The 12 Best WordPress Themes for Writers That Want to Sell More Books

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Ben Sibley

“These themes are hand-picked for their outstanding design quality, features, and customer reviews.”

A stylish website is an essential tool for self-promotion and marketing as a writer.

There are few better ways to display your work, find new readers/clients, and build your brand than with a WordPress website and blog.

Discover some of the best themes available for publishing your work as a writer in this collection of the best WordPress themes for writers and published authors.

You’ll probably enjoy our collection of the top blogging themes as well.

WordPress Themes for Writers

Whether you’re a blogger, copywriter, journalist, author, or another type of writer, there’s a theme out there designed for you.

I’ve done some of the legwork for you, diving into the vast depths of themes out there to narrow down the best premium writing WordPress themes.

Here are my top picks for best writing WordPress themes for 2024.


  • 1. Author by Compete Themes

    Author

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    Theme Description

    The web is full of awesome themes, but we can’t compile this collection without a shout-out to our own template, Author. Unlike the other themes listed here, Author is totally free to use and has an optional premium upgrade, Author Pro, with additional customization options.

    The Author theme has a unique left sidebar layout, which gives plenty of space for your writing. It’s great for writers interested in publishing content regularly on their website. Author includes a widget area in the sidebar for email forms, categories links, and search bars. And you can add links to any of your social profiles too.

    Author has been thoroughly vetted by the WordPress Theme Review Team and was written with coding best-practices. You’ll find your site loads quickly and looks great on all devices with this blogging template.

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  • 2. Literatum by Rafael Martin (Themeforest)

    Literatum

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    Theme Description

    Literatum is a cool theme with a look similar to Medium.com. That means a large post title laid over a beautiful fullscreen image, followed by a single column layout. The typography is beautifully set and creates a dark, slick feel coupled with the image overlay.

    Literatum also has a handful of special features for a content-based site. For instance, there is a reading time indicator based on the length of the post. There’s also a special “interview” format you can use to transform any post into a web interview.

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  • 3. Wild Book by NordStudio (Themeforest)

    Wild Book

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    Theme Description

    Writers love Wild Book for its simple, elegant beauty.

    This theme features beautiful vintage styling and numerous customization options. Set up a blog, author page, and portfolio section to showcase your writing skills.

    Wild Book utilizes the split page layout we’ve seen in a few of the other themes here. One side is a vertical menu, while the other is your post/page content.

    Highlights of this WordPress theme for writers is its extreme flexibility, SEO friendliness, and classic design.

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  • 4. Divi by Elegant Themes

    Divi theme

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    Theme Description

    Divi is a great theme for professional writers who want total control over their website and personal brand. What separates Divi from other themes is its purely visual site-building tools.

    When you purchase Divi, you also get the Divi builder plugin too. Using the theme and plugin together, you can create any design you can imagine. Instead of editing pages from options menus, Divi lets you edit your site as you preview it. For many users, this is more intuitive than customizing with most WordPress themes.

    Divi also has these great layout packs that automatically add complete pages to your site. The author layout pack is featured above and includes a homepage, About page, Contact page, and more. With a few clicks, you can import them and have a fully designed website to edit and tweak as you see fit.

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  • 5. Odrin by Subsolar (Themeforest)

    Odrin

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    Theme Description

    Odrin is an awesome theme for an established author. What makes this theme different is its variety of book-selling layouts. There are filterable grids with your short descriptions included, sample download buttons, author profile boxes, and much more.

    In addition to the gorgeous layouts, Odrin has plenty of practical business tools. There’s a coming soon page to build anticipation for your next novel, event pages to promote book tours and other events, and full WooCommerce compatibility for selling books directly from your website.

    If you already have a few books out and want to sell from your site, or simply build an email list, Odrin will be an excellent theme for you.

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  • 6. The Writer by Obox (Themeforest)

    The Writer

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    Theme Description

    If your goal is to tell a story with your website, The Writer is the theme for you.

    Aptly named, The Writer was created from the ground up with a focus on bloggers that crave an easy-to-read layout.

    This WordPress theme is easy on the eyes and fully customizable. A straightforward design ensures no extraneous elements are present to distract your readers.

    Some additional features include social profiles, SEO optimization, a visual customizer, and excellent customer support.

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  • 7. GraceUnderPressure by Stylish Themes (Themeforest)

    GraceUnderPressure

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    Theme Description

    GraceUnderPressure is, as its creators describe it, “a WordPress blog theme for true writers.”

    Five layout styles are available, though my favorite is the “Journal” option featured above. This theme looks like a book, making it the perfect place to display stories and novels online. It balances images with text very well, making for an optimal reading experience.

    GraceUnderPressure is also notable for its responsive design, mobile-touch optimization, a beautiful selection of photos, and custom typography.

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  • 8. Evoke by Match Themes (Themeforest)

    Evoke post

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    Theme Description

    Evoke is an excellent WordPress theme for writers that like to include images with their written work.

    It displays your writing and images in a simple, elegant way. A modern design that takes up the entire screen with little clutter is what Evoke is all about.

    The theme utilizes the WordPress theme customizer to give you many different options to tailor the theme to your needs and preferences.

    Other features include mobile responsiveness, live preview during customization, and excellent customer support.

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  • 9. Himmelen by Dedalx (Themeforest)

    Himmelen

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    Theme Description

    A fast, clean design that highlights your writing is at the heart of the Himmelen theme.

    It’s elegant and stylish look makes it particularly effective for bloggers with a sophisticated audience. For instance, Himmelen is a great fit for a travel blog, foodies, and fashion bloggers.

    Hundreds of blog styles and layout combinations give you total control to make your writing site unique.

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  • 10. Modern Studio by StudioPress

    Modern Studio

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    Theme Description

    Modern Studio is a crisp, minimalist theme for writers.

    You’ll notice it has plenty of white space, making it easy for visitors to concentrate on your writing. The characters-per-line are managed carefully to keep the content very readable, and for legibility, the “Lato” sans-serif font is used. The high x-height makes it easy to read at any size and on any device.

    Modern Studio includes a sidebar for featuring a newsletter signup form, social media profiles, and anything else you may want to promote on the site. There are even page templates for creating a custom landing page.

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  • 11. Foodie Pro by StudioPress

    Foodie Pro

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    Theme Description

    If you’re writing about food or any cooking-related topics, you’ve got to give Foodie Pro a chance.

    This minimalist food blog theme has an aesthetic like all the popular foodie blogs on the web. Foodie Pro will have your site looking like Pinch of Yum and other superstar sites from the moment you activate it. The design is straightforward and clean, so your writing and photographs will pop.

    As far as customization options go, Foodie Pro includes a simple assortment of customization tools. You’ll find a customizable header image, multiple widget areas, and plenty of page templates to choose from.

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  • 12. Magazine Pro by StudioPress

    Magazine Pro

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    Theme Description

    Magazine Pro is a simple and clean magazine theme for publishers. It works equally well for publishing blog posts on occasion or posting multiple articles a day.

    This theme is fully responsive, so it looks great on mobile devices and laptops alike. It comes with custom widgets and all the page templates you’ll need to set up pages on your site. Magazine Pro also has WooCommerce integration, which means you can add an online store to your site.

    While note hugely flexible, Magazine Pro comes with a decent set of features, and you likely won’t be looking for anything more with this blogging theme.

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Which Writing Theme is Right for You?

All ten WordPress themes for writers displayed above are incredibly stylish, easy to use, and responsive. You can’t go wrong with any theme on this list, but here are a few closing notes.

You can get started with our Author theme for free and create a beautiful website in minutes. It’s much simpler than the alternatives and is a reliable choice for thousands of sites already.

Divi and its visual builder will be best for you if you want to build multiple sites or get complete control over your site’s design.

Literatum is a beautiful theme and has been a top choice for writers for years now. Pick it for the gorgeous background images and sharp typography.

I hope this collection helped you find the best writing WordPress theme for your website. Thanks for reading!

Ben Sibley
Ben Sibley
This article was written by Ben Sibley. He is a WordPress theme designer & developer, and founder of Compete Themes.