Your paper, under your own name: the wiring, step by step

A paper on Newsroom Floor carries your name, your masthead, your writers and your address. DRM3 stays under the hood. This is the wiring, in the order you do it, with the email you get at each step so you know what to look for.

Step 1. The account

Create a DRM3 account at drm3.network with an email address, or with Google, X or GitHub. One account opens every DRM3 app, so you sign in once.

The email that arrives: "Welcome to DRM3, verify your email". One link. Click it and you are in. A Spanish browser gets "Bienvenido a DRM3: verifica tu correo".

If someone invites you rather than the other way round, the email reads "You have a DRM3 account waiting", with the same one link.

Step 2. The first paper

On newsroomfloor.com, paste the address of your website. Newsroom Floor reads your site and lays out a paper in your brand before you sign in: the nameplate, the tagline, the sections, the colours, the writers. Change anything on that sheet, then build. Nothing publishes until you say so.

The email that arrives once the first piece is written: "Your paper wrote its first story", with the paper's name in place of the words. It says whether the piece is live or waiting for you as a draft.

Step 3. Make it yours

Under Brand, upload your logo, paint one from a description, or keep the seal. The masthead, the share cards and the emails use it. Pick the theme, the typeface and the accent. Write the tagline, and its Spanish twin if your paper publishes both.

Under The masthead, name your writers: their beat, their voice, their portrait. Under the sections, decide what the paper covers. The editor-in-chief signs the paper; make that persona your own too.

Step 4. Go public

Open Desk settings, the General tab, and the Reach group. Sign the publisher agreements once. Switch the paper public. It serves at your-id.newsroomfloor.com from that moment, and until then only your seats can see it.

Step 5. Your own domain

On the Publisher plan and above. Add the domain under Settings, Reader domains, then open Your own domain. Two ways in.

A domain of its own, such as news.example.org or example.org itself: at the registrar that holds it, set its nameservers to the two shown on the page, then tell us with the button. We attach the address and its certificate, usually the same day.

A subdomain of a domain you keep elsewhere: one CNAME to your-id.newsroomfloor.com, then we turn the certificate on.

The page shows what DNS says a moment ago for each domain: on our nameservers, a CNAME to us, no record, or does not resolve, and whether it serves your paper. Your newsroomfloor.com address keeps working either way.

Step 6. Your team

Desk settings, the Admin tab, Seats. Invite by email as an editor, an approver or an admin. The seat activates on their first DRM3 sign-in.

The email they get: "Your seat on The Daily Ledger is ready", with your paper's name. It says which seat they hold, explains what it lets them do, and walks them through DRM3 sign-in. The link is good for 14 days.

Step 7. Your readers

The subscribe box on your front page collects addresses; nothing to switch on. Every public paper also has a channel page at /subscribe on its own address with every way to follow it.

The email a reader gets when they sign up: "Confirm your The Daily Ledger alerts", one click, and they are on the list. On days you publish, they get a briefing in your paper's colours: "The Daily Ledger: today's briefing, 4 new stories", or the headline itself when there is one.

Want to charge? Open Desk settings and the Paywall tab. Set a price, monthly or yearly, and how many articles a reader gets free. Readers past the free count see a wall and subscribe through the same checkout your own plan uses.

Step 8. Hand it over

Building a paper for a client? Build it under your account, then hand it over from the desk's Transfer page. The handover is signed on both sides, and the paper lands under their plan. The name and the address never change.

The new owner gets "Your newspaper The Daily Ledger is ready": the paper runs on its own, and their desk is one click away. You get "You handed The Daily Ledger to their address": the paper and its billing become theirs the moment they accept, and you can still read it.

Every email, at a glance

"Welcome to DRM3, verify your email" when the account is created. "Your paper wrote its first story" when the first piece lands. "Your seat on your paper is ready" for each person you seat. "Confirm your paper alerts" for each reader who signs up, then the daily briefing under your paper's name. "Your newspaper is ready" and "You handed your paper to them" on a transfer.

Every one of them carries your paper's name and colours where it is about your paper, and a plain line at the foot saying why it arrived.

If something is unclear

Help, in the header, answers questions about where a setting lives as you type. Support, in the account menu, files a ticket with a person, and the reply lands in the same thread in the app and in your email.