Going to close this thread now. The original question was “is it possible to email subscribers from Ghost”. At the time of answering it wasn’t possible, but we literally released the feature the same day 
The rest of this thread has become a bit of a mess of debugging how to configure it. I’ve already done a long write up of how to setup email properly with members here:
If you’re still stuck, here’s a repeat of how to get help:
Getting Help
If you’re having problems after following the steps in this thread and you want help troubleshooting your configuration, please start your own new “Help” thread, and make sure you share all the details including:
- your platform details - where and how you’re installing Ghost
- what theme you are using
- your member settings (is allow free signup on or off)
- which type of email is not working
- your configuration for the broken email type
- any errors you’re seeing
And we’ll be able to help troubleshoot on a case-by-case basis.