, a practical guide, an interview, or a short note.
The first pieces may vary in length and tone. That variation helps you learn what belongs in the publication and what you can imagine returning to months from now.
Readers usually arrive more slowly than ideas do. Some will come back, many will pass by, and the first regular reader or subscriber may take time to appear.
I’ve spent more than a decade designing Ghost themes. In that time, I’ve watched publications disappear after a few months, last for years, and gradually become something their creators could not have planned at the beginning.
Can a publication become paid? Readers can support work they want to keep receiving.
A paid publication makes a simple promise: there will be more work worth returning to. Readers pay for continued access, and their subscriptions help fund the time it takes to publish.
Subscriptions can replace advertising and sponsorships or sit alongside them. A relatively small group of readers can make the model work when they value the publication and want it to continue.
Free and paid work often share the same publication. Public articles remain open, while a subscription unlocks additional writing, analysis, an archive, or a private newsletter. Some readers also subscribe simply to support work they already read for free.
The decision can wait. Many people publish openly for a while, learn what readers return for, and introduce a paid option later.
How does paid access work? A subscription handles the payment, while a paywall decides which work it unlocks.
A reader usually subscribes monthly or yearly. The subscription keeps access active while the payments continue.
When a reader reaches a post reserved for paying members, the publication asks them to subscribe before continuing. That boundary is the paywall.
Behind it, the platform may manage free and paid accounts, plans, recurring payments, newsletters, cancellations, and account details. You decide which posts remain public and which are reserved for members.
A publication can begin entirely open and add memberships or paid access when there is enough work to make the offer clear.
Where should you publish? Ghost, Substack, and WordPress put the site, email, payments, and maintenance together in different ways.
Think about the parts you want in one system and the parts you are willing to assemble yourself. A paid publication needs a site, member accounts, payments, access rules, and usually email. Each platform draws its boundary in a different place.
Ghost
I design Ghost themes, so Ghost is the platform I know from daily work. This section reflects that experience and that bias.
Ghost keeps the site, editor, newsletters, member accounts, paid subscriptions, and paywalls in one platform. Your publication can live on its own domain and use its own design.
The software is open source. You can use Ghost(Pro), choose an independent managed host, or run a server yourself. The choice determines how much maintenance falls to you.
If you want to understand it before deciding, learn what Ghost is and how it works.
Substack
Substack combines a site, email delivery, subscriptions, and a reader network in one service. You can open an account and begin publishing without assembling those parts yourself.
Publishing is free. If you charge for subscriptions, Substack takes a share of that revenue and Stripe charges payment fees. The publication also remains closely tied to Substack’s product and network.
WordPress
WordPress is a general content management system with a large ecosystem of themes, plugins, hosts, and external services. You can combine them in many ways.
Memberships, newsletters, paywalls, and recurring payments commonly come from additional plugins or services. Each one brings its own setup, maintenance, and possible cost.
What does starting cost? The invoice shows only part of it. Setup and maintenance also take time.
A platform may charge a regular fee, take a share of subscription revenue, or leave you with separate bills for hosting and related services. Payment processing can add another fee when readers subscribe.
A managed plan puts most of the practical work under one account. Self-hosting puts hosting, email delivery, updates, backups, and maintenance in your hands, with separate costs wherever you bring in another service.
What can a company publish? The material is already in its work: questions, decisions, methods, and lessons.
Many of the sites built with my themes are company blogs. Their publications grow out of work that is already happening inside the business.
The products or services provide the business model. The blog opens up the thinking behind them for customers, peers, and people researching the subject.
A useful post might answer a question that keeps appearing in customer conversations, explain a difficult decision, or record what the team learned while solving a problem. A content calendar becomes useful after those subjects are visible.
How technical does this get? Most platforms cover daily publishing. Custom designs and integrations take you further into the machinery.
Built-in tools handle many jobs that once required code. Ghost’s Resources library ↗ covers setup, publishing, memberships, and the practical work of running a publication.
Every platform still has its own terms and workflow. One person gets stuck on a ZIP file, while another is comfortable maintaining a server and starts struggling at a line of JavaScript.
Ghost now includes a theme code editor in Ghost Admin, which removes the download, edit, and upload loop for quick changes. Custom theme settings turn many choices about design and layout into ordinary controls.
Those tools cover everyday adjustments. A custom layout, unusual behavior, or a new integration can still require time, technical knowledge, or help from someone who works with Ghost themes.
For work at that level, Ghost maintains the Ghost Experts directory ↗, which lists independent designers and developers offering custom themes, integrations, and other specialist services.
Put the first piece in front of readers. It gives you something concrete to improve, repeat, or change.
Once the first piece is live, you can see how the format feels in practice. Then decide whether the publication needs a schedule, subscriptions, or simply another piece.
If you choose Ghost, its default theme or another free option is enough to begin. When you want a different look or more control over the design, you can find a theme for the way you publish.