Best WordPress Themes for Writers

29+ WordPress Themes for Writers and Authors who Blog, Memoir, or Advertise Works Online

With millions of blogs out there it takes lots of work to stand out from the crowd if you’re a writer. Plenty of people make a living in this field, but marketing yourself with a quality website can make all the difference in setting yourself apart. This collection of WordPress themes for writers should help you establish yourself as a crowd favorite wordsmith in no time.

WordPress themes for authors and writers help you showcase your portfolio to sell your freelance services. You can even use these themes to post samples of your new novel or short story. Many writers use WordPress themes to start extensive blogs to outline a single subject like their travels to Europe or thoughts on the economy. Regardless of what type of writer you are, you need a theme that features your writings and pulls in readers with beautiful photos and other media.

How to Create a Successful Author Website

Choosing a professional theme for your website is only the first step on your journey to success. Your first need to consider the main purpose of your author website. Is it to draw more attention to your published works and encourage sales? Are you trying to break out as a freelance writer? Ensure your theme has the proper support for all the features you will need. For instance, does it support featured images? Can you easily add a call to action to drive sales? Can it be customized?

Finally, develop a plan for promoting your website and blog posts. Installing email signup and social media plugins are a must to facilitate promotion. Above all else, work on connecting with influencers in your niche and engaging your fans on social media. With a little bit of effort, you’ll be on the right track to creating a successful author website. Now, let’s take a look at some of the best themes out there for talented writers.



Social Blogger

Social Blogger

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Social Blogger is a unique theme. While it provides a great blog design, it does a whole lot more, too. This theme takes advantage of the popular BuddyPress plugin to help you build a community around your blog, putting you at a bigger advantage. This can increase engagement and help build your audience even further. Not only that, but when you build a community, you can get your members to help produce more content.

Social Blogger helps you achieve that in multiple ways. The theme provides a great front-end interface, inspired by Medium.com, that allows your members to write their own blog posts. Posts can then be published to the main blog on approval. The theme also takes advantage of bbPress, the most popular forums plugin for WordPress, to add forums to your site. This allows your members to discuss various topics and thus produce even more content. The company behind this theme, BuddyBoss, is known for great support and for keeping their quality products up to date. They have plans to roll out more features in the near future including inline comments a la Medium, which will be a great tool for gathering feedback among members.



Underwood

Underwood

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If you are a writer, you want a theme that puts the focus on your most important asset – your words. That’s why you’ll love the Underwood WordPress template. The theme provides a clean and modern design with lots of white space that allows readers to focus on your content without distractions. Besides, the large beautiful full-width banners are sure to pull in readers while audio and video post formats will add variety to your content.

As a writer, you also want your content to be easily accessible to readers. So to cater for performance, Underwood supports the two most popular WordPress performance add ons – the WP SuperCache Plugin and the W3 Total Cache plugin. And to handle your site’s SEO, there’s support for the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin.

Underwood allows you to easily connect with your audience through social media. Social media buttons are included so people can easily follow you and share your content on sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. You also get a tiled Instagram feed to display your latest Instagram photos on your sidebar or above the footer.

In terms of support, there’s an extensive theme documentation to refer to besides the available premium customer support from the Themeshift team.



Shasta

Shasta

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Shasta is a responsive, mobile-ready WordPress theme offers a modern and professional appearance with lots of white space to draw attention to your content. As a writer, you most likely want your readers’ focus to be on your content, and for your site to be accessible on smartphones and tablets as well as laptops and desktops. Shasta accomplishes this, and then some.

Shasta comes with plenty of solid features and settings to match your needs. It provides 4 frontpage layouts including grids with or without sidebar, a large frontpage to highlight your best content, and 9 custom post formats including audio and video posts as well as gallery posts that can have small or large banners. Clean code makes it a pleasure to work with, and ensures your site stays secure.

Custom widgets and widgetized areas provide the opportunity to add more functionality to your site. Thanks to the user-friendly theme customizer, you can style this template in a jiffy. Adjust colors using the color picker, add your site identity, change frontpage display settings, and much more. Now that everyone seems to use Instagram these days, display your own beautiful Instagram feed in your sidebar or above the footer. You can even integrate your own storefront with this WooCommerce-enabled theme.



Wintersong Pro Theme

Wintersong Pro Theme

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The Wintersong Pro Theme is a great solution for writers, and it comes from the folks at StudioPress. This is a child theme for the Genesis framework, meaning it provides most customization options available, and when you make a change to your child theme, none of the customization modifications will be lost since it all gets saved with the framework. This is one of the simplest of the writing themes, with beautiful white space and crisp modules.

Wintersong Pro comes with a custom header for giving an introduction to your writing, along with a custom menu for sending people to the right content on your site. The fixed-width layout is perfect for keeping eyes focused on the middle of the page, where most of your writing will reside. The theme includes a landing page, which is ideal for getting people to buy your books or other writings. Not to mention, the theme is completely responsive, meaning that users can view your content on a phone or tablet without any problems. Finally, the theme options are some of the best you can find, allowing for both advanced users and beginners to achieve success.



Readolog

Readolog

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With Readolog you can share your creations with all readers no matter what it is you write about. The minimalist theme works well for sharing your resume and portfolio, and you can also think about including a blogroll if you’re more interested in publishing a constant flow of your adventures.

The shortcode manager is essential for any type of writer who wants to remain productive and efficient. The theme comes with seven different post formats to add some variety to your writing, and the theme is completely responsive for looking at the website on any platform you desire. We particularly enjoy the simplicity and elegance of this theme, so you can always share your stories without distracting your readers.



Divi

Divi

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The Divi theme is one of the most popular themes on the market right now, and it’s mainly because you can modify the theme to make it look unique to your brand. We like it for writers in particular because you can quickly put together a stunning portfolio without having to learn anything about website design.

It’s a smart and flexible theme that works for the smallest of writing business operations. The Divi Builder is a striking drag and drop editor, so you no longer have to play around with the website’s code to make changes. The theme is completely responsive and you can choose from one of the many premade layouts if you’d rather not start from scratch. This one is a definite win for any industry.



The Thinker

The Thinker

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Every writer likes to believe they are an intellectual person, so The Thinker theme is a nice way to blow up your ego. All jokes aside, this theme is one of the nicer options for authors. The theme incorporates the Soliloquy Slider for stunning graphics that slide around on your homepage. You can also use different page templates to present your content in various formats, ensuring your presentation never gets old.

The color options and theme customization features work well for anyone who doesn’t want to fiddle around with code. We really enjoy the elegance and simplicity of this theme since you can use it for your freelance business, to show off your latest ramblings, or to highlight excerpts.



Parallax Pro

Parallax Pro

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The Parallax Pro theme is another option that’s highly compatible with writing portfolios since it works off of the Genesis framework for ultimate customization. The theme comes with a Parallax slider, so the images move a little slower than the actual page when someone scrolls down, giving your site depth. You can also choose from five color styles to brand your website, and the landing pages are wonderful for selling your books or writing guides.

It’s a mobile-responsive theme, but the true power comes into play with the custom headers and backgrounds. You can drop in high resolution photos to spice up your writings and improve the visualizations for your readers.



The Novelist

The Novelist

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The Novelist is a high-quality WordPress theme for writers who, you guessed it, are writing a novel. The theme looks like a real book; you can flip pages and only see the content shared. It breaks away from the traditional web layouts so you can focus on the written content. Forget about tons of little buttons and tabs; this theme provides an elegant solution.

The theme is responsive and comes with some nice logo customization features. It works with the built-in Customizer features and supports full-screen image backgrounds. This theme truly makes a statement.



Literatum - Just Write

Literatum - Just Write

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The Literatum – Just Write theme provides one of the more visual ways to document your adventures and travels. To start, you can designate featured images for every category, improving the visual nature of your blog and invoking curiosity in your readers.

The theme also provides interview support so you can convert any normal post into an interview format, with questions and answers. You also receive beautiful icons, integration with social media, and one of the nicest interfaces we’ve ever seen for writers.



Uberto

Uberto

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Uberto comes from the people at CSSIgniter, and it works great on any device, pushing your readers to consume your content on tablets, phones, and computers. The minimalist design is perfect for writers, putting the focus on what matters most to your readers. The header image features overlaying text and buttons that you can manipulate to push people to your best content.

The varying post formats ensure that your posts standout in their own unique ways, and the custom widgets are nice for placing icons for social networking, About page previews, and Flickr photos. The multiple color schemes help with branding, and the translation-ready platform works well for reaching out to people all over the world.



BuzzBlog

BuzzBlog

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The BuzzBlog theme is ideal for writers and authors because it offers a clean and personal layout for connecting with your readers and placing attention on your writing. The powerful admin panel works wonders for webmasters of all experience levels, and the fully responsive design helps with viewing on all devices. The theme is translatable, and the 10 predefined styles assist in bringing your own design preferences to the forefront. A widget manager helps you create your site in a shorter time, and the shortcode builder is ideal for placing design components over your site within seconds.

The BuzzBlog WordPress theme comes with over 670 Google fonts, further strengthening your branding possibilities, and the full social media support displays your Facebook and Twitter pages and posts to build your following faster. As a bonus, you receive unlimited colors, adding further to the customization options this theme supports.



Largo Theme

Largo Theme

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The idea behind the Largo Theme is to allow writers to craft long-form articles and stories without all the clutter. Build immersive experiences for your readers, and help inspire the world with your own words. The theme comes in a wide format, using up all of the screen space. Not to mention it provides deep integration with Aesop Story Engine, offering the ultimate storytelling experience.

Typekit fonts are included to display a more professional or artistic font on your site. The commenting system is the most unique part of this theme since comments sit on the side of your articles. They use inline referencing to keep the conversation going and allow people to comment on particular sentences or paragraphs in the post. Each article image is full-width, bringing a media-rich layout to the user, and the theme is completely responsive for viewing on tablets and other mobile devices.



Sixteen Nine

Sixteen Nine

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Sixteen Nine serves as a wonderful theme for writers and authors because the Genesis framework is the quintessential option for customization and cleanliness. The goal of this theme is to provide a simple, yet stunning interface for displaying your personality. The responsive design comes with a custom background for displaying photos to set the mood of the site, and you get two layout options to take control of the look and feel.

The custom header is a nice bonus, and the custom menus allow you to guide where you send people when they land on your site. The theme also has landing pages for building that sales page for your next bestseller. Not to mention, the navigational menu is arranged to the side of your posts, ensuring nobody gets lost when looking for a new article to read.



Simpleton

Simpleton

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Sometimes a theme’s name tells the whole story, and the Simpleton theme has one such name. The clean and lightweight WordPress theme offers a flexible way to show off your recent writing. This fully responsive theme adjusts to the device, and the unlimited color schemes work nicely for when you want to change things up to match your writing brand.

Enhance the visuals on your site by changing around the background, and use shortcodes to add items like blockquotes, captions, and other elements quickly. The custom widgets minimize the need for lots of plugins, turning homepage customization into somewhat of a drag-and-drop design process. The lightbox feature is ideal for showing off your photos, and the Adsense optimization brings up opportunities for making money from your site. Not to mention, the theme is ready for translation to bring in new readers from around the world.



Grateful

Grateful

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The Grateful WordPress theme is an ideal solution for writers who crave a simple, yet elegant blogging platform with media support. The theme includes multiple color variations that work wonders for branding your site and showing off your creative flair. The responsive layout assists when people are viewing the site on the go, while the WordPress post formats add some variety to your writings. The theme is highly customizable for both advanced users and beginners, and you can utilize shortcodes for quickly implementing anything from buttons to columns without the need for manual coding.

A contact form is also included, allowing you to keep in touch with your readers and gain feedback from people who would like to critique your work. Advanced typography options and custom background support are included, helping you brand your site better. The Grateful theme works with Facebook Open Graph, helping you share new posts to Facebook quickly. Along with translation features and demo content, the Grateful theme is a solid choice for any writer.



Fable

Fable

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The Fable WordPress theme is one of the most popular choices for those who are interested in sharing their writing online. Why is this the case? Because writing is all about putting your message at the front and center, and this theme helps you do that. With a responsive layout, everyone who works off of mobile devices can quickly reference what you have to say. You’ll also notice that the large typography is centered in the middle of the page, bringing full attention to your writings. Branding is a breeze with the help of an unlimited color palette, and the complete localization of your content means everyone should be able to understand what you’re saying.

The shortcodes provide beautiful buttons, columns, and other design elements, all of which can be created without touching a line of code. You also get page templates for making pages for the archives, blog posts, and the contact form. As you can see, a full-fledged blog is supported through the Fable theme, meaning you can give out free content to your readers as fast as you can click “Publish”.



Florence

Florence

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Florence is an elegant theme with strong feminine details. It brings your content into full focus with stunning featured images above post titles. The header area includes a tasteful menu and social media icons, which are great for connecting with your target audience on different social media networks. Different post formats are included so you can provide a variety of content, and include videos, audio posts, galleries, and more. Insert a profile widget in your sidebar to introduce yourself to your readers and you can also include third-party ads to monetize your website.

The theme is fully responsive and has several layout options that depend on whether or not you want to include a sidebar in your theme. The footer area is widgetized as well, giving you even more space to include various widgets. The theme has plenty of customization features that let you modify colors, fonts, and more. On top of that, the theme is translation-ready and has support for Contact Form 7 and the MailChimp for WordPress plugin, both of which help you stay in touch with your readers.



Josephine

Josephine

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Josephine is a great choice for any lifestyle blogger who wants to cover a variety of topics. Even though the design looks feminine, the theme can easily be customized in terms of fonts and colors. The layout is clean and puts the focus on your content with a carousel of featured posts right at the top, followed by your blog posts. Each of the blog posts has a stunning featured image that draws the attention of your visitors. The homepage itself has five different layouts and you can even include a portfolio to showcase your past work.

Every aspect of the theme can easily be customized without any coding knowledge thanks to the Light Composer plugin, which provides a drag-and-drop interface. All of the premade demos can be imported with one click, giving you a nice starting point for your design. On top of that, Josephine is fully responsive and looks great no matter which device your visitors are using to view your website.



Beautiful Pro Theme

Beautiful Pro Theme

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Beautiful Pro comes from StudioPress, which means it’s a child theme for the Genesis Framework. Genesis Framework is one of the top rated frameworks because it offers stellar themes and top-notch support, along with customization options to easily incorporate your own brand. The theme has a clean and elegant layout, and the homepage includes a widget area that you can use as a welcome message for your visitors or as a call to action to send people to your sales pages. The sidebar area includes several ad spots to easily monetize your website, and add widgets containing a recent posts lists, social media icons, and a styled email signup form.

The theme is completely responsive and includes several layout options, depending on the position of your sidebar. Custom page templates are included as well, and you can easily customize the layout, upload your own header image, and choose your color scheme through the Genesis Settings panel.















































Personal

Personal

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The Personal WordPress theme is the perfect platform to launch a new blog or writing platform or an ideal theme to convert an existing site that needs a facelift. The design is light and open with all the modern features you have come to expect from top-quality theme developers. It offers nine frontpage layouts that you have to see to believe and comes with built-in support for audeo, video, text, sliders and many more post-types and formats.

If you’re a video blogger, this theme has everything you will need to support your business with six beautiful video archive layouts and support for Vimeo, YouTube, and DailyMotion. If you’re a podcaster or audio blogger you’re going to love the array of SoundCloud layouts and tools supporting audio embedding. Last but not least, if you’re a writer and are looking for a text-based format you’ll love the options for magazine style layouts that will showcase your work in the very best light.



Simple Story Theme

Simple Story Theme

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Here’s an option that has served writers well throughout the years. It’s a theme called Simple Story, and it has all the features you need to captivate your readers and show them that you’re an artist when it comes to crafting words. For example, the parallax header provides overlaying text for a brief description of the site, but it also offers a taste of what’s to come in terms of creativity. The one page layout is a nice touch, and the backend customizer minimizes the time you spend on designing, producing more time for your writing. The call to action buttons and headers can be scattered throughout your page, enabling you to share information and links about products such as books. The About Us section is always crucial for bloggers and writers, since visitors won’t stick around unless you show some credibility.

All of the elements on the Simple Story page transform to more user friendly sizes when viewed on mobile devices, and this is helpful for your blog area, since so many people are going to read your content on phones and tablets. Another cool part of the blog is the Latest Articles module, so folks can see your most recent article snippets once landing on your homepage. Along with shortcodes, a contact form and several column layouts, the Simple Story theme is a wise choice for bloggers, writers and journalists who want to ramble on about serious, or fun, topics.



Lara Multi-Purpose Theme

Lara Multi-Purpose Theme

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Writers rejoice, because the Lara WordPress theme offers an amazing chance for writers of all types to share their work and make it look beautiful without much design work. When you check out the theme demo, you’ll notice that a beautiful header area is available for you to explain yourself as a writer and talk about the books or articles you’ve written. The Learn More button helps for those who may want to send readers to other places like book sales pages or your full blogs. A photo gallery/portfolio works nicely for those who are completing freelance work, while the testimonials share how past freelance clients have been satisfied with your work. This is a one-page theme so readers don’t have to skip around your website to locate your best content.

We particularly enjoy the blog post preview slider, which highlights a portion of your article and includes a small featured image, prompting people to click through to read. Part of being a writer is focusing on your craft, so the shortcodes enable you to spend more time writing instead of designing elements like columns and buttons. You’ll also find several page templates for multiple columns and full-width layouts. The best part for writers is the blog, as it has a huge featured image at the top of each post, and it provides a minimalist style so all attention remains on your written work.



Typist

Typist

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The Typist theme is one of my favorites for writers, because the minimalist design is exactly what every writer needs. There’s no reason for all the bells and whistles when you can choose a WordPress theme that provides the space, functionality and cleanliness that this theme offers.

Typist is a responsive theme that fluidly moves around when people flick through to other pages. The customization is straightforward so you don’t have to be an advanced website developer to know exactly how to get your website up and running. The sidebar allows widgets, and you can always change around the post formats depending on what you plan on sharing with your readers.



Publisher

Publisher

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The Publisher theme rings true to its name, since it brings together all your written content and lets you make it even better with videos, photos and other media. The eclectic theme works similar to a scrapbook where you can move around different components on your homepage and style them however you want. The theme incorporates a feature called Infinite Post loading which speeds up your site by slowly loading page portions as the reader scrolls.

The Publisher theme works great for writers who don’t have a clue when it comes to building websites. It offers a theme customizer for uploading your logo, moderating the site title and changing your background. My favorite part of this theme is that you can take your featured image and turn it into a large gray scale background for your post, turning your writings into a more stylized experience.



Book

Book

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The Book theme works well for anyone writing a book. We wouldn’t recommend it for someone trying to run a freelance writing business, but rather for those out there trying to write stories and share them with others. This theme is the ideal, one-column format so no one has to flip around to other pages to see your newest chapters. The custom headers and backgrounds allow you to change the branding depending on what books or stories you are trying to sell.



The Hipster

The Hipster

Not Available.

The Hipster is a responsive theme designed specifically for blogging. It works well with widgets, and you can upload your logo within a few seconds if you plan on using it as a freelance writing platform. We like that the theme has a flat design and lets you move components on the homepage easily.

The theme is actually a long blog feed, neatly styled and intertwined with other components like widgets and tabs. You can even put quotes and testimonials in the middle of your blog to show off what your past clients thought about you. It’s a standout theme that puts the focus right where it belongs–on your words.



Solar

Solar

Not Available.

The Solar WordPress theme offers an interesting layout for writers. It’s similar to Pinterest, with a grid-style layout with links to blog posts on the homepage. You can express your ideas in videos, galleries, and photos, along with the standard post formats. This is a fully responsive theme, allowing people to read your new blog posts on their mobile devices. It’s translation-ready and Google Maps comes integrated, making it easier to illustrate locations in your stories or to direct people to brick and mortar locations.

The several custom widgets are useful for implementing social share and follow buttons. The shortcode generator enables you to insert little bits of code all over your website for buttons, columns, sliders, and more. If you’re a more advanced developer we recommend playing around with the included PSD files, which open up your customization options. Finally, the menu is tucked away and only revealed when clicked, ensuring your content is viewed with no distractions. Overall, it’s a beautiful, simple theme for writers of all types.



Amadeus Pro

Amadeus Pro

Not Available.

Amadeus Pro is a premium WordPress theme designed for content-centric websites with something important to say. Create an exceptional author website, build brand recognition, and excel at promoting your blog with Amadeus Pro’s simple header, complete with logo, color branding, and social icons. Take advantage of the simple yet elegant menu in the header for great user navigation and make sure readers can always access more by including a menu widget in the footer section as well.

Choose from unlimited color schemes, 2 homepage layouts, and even include a notable homepage slider that is sure to leave a great first impression with its crisp images that slide smoothly from one to the next. Built on clean, validated code, Amadeus Pro is always running at optimal speed and remains secure from outside threats. Lastly, this standout author WordPress theme renders well on all major browsers, boasts responsive design for those on the go, and can be easily translated for those looking to expand their writings to other nations.

When it comes to WordPress themes for writers and authors we tend to focus on the options that are responsive and simple. You want a theme that showcases your work without forcing your reader to do much work on their end.

That’s it! Let us know in the comments section if you have any questions about choosing a WordPress theme as a writer. Can you think of any other themes that are perfect for the scribes out there?

This post may contain affiliate links, which means Nimbus Themes may receive compensation if you make a purchase using these links.

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About the Author

Evan Scoboria is the co-founder, and developer at Shea Media LLC, the team behind Nimbus Themes, this magazine, and a bunch of very happy clients. He co-founded Shea Media with his wife Kendall in 2009. Evan enjoys hunting, fishing, code, cycling, and most of all WordPress!

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9 Comments

  1. Akhil K A Avatar

    Akhil K A

    August 7, 2015 at 5:05 am

    This is a huge collection of premium themes. I’m a blogger likes to start a new blog but I’m bit confused of selecting a good theme. Please suggest me a better theme for my personal blog.

    Reply
  2. Md. Khalil Uddin Avatar

    Md. Khalil Uddin

    October 3, 2015 at 1:04 am

    Amazing list of great wordpress themes for bloggers, writers. This helps to choose the perfect one. Keep it up. Appreciated!

    Reply
    • Nina H Avatar

      Nina H

      December 29, 2015 at 8:17 pm

      Hi, I am new to this and am very excited about the journey! Do you have any suggestions and advice you would not mind providing a new blogger?

      Reply
  3. Nathalie Bagadey Avatar

    Nathalie Bagadey

    March 19, 2016 at 3:36 pm

    Thanks a lot for the time spent compiling this great list !! I’m going to switch to WordPress and I think I have found my theme thanks to your help. 🙂

    Reply
    • Sarah Bishop Avatar

      Sarah Bishop

      September 6, 2016 at 1:58 am

      Hi Nathalie,
      Glad you found this helpful! What theme did you pick?

      Reply
  4. Kavita Poet Avatar

    Kavita Poet

    December 26, 2016 at 8:02 am

    Wonderful themes, I just loved this list, most of them are totally awesome.
    Thank you, keep it up.
    Kavita

    Reply
    • Sarah Bishop Avatar

      Sarah Bishop

      December 26, 2016 at 6:54 pm

      Hi Kavita,\n Thanks for the feedback! Did you see a particular theme that caught your attention? Or do you have any experience with one of the themes?

      Reply
  5. Vishal sehgal Avatar

    Vishal sehgal

    January 12, 2017 at 1:23 pm

    i chooses merapi , squirrel and happiness can you tell me which is best for books blog

    Reply
    • Sarah Bishop Avatar

      Sarah Bishop

      January 12, 2017 at 6:29 pm

      Both themes are very impressive, and I can see either working for a book blog. Is there a particular feature you were looking for that might help you decide?

      Reply

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