Author Role

Do you have a friend who wants to write for your blog regularly? If you already trust their work, the Author role is a great fit. An Author is a user who can write, edit and publish their own posts without asking anyone for approval.

In this guide, I will show you exactly where an Author's freedom starts and where it ends.

What can a WordPress Author do?

Think of an Author as a shopkeeper in a mall. They run their own shop completely, but they cannot walk into the shop next door and move things around. An Author can:

• Write, edit, publish and delete their own posts.
• Schedule their own posts to go live later.
• Edit their posts even after they are published.
• Upload images and other files to use in those posts.
• Update their own profile and display name.

What the Author role cannot do

An Author cannot edit or delete posts written by other users. They also cannot create pages, moderate comments across the site or change any settings, plugins or themes.

For example, on a travel blog, an Author can publish a new post about Goa but cannot fix a typo in your post about Kerala. Only an Editor or an Administrator can do that.

Is the Author role right for your writer?

Choose this role only for writers whose quality you already trust, because their posts go live the moment they click Publish. Nobody reviews the post first.

Also remember that Authors can delete their own published posts. If a writer leaves on bad terms, they could remove their articles, so keep regular backups of your site.

If you want to check every post before it goes live, the Contributor role is a safer choice. You can always upgrade the user later from Users → All Users.

To sum up, the Author role gives a trusted writer full control over their own posts and nothing more. That's all for now. Do tell us in the comment box below which role you give your writers.