Magazine Theme for Ghost: Sections, Editor's Picks, Long Reads and Memberships

The Magazine theme is an Ectobuilder theme for publications with several sections and several writers: a culture magazine, a local news site, a travel title, a trade publication. It has a classic masthead, a front page with a lead story, editor's picks, a front for each section, a full-width long read, opinion columns and paid memberships. The demo is "The Meridian", a magazine of culture, travel and ideas, but every word, photo and colour can be changed.

Everything on the homepage comes from your Ghost posts. You don't arrange stories by hand: you tag and feature posts in Ghost, and each part of the page picks them up.

• Front page: your five newest stories, the newest one as the lead.
• Editor's picks: the four posts you feature, numbered, on a dark band.
• Section fronts: one per section, such as Travel or Design, each showing the newest posts with that tag.
• The long read: one story given the whole width of the page, with its photo behind the headline.
• Opinion: your columnists, with their photos and names from Ghost.
• Newsletter: a sign-up band for your weekly email.

Stories get a big headline, a large photo and a reading column with a drop cap, followed by the author, comments and more stories from the same section. There's also a Membership page for your paid plans.

This guide sets it up in six parts:

• Turn your sections into tags
• Set up the navigation
• Fill the homepage
• Add your writers
• Sell memberships
• Send a weekly newsletter

To follow along, open the theme from the Ectobuilder theme gallery and connect your Ghost site under Settings → Integrations → Ghost Admin API.

Part 1: Turn your sections into tags

In Ghost, a magazine's sections are tags. A post tagged Travel appears on the Travel section front, on the Travel page at /tag/travel/, and with a red TRAVEL label above its headline.

1. In Ghost Admin, go to Tags and click New tag.
2. Create one tag per section. The demo uses Travel, Culture, Design, Books and Opinion.
3. Give each tag a one-line description. The theme shows it under the section's name on its tag page.
4. Create one more tag for the long-read slot: Long read, with the slug long-read. The Opinion section uses the opinion tag.

When you write a post, put its section first in the Tags field. Ghost calls the first tag the primary tag, and the theme uses it for the label above the headline and for "More in Travel" under the story. You can add more tags after it, for places or topics; they appear at the end of the story.

Part 2: Set up the navigation

The links under the masthead are your Ghost navigation. In Ghost Admin, go to Settings → Navigation:

• Under Primary navigation, add Home (/), then one link per section, such as Travel (/tag/travel/), and finally Membership (/membership/).
• Under Secondary navigation, add the links for the footer's "The magazine" column: About, Membership, Contact and Privacy.

The footer's "Sections" column fills itself with your tags, busiest first. The masthead's small line at the top is your site description, from Settings → Title & description.

The full list of stories lives at /blog/. Ectobuilder themes keep the homepage at / and the list at /blog/ with a small routes.yaml file: in Ectobuilder, open Settings → Ghost Settings, click Download next to routes.yaml, then upload it in Ghost under Settings → Labs → Routes. The Newsletter theme guide shows the same steps with screenshots.

Part 3: Fill the homepage

The homepage is built from your posts, so the best way to set it up is to publish some. Aim for eight to ten stories across your sections before you launch, each with a feature image and an excerpt. The excerpt is the line under the headline, so write it like a magazine standfirst: one sentence that makes people want to read on.

The front page

The front page shows your five newest stories. The newest is the lead, with a big photo and its excerpt; the next four sit beside it. Nothing to set up: publish a story and it moves to the top.

Editor's picks

The dark band shows your featured posts. To feature one, open it in Ghost, click the Post settings icon at the top right and turn on Feature this post. The band shows the four most recent featured posts, numbered. Unfeature older ones to swap them out.

Section fronts

Each section front shows the newest posts with one tag. The demo has two: Travel in a lead-and-list layout, and Design as a row of four tall pictures. To point one at your own section:

1. In Ectobuilder, click the section front on the canvas.
2. In the panel on the right, under Posts from Ghost, set Tag slug to your tag's slug, for example culture.
3. Click the title on the canvas and type the section's name, then update the "More in…" link to /tag/culture/.

To add another section, click Add, open Post feeds and drag in Section front or Section row. Alternate the two so the page doesn't look repetitive.

The long read and opinion

Tag a story Long read and it takes over the full-width band, with its feature image behind the headline. Pick a photo that is dark at the bottom, or one with a calm area for the text. The band always shows your newest long read.

Posts tagged Opinion appear in the Opinion section, with the author's photo instead of a feature image, in the style of a newspaper's columnists.

Part 4: Add your writers

A magazine has more than one byline. Ghost has roles for that:

• Contributors write drafts but can't publish.
• Authors write and publish their own posts.
• Editors can edit and publish everyone's posts and invite writers.

Invite them under Settings → Staff → Invite people. Ask each writer to add a profile picture and a short bio: the theme shows them in the byline, in the "Written by" box under every story, in the Opinion section, and on their author page at /author/their-name/.

Part 5: Sell memberships

Ghost has paid memberships built in, and takes no cut: readers pay through your own Stripe account.

1. In Ghost Admin, go to Settings → Tiers, click Connect with Stripe and follow the steps.
2. Add your paid tiers. The demo has Member at $8 a month and Patron at $25 a month, each with a short description and a list of benefits.
3. Go to Pages → New page, title it Membership, open Page settings and choose the Membership template. Publish it.

The Membership page reads your tiers from Ghost, so prices and benefits stay up to date without touching the theme. Below the plans is a short FAQ you can edit in Ectobuilder.

To make a story members-only, open its Post settings and set Post access to Members only or Paid-members only. Insert a Public preview divider where the free part should end. For more on plans and pricing pages, read how to build a pricing page in Ghost.

Paid subscriptions need a Ghost plan that includes them: any self-hosted Ghost, or Ghost(Pro) Publisher and above. A busy magazine with several writers and thousands of members is exactly what Ghost(Pro) is built for: hosting, updates, backups and email delivery are handled for you. Compare it with the alternatives in Ghost(Pro) vs other Ghost hosting.

Part 6: Send a weekly newsletter

Every sign-up box in the theme, in the newsletter band, after each story and in the footer, adds the reader to your Ghost members, ready for your newsletter.

1. In Ghost Admin, go to Settings → Newsletters and check that newsletter sending is on.
2. Edit the default newsletter: give it a name like The Friday edition, a sender name and your header image.
3. Write a weekly round-up as a normal post and choose to send it by email when you publish. Five stories with a line each is plenty.

Ghost can run several newsletters at once, and readers choose which ones they get. A magazine can add one per section, such as a travel letter, under Settings → Newsletters → Add newsletter.

To let readers discuss stories, turn on Ghost's comments under Settings → Access → Commenting. See comments for Ghost for other options.

Next steps

• Change the colours and fonts under Style. The demo uses a deep red with Newsreader for headlines.
• Upload your logo in Ghost under Settings → Design & branding; it replaces the wordmark in the masthead.
• Add a table of contents to your longest stories.
• Browse more designs in our roundup of the best Ghost themes, or see the Newsletter theme if you write alone.

Frequently asked questions