Often, your publication might feature writers who are not part of your editorial team, such as one-time contributors. Previously, we used the Guest Author feature from the Co-Authors Plus plugin to create a byline without giving the person access to the backend of the site.

Newspack is moving away from using that one feature in Co-Authors Plus and has introduced a simplified and more reliable alternative: the Guest Contributor role. We recommend now using this new role.

The Guest Contributor role

The Guest Contributor role serves the same purpose as the previous Guest Author feature. These are authors who do not have user accounts on your site and will not log in. They may or may not have an email address or other personal details.

To create a Guest Contributor:

  1. Navigate to Users -> Add New.
  2. Select Guest Contributor from the Role dropdown.
  3. Notice that some fields will be hidden or marked as not required.

Note: Users assigned the Guest Contributor role do not have a password and cannot log in to your site.

Assigning a Subscriber or Customer as a Co-Author

If you want to credit a reader who is also an author without granting additional editorial permissions, follow these steps:

  1. Go to the Users page in wp-admin.
  2. Edit the profile of the user you want to assign as a co-author.
  3. Scroll down to the “Co-Authors Plus” section.
  4. Check the “Allow this user to be assigned as a co-author of a post” option and save.

This action adds the Guest Contributor role to the user in addition to their current role. Unlike users with only the Guest Contributor role, these users can still log in and access their account with normal reader permissions.

Effects on user profile:

  • Users marked as co-authors will not be able to delete their account.
  • Users marked as co-authors will not be able to edit their profile.

Migrating from Guest Authors to Guest Contributors

Newspack provides a WP CLI command to convert Co-Authors Plus Guest Authors to Guest Contributors. This migration process preserves your existing content structure while modernizing the author management system.

What the migration does:

  • Converts Guest Authors to WordPress users with the Guest Contributor role
  • Preserves all author metadata including display names, descriptions, bios, and profile images
  • Maintains existing URLs – author archive URLs remain unchanged to preserve SEO
  • Reassigns posts automatically from Guest Authors to the new WordPress user accounts
  • Handles both linked and unlinked Guest Authors:
    • Linked Guest Authors (associated with existing WP users) have their data merged into the existing account
    • Unlinked Guest Authors become new WordPress users with the Guest Contributor role

What to expect:

  • No impact on bylines – Author display names remain the same
  • No impact on SEO – Author archive URLs and slugs are preserved
  • No email notifications – The migration is transparent to affected users (no password reset or invitation emails are sent)
  • No maintenance mode required – The migration runs as a background process
  • Timeline – Typically completes within an hour depending on the number of authors

Migration requirements:

  • During migration, avoid author-related editing (assigning authors, updating bios)
  • The migration can only be run by Newspack support team
  • A staging site test is recommended before production migration

Rollback plan:

If any issues arise, the site can be restored from a backup created immediately before the migration.

To schedule a migration, contact your Technical Account Manager (TAM).