Isn’t it time you started a Blog?

Having a professional, well maintained blog is becoming essential to your writing career. Promote your writing, develop a community of fans,� create a strong presence: all possible with a well designed, popular blog.

So here are 20 Free WordPress templates designed to help you project a professional, polished image. As always I have tried to link directly to the designer’s site, but have quite a few going to theWordPress Theme Viewer. I have tried to stay away from LinkWare: you’re trying to promote yourself, not someone else.

A Lot has changed in the last couple years.

Looking back, the themes I liked in 2007-2008 were more “Personal” A lot of the CMS functionality we take for granted in WordPress today was just missing. A couple sidebars, which might or might not have been widget ready, a nice header image, and the ability to render correctly most of the time were all I was looking for.

Last year, Theme Dashboards were beginning to show up, Images were incorporated throughout the design, Widgets were standard, and Form was beginning to follow function.

This year a clean, customizable look seems to be in. Gone are the excesses of the HUGE ABOVE THE FOLD GRAPHIC IMAGE THAT SHOUTS AT YOU. Instead, simple headers, simple typography and integrated functions take the prize.

That Means that it’s actually getting harder to find themes. How many variations of black type on white backgrounds with blue accents can there be? Hundreds. Which one is right for you? Danged if I Know.

So, Here’s a list of 11 Free WordPress themes for writers that have caught my eye this year, Plus the previous entries- 45 total themes. Some have been up on this site. Some have not. Have fun, and if you know of any others you like, go ahead and let us know in the comments.

Press Playing: Currently, I’m using this theme  at Steel Valley Outdoors. I liked the green and orange for the outdoor blog, but the functionality is just great. I’ve had very little problems with the sidebars or headers, everything seems to render correctly and it works great all the way around.

Back My Book Writer WordPress Theme- This theme tries and mostly succeeds in being a professional home page. Nice spot for author headshot or book cover, featured content box for maximum marketing and many other features. The theme’s home page does a great job with step by step instructions on organizing your site for maximum effectiveness. Although available from your dashboard, I’ve linked to the themes homepage because of this.

Steampunk- A newer Theme. I like the images, like the layout. The Thinner sidebar, not so much.Great for a writer’s personal blog.

Dateless Sniper- Does Your Blogfocus on content that doesn’t age- “Evergreen”- advice rather than news? Dateless Sniper is a nice whiteboard theme that has the posted dates removed, so your content always looks fresh. Designed for internet marketers with plenty of adsense blocks, it’s actually a clean, well designed page.

Desk Space-The Obligatory Desk metaphor for writers. Three backgrounds. Fresh, clean design. Kind of bland: Spice it up with the integrated Twitter and Flickr feeds.( had the link to the designer from Smashing Magazine,now I can’t find it. his is an older theme though, so it’s everywhere. Try to find a non-linky footer.)

Diabolique Lagoon-I Like Diabolique’s themes. I had this one up at the site for a while, but found that it was a little slow. Maybe you can try it out?

Greyzed- Current theme. Lots of social interaction, nice neutral post sections. Like the way Widget titles look. Headlines need tweaking.

Rotate Text- Animated Typography themed header, integrated ads and Flickr, nice theme overall. Couldn’t get all I wanted here to fit into it and still look good. Something about the color scheme that makes photos look too bright and pasted on. If you’re focusing on words, however, the animation might give you an edge.

The Daily Edition- Nice hybrid with cool feature set. It’s a magazine style Theme, but out of the box shows two posts “Above the fold,” making your site look like a regular blog.  Scrolling down shows a grid of excerpts.

Kuul Black-Great Sci-fi or tech theme. currently on the otherwise dead Battlestar Grammactica.

Elastic Theme Editor- Over the last two posts I Mentioned the Sandbox theme editor for those Writers with the technical skills to design their own site. Well, now there’s a visual editor for theme designers. Although still under development, take a look if you can’t find what you’re looking for here.

And, To Keep them all in one place:

2009 List of WordPress Themes

Threat to Creativity- Wow Cool. Colorful, Pop-Art Magazine theme. Unique and artisitic. I can’t wait to see this in use. (ed. Guess what? I’m trying it out now. There’s a few rendering issues at low res…But it’s pretty nice)

Chronicles- A Clean, magazine feel.Love the color scheme and design. very nice for a professional image.

Inanis Glass- A Glass look theme from WordPress theme viewer. Great techy feel with lots of features. Check out the author photo and animated buttons.

Gravel- Red Grungy theme. Reminds me of this site’s WP-Premium, but with a little more personality. I haven’t downloaded it yet- Does anyone know if it’s got any features?

Desk Mess- Another Basic, writer themed theme.You’d think Personal blogs from aspiring writers were all over the internet,� wouldn’t you?

Abynsthe- An Outdoorsy, cabin and wood theme. Like the whole Camp Crystal Lake Vibe, but why Absynthe?

Kanata- OOH, Look. Desk Images, Wood and Notebooks! It’s the Writer theme Trifecta!

MT Dark- Yet another Dark Personal Blog Theme. Yawwn.. I’m getting tired of these. Maybe it’s time to shake things up…

Mysterio- No, Not the next Spiderman villain, but a sci-fi, techy theme to satisfy your inner Gibson.

Screwdriver- What? Too Clean Cut? How about a nice steam punk feel, fresh from Vault 19?

WasteLand- Still too Clean? Fine….Here’s a Post-apocalyptic Theme for you to Groove to:

Maro-I like the layout of this.I Like the Advertised advanced features.� The colors, I don’t know. I liked them at first, but think they’re just a little off. Give it a shot.

Voodoo Empire 2- The thumbnail doesn’t do this theme justice. This is a neat, red theme that looks simply fantastic.

Deep Silent- Another red One. This time a soft Romantic / Gothic header and professional type make a pretty interesting theme.

Cellar Heat-From the Popular Smashing Pumpkins comes this theme. Check out the others they have available also-lots of creative designs for artists and writers.

VideoGraphEx- Got content? Not the fanciest Theme, But designed for video Bloggers.

2008 List of 20 Worpress Themes

20. Typewriter-Let’s start with the obvious- Typewriter is a clean, well laid out design with an image of a classic, retro typewriter in the header. Basic Blog Theme without a lot of features.

19. Tropical Grunge-

A Dark Green Background with a light text area, Tropical Grunge has a cool header image and would work well on Fantasy writers‘ blogs.

18. Abstractia- Another Dark Green Theme, with a little more professional look.

17. Zeke 1.0- A popular Theme. Dark Red header and yellow text, with a woody background. Well laid out for monetization and sales.

16. RetroBook-An antique book. Small area for text, lots of wasted space. If you want to put up a bio and biblio, but don’t want to actually blog, this might be the way to go.

15. Nebula- A great Sci-Fi Theme. Dark Text on a static image of the Horsehead Nebula.

14. PDawn- dark theme, with a depressing/ Horror image. Very understated and elegant. Would Work for most horror, except Extreme.

13. Point Blank- Speaking of extreme Horror…Milo is a prolific designer of awesome looking themes. He’s all over the WordPress Theme Viewer. Unfortunately, a lot of his themes can be considered experimental- Cool looking and State-Of-The-Art, but hard to use and modify. Point Blank isn’t one of these. It works, and works well.

12.Nebula 1.8- Another Dark Sci-Fi Theme. More of a dark Tech / Cyber feel.

11.WP-Premium- A professional Theme with three different color schemes. What I’m using here (Red Theme). Not real personal, but easy to work with.

10. Options Theme- Unusual Theme with lots of “Options” Can be used for a blog or a Magazine Style Theme. Two Color Styles- “Light, which was this site’s previous theme and is more personal, and “Dark”, Which I use on Battlestar Grammactica. Theme options are controlled not by editing the files, but through a Dashboard Applet.

9- Visionary- Another Theme by the same designer as Options. This is a News style theme, but is not as cluttered and should work well for a personal writer’s site. No Picture since it’s a clean grid / Magazine style theme.

8,7,6,5,4. Notebook, Duffy, Blue Jeans, Aspire and Genesis- All these themes are pretty impressive, and pretty nice looking. Aspire was used on My daughter’s site, and was the inspiration for this list. When looking for the original designer, I came across InfoCreek’s website and all these Themes. They all seem based on the same structure.

Duffy and Aspire are Antique themes, Notebook has a Feminine touch, Blue Jeans is Rustic and Genesis is High Tech.

3. Halloween-Good Dark Template. Actually not so much Horror as Grungy Industrial. Extra Points Because the Designer uses it for his own Site.

2.DFire-A dark Theme with Light Sidebars and an Unusual color scheme. Nice images throughout.

1.Sandbox- C’mon, You’re Creative, right? Why Not Make your own theme to reflect your true personality? Sandbox is a theme designed to allow easy customization and configuration. A lot of the Free themes I’ve found use this as their starting point.