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§ masterplan.md

Indie Engineering Magazine

An editorial online magazine with long-form articles, pull quotes, author bios and a reading-progress indicator.

All ideas
Editorial

01

App overview and objectives

An independent engineering magazine published in issues rather than an endless feed, with long-form articles, real illustration and a paid subscription. Success is renewal rate, not traffic.

02

The problem worth solving

Technical writing on ad-funded sites optimises for clicks. Reader-funded issues let writers spend six weeks on one piece, which is the only way to produce work worth paying for.

03

Target audience

  • Primary — Practising engineers who want depth rather than news.
  • Secondary — Writers looking for a paying home for long technical essays.

04

Roles and permissions

  • Visitor — read-only public pages, can sign up.
  • Member — owns their own records, cannot see other users' data.

05

Core features

  • Issue-based publishing with a cover, editorial letter and contents
  • Article reader with footnotes, code blocks, diagrams and reading progress
  • Paid subscription with a metered free allowance
  • Author pages with bio, archive and payment record
  • Editorial workflow: pitch, draft, edit, schedule
  • Email delivery of each new issue

Deliberately later

  • Print edition
  • Audio narration
  • Community discussion per article

06

Technical stack

Static-rendered React for articles, a headless CMS for editorial workflow, a subscription provider for billing.

Why: Articles must be fast and indexable; billing and paywall logic stay at the edge so free previews still render statically.

Alternatives: A hosted newsletter platform (instant, generic layout, platform owns the list) or fully custom (total control, months of billing plumbing).

07

Conceptual data model

Issue — number, theme, cover, publish date, editorial letter

Article — issue, title, deck, body, author, reading time, paywalled

Author — bio, portrait, links, payment details

Subscription — reader, plan, status, renewal date

Pitch — author, summary, status, editor notes

08

Integrations

  • Payments and subscription billing
  • Email delivery
  • Image CDN
  • Search

09

UI design principles

  • Reading experience first: 65-75 character measure, strong serif headings, real typographic hierarchy.
  • Images are captioned and credited; pull-quotes break long passages.
  • Navigation stays out of the way while reading and reappears on scroll-up.

10

Security considerations

  • Paywall enforced server-side; the full body is never sent to unauthorised clients.
  • Reader email list treated as a critical asset with export controls and audit logging.
  • Author payment details stored with the payment provider only.

11

Development phases

Phase 1 — Prove the core

  • — Issue-based publishing with a cover, editorial letter and contents
  • — Article reader with footnotes, code blocks, diagrams and reading progress
  • — Paid subscription with a metered free allowance
  • — Static content and design system in place
  • — Basic analytics

Phase 2 — Make it real

  • — Author pages with bio, archive and payment record
  • — Editorial workflow: pitch, draft, edit, schedule
  • — Email delivery of each new issue
  • — Accounts, sign-in and password reset
  • — Empty, loading and error states everywhere

Phase 3 — Polish and launch

  • — Performance, accessibility and SEO pass
  • — Legal pages, contact route and 404 handling
  • — Wire up: Payments and subscription billing
  • — Wire up: Email delivery

Phase 4 — Grow

  • — Print edition
  • — Audio narration
  • — Community discussion per article

12

Challenges and solutions

Risk — Subscription conversion is hard

Solution — Give one flagship free article per issue and make the free reading experience excellent.

Risk — Editorial pipeline stalls

Solution — Publish on a fixed calendar with a buffer of two finished issues.

Risk — Paywall hurts SEO

Solution — Structured data marking paywalled content and generous free excerpts.

13

Future expansion

  • Job board
  • Annual anthology
  • Sponsored research reports

14

Page list (13 pages)

  1. 01 PUBLIC Issues — Every issue with cover and contents.
  2. 02 PUBLIC Articles — Cross-issue article index and search.
  3. 03 PUBLIC Authors — Contributor profiles and archives.
  4. 04 PUBLIC Subscribe — Plans, pricing and account management.
  5. 05 PUBLIC About — Editorial mission and pitch guidelines.
  6. 06 AUTH Sign up — Create an account with email or a social provider.
  7. 07 AUTH Log in — Return to the account, with error and lockout states.
  8. 08 AUTH Reset password — Request a reset link and set a new password.
  9. 09 APP (signed in) Account settings — Profile, email, password, language and delete account.
  10. 10 PUBLIC Contact — Contact form plus real address, phone and email.
  11. 11 LEGAL & SYSTEM Privacy policy — What data is collected, why, and how to remove it.
  12. 12 LEGAL & SYSTEM Terms of service — Rules of use, liability and account termination.
  13. 13 LEGAL & SYSTEM 404 not found — Friendly dead end with search and links back.

15

Page map

PUBLIC        AUTH               APP (signed in)      LEGAL & SYSTEM
────────────  ─────────────────  ───────────────────  ───────────────────
├─ Issues     ├─ Sign up         └─ Account settings  ├─ Privacy policy
├─ Articles   ├─ Log in                               ├─ Terms of service
├─ Authors    └─ Reset password                       └─ 404 not found
├─ Subscribe
├─ About
└─ Contact

key flows:
  Issues ──▶ Articles
  Articles ──▶ Authors
  Articles ──▶ Subscribe
  About ──▶ Subscribe