Hate and love the

LOL.

There really isn't another word for it.

I started this blog after I found out that, out of all the blog platforms I looked at, Ghost Pro was the one that actually worked. It does the job without making me feel like I need to be a blogger, a sysadmin, and IT support all at once. Like WordPress tends to do. Or you end up paying for the platform, then paying for a pile of plugins that all promise the moon and hand you half a sandwich. Shameless plug for a platform I'm not even involved with. Cheers, Ghost Pro, this one is on me.

Then came the day I decided that one of my articles was good enough to put behind a paywall.

It wasn't good enough. Simple as that. The content wasn't strong enough to justify locking it up. It was pure arrogance on my part. You're never too old to learn that lesson, even if it stings a bit.

The problem was that I had written something very common for the internet, a solution to a problem. Nothing wrong with that, but nothing special either. So I had to think smaller. More specific. More niche. That's where the real value was hiding.

So I changed the shape of the offer.

Instead of selling just the article, I added extras, a conclusion, a summary, takeaways, plus PDF and ePub files so people could upload it to whatever mobile reader they like. That felt better. It felt honest. I didn't feel like I was trying to hustle anyone.

Then came that gloomy phase every new blogger knows, staring at the membership list like it might magically change if I looked hard enough. Total members: 1. For ages. And that one was just a test account I created when I started.

Then came the day.

One new member. Yes.

Then, almost immediately, "account cancelled?"

On the same day it was created?

I still don't know whether I should call that a scam or a compliment.

The person, all the way from the other side of the world, signed up, entered their credit card details, created a login, canceled the subscription, confirmed the cancellation, and walked away with the 15-day free trial just to read all the articles on the site. One of them, at least, was one of my first, which also means it was one of my worst.

L-fucking-O-L.

No, really, I think I'm impressed.

That takes effort. Real effort. Enough effort to make me respect the move, even if it also made me blink at the screen for a while. Somebody went through the whole process just to squeeze 15 free days out of my early junk. That's commitment.

It also made one thing pretty obvious to me. Ghost Pro could use two things.

One, cancellation should probably only kick in right before a subscription expires, not the second after somebody signs up.

Two, there should be a pay-per-article option. Let people pay for one piece without pretending they want a subscription they never meant to keep.

As for my friend from Nowheresville, you got me.

I'm taking my hat off to you. You screwed me over so cleanly that I can only laugh and admire the work.

And thanks for reminding me that some people will happily abuse the system just to read a mediocre article that apparently didn't even solve their problem. BTW, enjoy your 15 days of free trial. This one is for free. And all the articles for the next 15 days.

The real lesson is simple: write for you, not for fame or money. We need more bloggers who are passionate, even if they only have one subscriber. The rest will come, eventually.