When setting up a WordPress blog that allows for multiple authors, it seems many people think all that is involved is to setup additional author profiles and/or start accepting guest posts.   Unfortunately, it really isn’t that simple if you want to create a high quality WordPress blog.

Setting up a multi-author WordPress blog may require you to use a number of WordPress plugins to support a variety of functions.   Ideally you’ll also want your theme to be hacked to help maximize the exposure your authors get.   Examples include creating a “Write for Us” page, creating author profile pages, setting your theme to display the author’s profile below their posts, etc.

Multiple Author WordPress Plugins

Here are a couple WordPress plugins that we’ve covered in the past that are ideal for multi-author WordPress blogs:

• Author Exposed - Adds a full featured display of the authors profile.
• Role Manager Plugin - Allows you to control what the various WordPress user roles can and cannot do.

And here are a few other WordPress plugins that you may also have an interest in (we use a few of these here at WordPress Hacks):

• Author Advertising - Plugin that allows you to share Google AdSense income or other advertising between multiple authors.
• Blog Metrics - Collects blog metrics based upon the author of the posts.
• List Authors Widget - Displays a list of authors in your widgets panel linking to the authors.php page.
• Multiple Authors - Allows multiple authors to be listed for an individual WordPress post, automatically keeping track of who has edited the entry.

Multiple Author WordPress Hacks

Here are a few WordPress Hacks we’ve published in the past to help you hack your WordPress theme to be more multi-author friendly:

• How to Add an Author Page to Your Theme
• How to Change the Author Archives Permalink
• How to Single Out Author Comments
• How to Link Author’s Gravatars to Their Posts
• How to Add Bio Information to Your Posts
• How to Point Author Links to the Authors Website
• How to Create a Maximum Size for Your Images
• How to Use Multiple Stylesheets

I’m sure there are also some WordPress plugins or WordPress hacks which aren’t listed above.   Have any multiple author tools or resources you’d like to add to this list?  Let us know in the comments so we can update our post!

I’m a little later with this post than I meant to be, but in case any of you missed it, I wanted to take a minute and let our readers know about a new WordPress site that recently launched called WordPress Tavern. 

Some of our readers may remember a few months ago when I offered up the domains WPTavern.com and WordPressTavern.com to a good home. Well, I’m thrilled to say I found a wonderful home for them with my friend Jeff Chandler.   Jeff is the author of Jeffro2pt0.com and the WordPress Weekly podcast, but you may have also seen him publishing guest posts here on WordPress Hacks, or as a frequent poster over at Weblog Tools Collection, at Performancing, and I believe also at BloggingTips.com.  

Through Jeff’s work on these reputable sites, Jeff has developed a strong reputation in the WordPress community and now has finally decided to launch his own website, WordPress Tavern.   This new site has been up for a few weeks now and he already has a good amount of unique content built up and a pretty active forum! 

If you enjoy reading about WordPress (I assume most of you do since you subscribe to this site?) I recommend you check out WordPress Tavern and/or subscribe to their feed.

Because I’m such a big fan of WordPress, I am always looking for great ways to help out or to give back to the WordPress community.

Awhile ago, one of my ideas was to create a WordPress resource page to spotlight a number of the top WordPress resources available.  Within that list are a quite a few other WordPress blogs, websites, or other WordPress resources which do a lot of the same stuff as we do here at WordPress Hacks.   My hope was that this page would help draw attention to the great work many of those sites are doing and in turn help the WordPress community to grow as a whole.

A few weeks ago, after I announced our new WordPress Forums, I decided the next project I wanted to tackle was to expand this resource idea out into its own stand alone website.   It was with that thought that the WordPress Nexus was born!

What is a Nexus?

According to Wikipedia:

A nexus is a connection or the center of something.

What is WordPress Nexus?

For some reason I’ve always loved the word “Nexus” so I have to say I was really excited when I realized it was the perfect word for the WordPress resource site I wanted to build.

WordPress Nexus is a hub or directory of all the top WordPress resources found around the internet.   Or at least I hope it will be in a few months.    The way it is currently setup, anyone can submit their WordPress resource to the WordPress Nexus directory to get their site included in the index there (it currently does require a reciprocal link).

Why Should I Submit my Resource to WordPress Nexus?

If you’re wondering why you should submit your WordPress blog, forum, business website, etc. to the WordPress Nexus directory, here are a few reasons:

• Make Your WordPress Resource More Findable - The way the website is setup, it will receive a lot of targeted traffic.  This means people will come looking for something specific.   Having your link included will get more of this targeted traffic over to your website over time.
• Quality Inbound Link - Though the site is new right now, over time WordPress Nexus will likely gain a high Google PageRank, making for a quality inbound link to your WordPress resource.

What Type of Resources is WordPress Nexus Looking For?

If you are wondering if your blog or WordPress-related website qualifies to be included in the WordPress Nexus directory, here is what we are looking for:

• WordPress Blogs - Do you run a niche blog that covers WordPress?  If your blog is dedicated to covering WordPress, or primarily devoted to covering WordPress, you’ll want to submit your blog in this category.
• WordPress Designers - Do you offer custom WordPress design or custom coding services?  If you are looking for work, you’ll want to make sure your blog is listed in this category.
• WordPress Forums - Have a WordPress-related forum?  If so, you’ll want to submit your forum to this category.
• WordPress Resources - Have a WordPress resource that isn’t a blog?   You can submit your resource to this category.
• WordPress Social Networks - Have a WordPress voting site or some other type of social website?  You can submit your site to this category.
• WordPress Themes - Are you a WordPress theme author?   You’ll want to list your business website or blog in this category.   It includes a separate section for people offering free themes and people offering premium WordPress themes.

Any other questions about WordPress Nexus?  Feel free to ask them in the comments.  Otherwise go submit your link!

Since I launched my blog Cats Who Code, I received many emails from my readers, mostly asking WordPress related questions. Due to the fact that a private reply will never help someone else, I came across the idea of creating a WordPress related blog, focused of short, precise and concise recipes.

So, I’m very happy to introduce you WpRecipes. On this new blog, you’ll not find any long and detailed tutorials like the ones I write for WordPress Hacks, but only short and “straight to the essential” recipes.

For example, I’ll show you how to redirect WordPress rss feeds to Feedburner with .htaccess, how to restrict page view to authenticated users only or how to get rid of curly quotes on your WordPress blog.

Don’t hesitate to subscribe to WpRecipes rss feed or save the blog to Delicious! And if you have any WordPress related questions, feel free to ask and I’ll se what I can do to help you.

Here are some WordPress-related links that I hope everyone will enjoy:

• 100+ Killer WordPress Resources - Steffan Antonas, who has been a big supporter of this site, has published a huge list of WordPress resources.   If you are looking for additional tweaks you can do on your blog this is a great place to start.
• When to Use a Magazine-Style Theme - Smashing Magazine recently took a look at magazine/news WordPress themes and tried to determine when you should or shouldn’t consider using one.   This is a very detailed and well researched write up that i recommend to anyone considering making the switch for their blog.
• Stop Blaming the WordPress Team - Are you to quick to blame the WordPress team for problems with your WordPress installation?   Jeff Chandler basically took my thoughts on this matter and wrote it down into an incredible post.   A HUGE portion of the problems people experience with WordPress are usually due to an issue with a WordPress plugin made by someone that isn’t on or affiliated with a WordPress team.
• First Look at WordPress 2.7 - Another great post by Jeff at Weblog Tools Collection.   This one offers a very detailed early look at what to expect for WordPress 2.7.