Displaying multiple authors or co-authors in WordPress opens up new opportunities for collaborative publishing on a shared blog. But without the right tools, attributing authorship to more than one contributor per post can be challenging.
In this definitive guide, we’ll show you how to configure true multi-author capabilities in WordPress.
Benefits of Multi-Author WordPress Blogs
Before we get into the technical how-to, let’s discuss some of the reasons you’d want to have multiple authors contributing content on the same WordPress site:
- Collaboration – Team up with other writers in your niche to co-create content.
- Guest posting – Let influencers or industry experts publish posts under their own names to grow your audience.
- Community building – Turn your readers into contributors by allowing user generated content.
- Efficiency – Distribute the writing workload across a team.
- Accountability – Assign authors to topics and deadlines to maintain publishing consistency.
- Thought leadership – Display various experts and their credentials to build authority.
The capabilities required to make this work include:
- Multiple user roles and permissions
- Author profiles and attribution
- Custom author archive pages
- Author widgets and shortcodes
- Co-authoring on individual posts
Fortunately, WordPress plugins exist that provide integrated support for all of the above with minimal hassle.
Introducing: PublishPress Authors Plugin
The easiest way to enable multiple authors in WordPress is with PublishPress Authors, a dedicated co-authors plugin.
PublishPress Authors handles everything you need for multi-author blogging in one package, including:
- Adding multiple authors to posts
- Creating guest authors without user accounts
- Displaying rich author profiles and archive pages
- Assigning author roles and permissions
- Flexible author box layouts and widgets
- Co-author metadata for themes
Both free and paid versions are available. The pro version adds premium features like custom user fields, access controls, custom styling options, and more.
But rather than just describing what PublishPress Authors can do, let’s walk through how to actually use it for displaying multiple post authors in WordPress…
Step-by-Step Guide: Setup PublishPress Authors
Here is an A to Z walkthrough showing how to configure PublishPress Authors for attaching multiple bylines to your WordPress posts.
1. Install PublishPress Authors
First, install the PublishPress Authors plugin via the WordPress plugin installer:
Or upload downloaded ZIP file manually in Plugins → Add New.
2. Activate User Roles
Out of the box, WordPress only comes with Admin, Editor, Author, Contributor, and Subscriber roles.
For multi-author blogging, you’ll want to make use of at least the Editor, Author and Contributor levels.
Under PublishPress Authors → Settings → General, enable permissions for the roles you want:
- Editor – Can publish/edit all posts (managing editor level access)
- Author – Can publish/edit their own posts
- Contributor – Can submit posts for review but not publish
Tip: Limit the Editor role to just 1-2 managing editors for content oversight. Authors get access to publish their own work without admin privileges.
3. Add Author Accounts
Under Users → Add New in your WordPress admin, create a new user account for each author.
Assign them the Author or Editor role, depending on whether you want to allow self-publishing or manual post approval.
Publishers Authors will detect these accounts and automatically enable author profiles.
4. Create Guest Authors
To add guest authors without creating WordPress accounts, navigate to Authors → Add New.
Enter the guest author’s display name and email only. Leave the user mapping blank.
The email allows avatar retrieval and profile management. But no login is required.
5. Set Default Author Box
PublishPress Authors can automatically insert an author box with headshots and bios at the bottom of posts.
To configure the default appearance, go to Authors → Settings → Author Boxes.
Select your preferred layout, visibility, avatar shape, and other author box options here.
For example, here is a multi-author box using the inline avatar layout:
The author box content will pull from each author’s profile automatically.
6. Assign Co-Authors to Posts
Now we’re ready to actually attribute posts to multiple content creators.
When editing a post, scroll down to the Authors meta box:
Start typing an author’s name and select the match. This will append them as a co-author.
Repeat to assign additional writers to the post.
7. Publish Co-Authored Post
Once assigned, publish the post as normal.
The co-authors will now appear together in the author box inserted at the bottom of the published post content.
The list of authors are also grouped together on archive pages and author profile pages automatically generated by the plugin.
Plus the author names display in site feeds for proper multi-author attribution.
And that’s the basics of configuring multiple post authors in WordPress using the PublishPress Authors plugin!
Comparing PublishPress Authors vs Other Plugins
The most popular alternative to PublishPress Authors is the Co-Authors Plus plugin.
Co-Authors Plus also allows multiple bylines and has similar features. However, there are some advantages that give PublishPress the edge for most users:
| PublishPress Authors | Co-Authors Plus |
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So while Co-Authors Plus takes more of a barebones approach, PublishPress Authors provides a full-featured author management framework.
A few other multi-author plugins exist, but none offer the same flexibility and depth as PublishPress Authors.
Displaying Multiple Authors Without Plugins
What if you wanted to enable guest authors and co-authors without needing to install a plugin? Perhaps for performance reasons on a high traffic site?
It is possible to add multiple post authors on the frontend without a plugin, but doing so requires developer skills.
Here is an overview of what’s involved:
- Register custom post type, taxonomy and meta fields to store multiple authors
- Save/retrieve multiple author entries using custom fields
- Build custom author archive template pages
- Code author profile shortcode and sidebar widget
- Integrate author template tags and body classes
- Add custom author column on post list pages
If you know PHP and are comfortable editing theme template files, hooks, and functions, this DIY approach may work.
However, for most users the PublishPress Authors plugin will be exponentially easier to work with.
The main advantage of a custom coded solution is removing plugin dependency. But the development effort is extensive.
Tips for Running a Multi-Author WordPress Site
Here are some final best practices for operating a successful co-authored WordPress site:
1. Define Author Guidelines
Draft an editorial guide covering topic preferences, content guidelines, attribution policies, and styling rules. This ensures consistent author contributions.
Provide the document to all participating writers.
2. Use Calendaring for Assignments
Rather than ad-hoc posts, use an editorial calendar to coordinate author assignments.
This can be as simple as a shared Google Doc spreadsheet.
Viewing deadlines and assignments helps increase accountability. Authors know what they’ve committed to writing.
3. Enable Comments Moderation
Comments are attached to posts – not individual authors. With multiple contributors, manually reviewing comments avoids confusion.
Under Settings → Discussion, change the default comment status from allow to moderate.
4. Limit Admin Access
To prevent other authors from inadvertently changing key site settings, restrict Write access to other roles.
You may also want to limit plugin installs/deactivation to admins only.
5. Automate Slack Notifications
Third party services like Slack provide alerts when new posts are published, comments posted, etc.
Connect your site and enable notifications about co-authored content. This helps authors stay in sync.
Wrap Up
Adding multiple authors to WordPress used to require custom coding or complex workarounds. But with modern plugins like PublishPress Authors, displaying co-authors on posts is now simple and straightforward.
We walked through exactly how to install, setup and configure PublishPress Authors for powering multi-author websites on WordPress.
From collaborative publishing to guest posting and community engagement, the creative ways you can leverage multiple content creators are unlimited.
So whether you’re launching a shared group blog, opening up posting to external experts, or trying to build a contributor network – with the right author profiles and attribution, the possibilities are wide open.
Over to you now. How do you plan to utilize multiple post authors in WordPress? Let us know in the comments section below!
