How to Use Pinterest for Book Marketing

When coming up with a marketing strategy for their book, writers often focus on the largest social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. But there’s another popular platform most authors don’t think of including in their book marketing strategy: Pinterest.

Pinterest, at first glance, may not seem like the place to promote your book. It’s where you look for aesthetic pictures and posts and pin it to these collections called “boards.” And, unlike in other social media platforms, Pinterest doesn’t rely on “likes” and comments for success. It’s also quieter, with less arguments and user interaction. But that’s not all there is in this ever-growing social networking platform. According to the Pew Research Center, 42% of all online women and 15% of all online men use Pinterest. Since most of Pinterest’s users are female, it’s the best place for marketing young adult fiction and romance novels. Even famous non-romance authors like Rick Riordan (author of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series) and James Patterson (author of many famous thriller books) use Pinterest boards creatively for marketing their books.

How Does Pinterest Work?

Whenever a pin is shared by a user on Pinterest, that pin must be linked to a website or blog. Having a functioning website from where Pinterest users who visit your site can purchase your book is therefore vital for marketing via Pinterest. But even if that isn’t possible, you can still use Pinterest for marketing by linking to your book’s page on Amazon or any other website.

3 Ways to Market Your Book Via Pinterest

1. Create separate boards for each of your books

If you have written more than one book, make sure to create a separate board for each of your books. This can be used to drive focus towards the individuals who helped in the journey of the book’s creation, like editors, publications, etc. You can pin their profiles to your board. Having separate boards can also be used to pin important announcements, like for book launch events, book signings, and even reviews by readers or guest posts and articles about your book.

2. Create interesting and fun boards for readers

Besides using separate boards for marketing purposes, you can also have separate boards to share interesting content from (and about) your book. This is mostly what Pinterest users come to Pinterest for – to see aesthetically appealing pins and discover new information about their favorite books and authors. When this content is intriguing enough, they ultimately end up visiting the link that goes with the pin. You can use free sites like Canva (check out this post on how to design your own book ads for free). You can use the following ideas for boards to get started:

• Inspirational quotes from your book
• Writing tips from your book
• Fun facts and behind the scenes sneak-peaks of your book
• Costumes and role plays related to your book

3. Pay attention to visuals and keywords

Pinterest is a highly visual app. The more appealing your boards are for Pinterest users, the more traffic that is driven to your linked-website. But getting discovered initially may seem a little daunting. In order to get within the radar of search engines, keywords are extremely important: include the most relevant keywords in the names of your pins (but make sure not to clutter it with too many keywords!) to get easily discovered by users of Pinterest and even by search engines.

Marketing your book on Pinterest is just like marketing on any other popular social media app – the more consistent you are in uploading new and attractive content, the more book sales and website visits you gain.