Pinterest is the latest social media phenomenon. It’s the online equivalent of an old school cork board. You can use it to organize and store your interests online, as well as share your interests with other people who follow you. Unlike Twitter or Facebook, you can choose which aspects of a person’s interests you’d like to follow. If you’re not interested in cooking, you don’t have to follow someone’s cooking board or recipes if you don’t want to. As the site is largely a visual medium, it may seem like a strange place to turn to as an author, but if you learn to use it to your advantage, it can be a really useful tool. Here are some tips for using your Pinterest account for self-promotion and promoting your book.
1. Create a pin board with photos of all your favorite novels or novels similar to your work. Try using the theme “If you like my book, you’ll love these” or something similar, and be sure to include a picture of your book, because you’ll also attract fans of other books, who will then be more curious about your work.
2. You can use your Pinterest to create visual representations of your novel, and you can encourage your fans to engage and interact with you by doing the same. If you draw, you can share the images of your characters, but if you don’t, you can always include photos of some of the places of your work.
3. Share teasers about your latest work. Make sure the board is labeled correctly so fans know there will be teasers, in case they don’t want to get any information. Never include anything that might spoil the end of the book. Teaser images that are harder to interpret are great, because they will get your fans talking about the meanings and whet their appetite.
4. If your new book needs a cover, encourage fans to design and pin images of their cover ideas. This is a good idea if your book is part of a series, as readers will already have good ideas about how they envision the characters and setting. If your editor already has cover ideas, you can post a few alternative versions to find out which one is the most popular.
5. Run contests on Pinterest that require users to “repaint” your book covers or anything else associated with your work. You might consider a contest in which readers create a board based on their interpretations of their favorite book. Not only will this be great free publicity, but it can also be a great way to see exactly how your readers are interpreting your books.
6. Make sure there is a “pin” button on all your other websites, including your blog and your publishers page. This encourages Pinterest users to pin and share your work, and makes doing so as easy as possible.
Using Pinterest as an author can be a great way to market yourself and is another great way to express your creativity.