Newbie Seeking Wisdom

Using Ghost
1

I would welcome wisdom or advice.

I would like to start using Ghost Pro. I have been hosting my domain (example.com) with a variety of companies over the years. Currently, I’m using IONOS/1&1 for web hosting and email. I’m thinking about switching to Google Workspace for my emails (postmaster@example.com, etc) and GhostPro for hosting the webpages. I’d welcome advice about the logistics of setting it all up and/or structuring the DNS records (beyond what it says at Ghost’s “Adding Custom Domain” help page). Or feel free to discourage me from following this route, if you have a better idea. GoDaddy has been my registrar for many years, and I’ll probably stick with them.

Also, a few questions:

  1. What’s the biggest mistake you made or wish you had known about when you first started with Ghost? (I’d rather not re-invent the wheel)

  2. Can newsletters be sent without web bugs, beacons, or link tracking? Or sent text-only, rather than with html or enriched text or remote content? (Some of my subscribers are sensitive about privacy, or they just prefer text-only.)

  3. Is there a maximum or minimum amount that Ghost Pro will allow me to charge paid subscribers? ($1/year? $5,000/month?)

  4. Does Ghost Pro impose a limit on the number of emails I send out each month? Or on the size of the emails?

  5. Will Ghost Pro let me email a newsletter without posting it on the site, so that newsletters go out without being archived on the webpages? (My experience has primarily been with Listserv, Regroup, and Google Groups for sending emails to my lists.)

I will welcome and read any advice. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: Thank you.

2

I’ll get the conversation going:

  1. The biggest mistake I see creators make is to worry too much about matters that aren’t content. It’s not your theme, SEO, or pagespeed score that will make you a successful creator, it’s your content. Focus on that.

  2. Tracking analytics can be toggled off in Settings → Analytics. Messages are sent in both HTML and plaintext.

  3. Ghost integrates with Stripe as your payment process. This account is wholly you’re own. Pricing is up to you.

  4. For factors that affect Ghost(Pro) pricing, see this: Ghost(Pro) - Official managed hosting for Ghost

  5. You can send a newsletter without publishing it. When you send it out, an online version is created (which is necessary to accommodate all content types), but you can easily gate this content to members only.

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3

Thank you, Ryan.

That helps. And it gives me something to gnaw on.

Also, I found the Fair Use page – which helped bring me back to reality about usage limits. I’m one of those people who was using the internet thirtysomething years ago and really got it pounded into my brain that every little bit and byte has a price. To this day, I can have a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that hi-def streaming exists and is so prevalent.

I would welcome any other feedback, as well. From anybody. I’m all ears.

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