Help with Membership based website

I am in the process of working on a content-heavy website that will be accessed by paid members only. I would really like it to be something that I can create myself since I plan on updating it regularly. Can anybody recommend some good software for creating membership-based websites? I was thinking of purchasing Dreamweaver to create the site but I don't know. I have created some sites with Yahoo sitebuilder but I will not be using it for this project. Also, if anybody has any advice or if you know of a good book or website that contains more information about this then please let me know. I have looked for info all over the internet and for books on Amazon but there really isn't much out there pertaining to how to create a membership-based website and business. Thanks.

so if that's the case, I would try and go with a FREE PHP blog type of software and then hire a PHP programmer to add in the membership piece. There may even be something out there already if you search for 'PHP blog membership system' or something like that. Try a few searches on Google and I'm sure you'll come up with something.