Quick Start - Journalist

Complete Your Profile

Your profile tells your community who you are. Add your name, a short bio, a photo, and your primary contributing location.

A complete profile tells readers who you are before they ever read your first story.

Get Vouched For

Before you can publish, we verify that you're a real person committed to serving your community. This is how we maintain trust on the platform.

Tell us a bit about yourself and what brings you to My Local Press. We review every request personally.

Set Up Your Stripe Account

This is how you get paid. Advertising revenue goes directly to your Stripe account — 90% of every dollar earned is yours.

Connect your Stripe account in Settings. It takes a few minutes and you only do it once.

Create Your Organization

This step is optional — you can always publish under your own name. But creating an organization gives you a brand, a coverage area, and the ability to invite others to work with you and publish together as a legitimate local news operation.

Start Publishing

Cover your community the way you think it should be covered. The platform supports text, audio, video — whatever the story needs.

Beyond stories, you can also create events, classifieds, resources, coupons, broadcasts, and more. Explore the Create menu in the sidebar when you're ready.

Sell Ads to Local Businesses

This is how you start earning. Create an advertisement for a local business — you write the copy, add their photos, and set the price. Then send it to them. They receive a link, review the ad, and purchase it directly through the platform. The revenue goes to you.

A coffee shop, a bookstore, a local contractor — if they serve your community, they're a potential advertiser. And once they sign up to approve your ad, they can come back and support you or your organization directly anytime.

Sell Subscriptions

Coming very soon — a feature that lets your readers subscribe to your organization directly. Another way to earn from the audience you're building.

In the meantime, focus on building your audience with great content and generating advertising revenue. The subscribers will follow.