WP authors page

You can add the code below to your theme’s function.php or in your own custom plugin…

function custom_author_slug() {  
    global $wp_rewrite;  
    $new_slug = 'people';
    $wp_rewrite->author_base = $new_slug;  
}
add_action('init', 'custom_author_slug');  

After you do it go to your admin then to Settings > Permalinks and click “Save Changes” which will trigger a flush of the WordPress rewrite rules (or you can flush rewrite rules programmatically).

There is also an Edit Author Slug plugin that you could use, but I’d recommend going the code route when possible since it’s unlikely something you will need to change again and it’s such a small change.