PORTLAND – Of the thousands of words that appear in a newspaper, Ed Pickett knows which one will appeal most to readers: “free.”

Pickett announced Wednesday his plans to launch the Portland Morning Sun, which will be published Monday-Friday and available free in the Greater Portland area.

The Morning Sun will be the state’s eighth daily paper, Pickett noted in the announcement he circulated to other news media, and the only daily newspaper in Maine that is free.

Pickett plans to have the paper available by 6 a.m. at coffee shops, offices and stores around the city and in street corner boxes. He is aiming to begin publishing the tabloid-size paper in late August or early September.

The Morning Sun will carry international, national and regional news from the New York Times syndicate, which includes the Boston Globe and its sports news, and from The Associated Press. But the paper will give big play to local news, which is key to succeeding, Pickett believes.

“The heart and soul of a local newspaper is local news,” he said.

Pickett said he plans to hire four or five reporters, and will use stories from longtime State House reporter Mal Leary. The paper will not endeavor to cover all of southern Maine, he said, or York County, but rather just the greater Portland area, which Pickett sees as Portland, South Portland, Scarborough, Gorham, Westbrook and Falmouth.

The paper will also carry two crossword puzzles, a horoscope, TV listings, and comics.

Pickett plans to print 5,000 copies of the first issue, but expects that number to grow to 10,000 in short order. The first paper will have 20 pages, but he also is confident the paper will grow in size.

“We’re starting out modestly,” he said, “but we have enough advertising sold today to make a profit.”

Pickett’s business plan is simple. He believes the paper will offer advertisers a lower-priced alternative to the Portland Press Herald. He said businesses will be able to buy an ad that runs five days for the same price it costs to run the same ad just once in the Press Herald. A full-page ad will cost about $690, he said.

Efforts to contact a spokesperson at the Press Herald were unsuccessful Wednesday.

“There are hundreds and hundreds of businesses that can’t afford to advertise in a large metropolitan daily newspaper,” he said. The Morning Sun will offer those businesses an opportunity to advertise, he explained.

And he feels circulation won’t be a problem.

“There’s something to be said about ‘free,’ ” he said.

Pickett, 61, is no newcomer to the Maine media scene. He owned WLKN, a Lincoln radio station in the early 1980s, and was an on-air reporter for ESPN for the first six years of the cable sports network’s existence, covering skiing, including the 1980 and 1984 Olympics.

He also edited and published Ski Racing for a time, and worked as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun for nearly 10 years.

Pickett founded the Bangor Business Monthly and other Maine business monthlies but sold them in the late 1990s. For the past three-and-a-half years, he has been publishing the twice-monthly Portland Business Journal, which he will continue to operate.

The Morning Sun is owned by Pickett, who holds more than 50 percent of the company, and another dozen investors who each have contributed $5,000 to $8,000.

In the announcement about the paper, he throws down the gauntlet for the Press Herald, saying, “The Morning Sun may not be the biggest paper in Portland, but we intend to make it the best.”