I’ve had a few great guidebooks on my shelf ever since I started fiddling around with blog templates years ago, but when Michelle Goodman recently asked me a few questions for ABCnews.com, it brought my attention to the fact that many of the resources I recommend are aimed at readers with more XHTML, CSS, and PHP experience. So I immediately mined through my bookmarks for the best books I had read or come across so far for the less technically-inclined. Here are ten of the best books for WordPress beginners, either recommended by Automattic themselves (developers of WP), or highly respected in the business blogging community, in no particular order:

1. Blogging For Dummies – In this super-easy introductory primer, Susannah Gardner & Shane Birley provide a guide to blogging for business owners and folks with a cause to promote. They teach you all the basics of the “blogosphere,” about the anatomy of a blog, how to stand out in the crowd, find your niche, attract readers, generate revenue from your blog, and much more.



2. WordPress For Dummies – Fellow WordPress evangelist Lisa Sabin-Wilson wrote the definitive beginner’s WP bible! She explores the differences between hosted accounts on WordPress.com, self-hosted WP blogs, and multi-user blogs, and examines all the basics of plugins, templates, moderating comments and spam, and troubleshooting common problems.



3. WordPress Complete – Another introductory look at WordPress, designed to get you up and running quickly with your very own blog. Looks at the main aspects of a blog—users, communities, posts, comments, news feeds—and how to manage them using the open-source WordPress software.



4. Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers – Shel Israel and Robert Scoble (whose blog has over 3.5 million readers!) discuss the benefits of blogging as a communications channel: they’re easily publishable, findable by search engines, social and viral in nature, syndicatable, and linkable!



5. Blogwild!: A Guide for Small Business Blogging – The original blog evangelist, Andy Wibbels, gives a history of blogging, compares the features of several blog software options, provides tutorials for creating and maintaining your own blog, and shares key tips for a successful business blog.



6. ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income – Some sources say Darren Rowse’s two blogs bring in over $20k per month! In this new publication, the Problogger founder teams up with Chris Garrett to look at how bloggers make money, the best monetization strategies, and optimizing your advertising.



7. Building Online Communities With Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress – Robert T. Douglass, Mike Little, and Jared W. Smith look at content management systems, blogs, and online forums, and the most popular open-source platforms that run them.



8. WordPress Theme Design – Tessa Blakeley Silver gives clear, step-by-step instructions and best practices for building your own blog templates for WordPress, including code markup, testing, debugging, and incorporating third-party plugins.



9. Clear Blogging: How People Blogging Are Changing the World and How You Can Join Them – Bob Walsh takes a no-nonsense look at what blogs have to offer, and how to use them for job hunting, business branding, news gathering, and more.



10. Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World’s Top Bloggers – Michael A. Banks interviews thirty of the most influential and successful bloggers, who write about everything from business trends to parenting. Includes eye-opening insights from Dave Taylor, Chris Anderson, Gina Trapani, Frank Warren, Robert Scoble, Steve Rubel, and many others.

Happy reading!