I wrote recently about why you should use WordPress for your author website. Now allow me to recommend some themes that might work for you. But first, let me make sure you’re in the right place:
#1. You are not a celebrity
If you are, then you can make a totally personalized expensive website with bells and whistles, because your website doesn’t need to do anything. It can just sit there and be pretty, because you have millions of eager fans typing in your name, hoping for the chance to find you and buy your books.
#2. You don’t want a landing page
A landing page is a one-page “sales-letter” meant to motivate people to take action. They are great – if you are getting traffic. But you have to be advertising, networking, guest posting, handing out business cards or otherwise driving people straight to your site before it does anything. That’s probably too much work.
#3. You DO want a website that sells books for you
That means, you write interesting and useful content for your target readers, and they find it, accidentally, searching for some stuff, because they’ve never heard of you or your book, but they end up on your page and like your writing and see your book for sale in the sidebar. And if you’ve done everything right, they buy the book, love it, and then join your mailing list.
With a website like that, you don’t really have to worry about book marketing. You just keep writing great content.
I also made a free video series about setting up an author website in WordPress – I’ll make a new one soon; and I have a dummy site up at www.authoridentity.com. You may want to check out my fiction site also, to see the choices I made (clean, simple, functional).
UPDATE: For most authors, I recommend Divi theme by Elegant Themes. It’s a WordPress theme with a drag and drop interface and tons of customization options. Someday soon I’ll create a default Divi theme setup for authors.
BUT we are also acquiring some great WP themes from Wow Layers – hopefully I can customized these into a genre-specific set of free web templates for authors.
Check back soon for updates!
The main thing is to get SOMETHING up quickly that looks good. After that, don’t screw it up by adding tons of crap. You need to structure your visitor’s experience and get them to take action (sign up for a content upgrade). Here’s a video of me critiquing 15 authors websites – if you watch the whole thing you’ll learn dozens of things that will help you sell more books.
OK, ready? Here are the sites.
Vivid Responsive Personal Blog
Buy this / Demo
PaulBlack – Personal Blog WordPress Theme
Buy this / Demo
Minimy
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Hooray – Premium WordPress Blog Theme
Buy this / Demo
Fresh Blog
Buy this / Demo
Nano
Buy this / Demo
John Doe’s Blog
Buy this / Demo
Genesis Framework
Buy this / Demo
Beautiful Pro Theme
Buy this / Demo
Lifestyle Pro Theme
Buy this / Demo
Profile Theme
Buy this / Demo
Ostrich – A Classic Minimal WordPress Blog Theme
Buy this / Demo
NAMO – Creative Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme
Buy this / Demo
Since you’re here, let me repeat the qualifiers under consideration.
1. Simple and minimal is better than busy and ugly.
2. Avoid non-intuitive themes that are “neat” or “different.” Users won’t stick around if they can’t find the menu exactly where they expect
3. You don’t need to brand every part of your site with art that matches the book cover. Keep your site simple and white (or black). Let your book cover be the most beautiful thing on your blog, or it won’t impress anyone or stand out.
4. Look at the “blog” page, not the home page; most themes are set up “magazine-style” so they can display a bunch of content on the homepage at once, hoping that something catches somebody’s interest. But you don’t want a bit of everything: you want them to find your page, know exactly what you’re all about, and find some great writing immediately.
5. Fonts are easy to change, so if you like everything else, but not the fonts, no problem – you can change them to match the style of your book or genre later. (Colors are usually easy to change too).
6. Brand-building is almost entirely about the fonts and the logo / header. Choose a font for your blog title that matches your genre. That’s your brand. Use the same author photo everywhere. That’s your brand. Don’t try to reinvent web design and turn your website into your own little personal universe (you’ll be the only one who ever visits!)
7. Sliders – don’t use them. Use pictures to make people feel how you want them to; or to make yourself look awesome with big, full, professional author photos. Sliders are to show lots of different content. You don’t have that much content – just “My Book” / “About Me” … unless you are doing a lot of speaking events or something, you don’t need to catch their attention with a big moving slider. Get them with a great headline instead.
8. Don’t give them any choices. Don’t let them get lost, or offer 100 ways to share on social media, or 100 ways to follow you (Sign up for my email! Join my Facebook group, or Like my page! Follow me on Twitter! Oh yeah – and go buy my book! And leave a review!) Nobody will do any of those things, without motivation. The motivation is in the great writing. Get their attention first. Give them something first. Then steer them in the direction you want them to go. Try and get them to do ONE thing, and make it prominent and easy. Don’t make all the choices compete.
9. Everytime you post, ask yourself, “How am I providing value/making their day a little better?”
10. Most of these are “personal blog” style – often with an author photo in the top right. That’s to help build your brand awareness; it makes it easier for people to know and like you. You don’t want to be faceless. You need to build trust. Embrace these proven methods, because they work.
Looking for FREE wordpress themes? Try these:
Backstreet
Buy this / Demo
Preface – A WordPress Theme for Authors
Buy this / Demo
Ethority – One Page eBook Landing
Buy this / Demo
Bookish – WP Theme for Book Authors & Marketers
Buy this / Demo
MagicBook – A 3D Flip Book WordPress Theme
Buy this / Demo
Blogy
Buy this / Demo
Typist – WordPress Theme for Serious Writers
Buy this / Demo
Arwyn – A Charming Personal WordPress Blog Theme
Buy this / Demo
Simple Article – WordPress Theme For Personal Blog
Buy this / Demo
Brown – Responsive WordPress Theme for eBook
Buy this / Demo
WordPress For Writers
Buy this / Demo
Journal
Buy this / Demo
Bliss
Buy this / Demo
Twenties
Buy this / Demo
Ravage – Big & Bold WordPress Theme
Buy this / Demo
Penoolis
Buy this / Demo
Kabuto
Buy this / Demo
BuzzBlog
Buy this / Demo
Personal
Buy this / Demo
Feather
Buy this / Demo
Minimalista – Genesis 2.0Child Theme
Buy this / Demo
Wintersong Pro Theme
Buy this / Demo
iBloggo
Buy this / Demo
Time (Free)
Download / Demo
Themify Base (Free)
Download / Demo
Author Theme for WordPress
Buy this / Demo
Published – Responsive Author Theme
Buy this / Demo
Journal
Buy this / Demo
Esperanza Lite (Free)
Download / Demo
Twenty Twelve (Free)
Download / Demo
Penscratch (Free)
Download / Demo
Rustik – Minimalist WooCommerce Theme
Buy this / Demo
Minnow (Free)
Download / Demo
Manifest WordPress Theme (Free)
Download / Demo
Syntax (Free)
Download / Demo
Gravit
Download / Demo
Buy this / Demo
Connect
Buy this / Demo
Readme – A Readable WordPress Theme
Buy this / Demo
Dazzling (Free)
Download / Demo
BlogBox
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Less (Free)
Download / Demo
DW Minion (Free)
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Cudazi Mono (Free)
Download / Demo
Hellish Simplicity (Free)
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InterStellar (Free)
Download / Demo
MH Elegance lite
Download / Demo
Origin
Download / Demo
Highwind
Download / Demo
Bloggy WP
Buy this / Demo
Read WP
Buy this / Demo
Illuminate
Buy this / Demo
Blank – Elegant and Minimalist WordPress Blog
Buy this / Demo
The Cotton
Buy this / Demo
StanleyWP (Free)
Download / Demo
Wellfolio
Buy this / Demo
Innocente
Buy this / Demo
Yin & Yang
Buy this / Demo
SimpleMag
Buy this / Demo
eBook
Buy this / Demo
Literary
Buy this / Demo
Yosemite
Buy this / Demo
Personal – Best Blog, CV and Video WordPress Them
Buy this / Demo
Bayse
Buy this / Demo
Blogex – Minimal Responsive WordPress Blog Theme
Buy this / Demo
Harmony
Buy this / Demo
Velavo
Buy this / Demo
Himeros
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Soho
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Fall
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Literatum – Just Write
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Melville Theme for Poetry Blogs
Buy this / Demo
Keilir
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Place
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Smoothie
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Cassia
Buy this / Demo
Persefone
Buy this / Demo
GoBlog – Responsive WordPress Blog Theme
Buy this / Demo
MinBlog – Personal Minimalist Blog Theme
Buy this / Demo
Influence (Free)
Download / Demo
Hiero (Free)
Download / Demo
Ascetica (Free)
Download / Demo
Respo Theme (Free)
Download / Demo
Great (Free)
Download / Demo
Graphy (Free)
Download / Demo
Fashionista (Free)
Download / Demo
How to use them
First you need to get some hosting somewhere. I recommend GoDaddy’s managed WordPress hosting (managed hosting will make your site more secure and update automatically). Then you can buy a theme and upload it into your WordPress panel.
There are lots of videos and guides to start using WordPress.
You can also hire someone cheap on Fiverr.com to set up you site for you.
PS here are some more great wordpress themes

I’m a philosophy dropout with a PhD in Literature. I covet a cabin full of cats, where I can write fantasy novels to pay for my cake addiction. Sometimes I live in castles.
11 Comments
Cool – site looks beautiful. Covers could be a little better, but for specialized non-fiction it may not matter so much (I would use more white and space, less dominant colors, green and red… let the food and pictures give the most colors without being overshadowed by the color bands). But mainly just keep writing and publishing. Also you need a better offer on your sidebar, besides “Subscribe”. Maybe “Want a free list of life-improving powerful lessons? Sign up and I’ll email them to you.” (Your blog seems a little unfocused still so I’m not sure who your main readers are, and what the best thing to offer would be). By the way, love the sketches you’ve got up at http://christinecreative.blogspot.com/.
Thanks for the feedback. I have done a ton of testing on three previous websites that I owned for over 8 years in terms of subscribe offers. I had great success building *big* lists fast but ended up with huge increases in mailing list costs without conversion to sales. In my previous industry, we had long conversations about the true value of offering free stuff as a lure to convert buyers. Often, it is not worth it. I decided to take the route to encourage readers to subscribe at the bottom of posts IF they like what they see and want more of it. So far it’s working great!
Is this blog a template? If so, where can I get it?
FYI, this is Sahifa, a WP template.
Perfect collection of WordPress themes you have shared with us. Thanks for sharing. I really like your collection. I will try to design such structural themes by myself using a designing software templatetoaster.
I want to add to this that I am using “Typist” for a client, and while it’s easy to install and all that, the support so far is fairly woeful, as are the “instructions” about the admin and components. They say in the attached info that they have a contact plug-in included, but for the life of me, I can’t find it. So, I went to their support site (!), and sent a message. That was 5 days ago, and so far, nary a word.
For authors that are not wildly technical, I *strongly* recommend that you check out other non-tecchie’s comments, reviews, etc., about any given template, BEFORE buying it or using it. I can finagle this theme into something that the client can use, but if he’d downloaded this, himself, he’d be STUCK.
Hi Derek,
I like the eBook template but that one seems more like a landing page which you say you do not really need …?
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