Pin for More Readers: The Ultimate Pinterest Marketing Guide for Writers & Authors

By Kerrie Legend

Pin for More Readers teaches writers and authors how to use Pinterest marketing to get more readers for your book while building an email list, selling more copies of your book in the process. Never let your book "mature" and decline, and between releases, build an audience naturally with less effort so you focus less on marketing, and more on writing.

You know how to build a bestselling story, now you can learn how to automate & sell your books with Pinterest. Find the answer to common marketing frustrations and questions, such as:

• How do I find readers on Pinterest who are interested in my genre?
• How could I attract readers on Pinterest with one specific trope?
• What Pinterest groups should I join to find readers interested in my book?
• Should I sell books on my website and become a verified Pinterest merchant?
• How could I create shoppable product pins for my book?
• How can I tap into the book box market?
• What can I be doing to get more readers to sign up on my Pinterest profile?
• How can I make my book pin go viral, or is that even possible?
• Where are the best places to pin my book?
• What kind of bookish pins work the best and what hashtags should I use?

Kerrie Legend takes her love for diving deep into topics, testing methods, and discovering "how things work" while documenting and sharing her results with other writers and authors. With approximately 50,000 followers, millions of monthly views, and a growing email list, she'll show you how to use Pinterest in a unique way as an author or writer to get your books read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kerrie Legend
• Release date: Apr 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224676200

Book preview

Introduction

There are readers out there, just waiting to find your book. But don’t soley rely on Amazon or iTunes for buyers to find your book. If you’re like me or thousands of other authors who aren’t constantly ranking on marketplaces, you’ll want to be where the readers are when they’re comfortably at home, making plans, or searching for their next read.

And they’re not always on Goodreads, Storygraph, or the library.

Many times, they’re doing normal things like doomscrolling, giggling over videos, and searching for aesthetic looks. But other times, they’re on Pinterest, drooling over book covers from the bookstagrammers, dreaming about their own personal library and shelfie collection, clicking on pins that got their attention from a quote by an author, being drawn in by sexy book cover models, or even reveling in their fantasies of being swept up by some masked man in the darkness.

Whatever they’re into, an author has probably wrote about it. That author could be you.

The key to using Pinterest to help that reader find you is to understand the platform in how it works, and applying the concepts from the perspective of an author. Normally used by bloggers worldwide, we’d use Pinterest to provide free content downloads in a sense to eventually sell a design, a course, or even physical products from an online boutique shop.

And Pinterest has been wildly successful for bloggers, including myself, in establishing solid income and a sea of constant customers streaming in after discovering a pin that hit home with them. They want to try it. Get the same look. Learn about it. Invest in it. Improve themselves. Build their nest. Develop skills. Whatever it is, Pinterest is typically where they get inspired.

That activity includes the kind of books they read, too.

A few years ago, I asked… why couldn’t the same principles be applied to an author’s platform? Why rely so heavily on third-party marketplaces to be discovered? Is there a better way to do that?

Fast forward to this year. Looking at the statistics, I’ve sold way more books on my own website than I ever did on Amazon. I was able to take an off year in 2023. Sure, I’d love to see my books rank higher on third-party marketplaces, but I’d rather spend my time creating gorgeous pins of my books and their covers, and get free marketing on Pinterest than give the Zon-man more money just to be seen. If I rank there, great. If not, I can always keep selling off my own website and earn more money there, anyway.

I figure, Amazon and iTunes have their own search engine. I’ll use a different one and get seen there. For free. And, I’ll earn more money by cutting out the middle man. Besides… all we’re granted on these platforms is a blurb. What if you had more control about what the reader saw, and were able to show them pictures of your inspired characters, maps, worldbuilding, example chapters of your choosing, a list of questions that your book answers, etc.?

For years, Pinterest has worked for me. Hard. Bringing me readers eager to learn from my nonfiction books. I’ve also used it for some pen names I write for, and the same principles apply to those accounts, as well. I’d love to see Pinterest work for you, too. I know you can do this.

I’ve applied everything I know about Pinterest, marketing on it, and used an author’s perspective about how to be discovered by readers who are also on the app. They’re at home, in bed, watching TV, and scrolling through pins on the Pinterest app, and have a book pop up with a sensational cover in their feed.

Is that book, perhaps, yours? What happens next?

Preface

This book is for everyone who is a writer/author who wants to be seen and have their book read.

It’s for the struggling indie author.

It’s for the writer/author who doesn’t have lots of time to be constantly posting on social media.

It’s for the introverted author who is awkward on social media.

It’s for the burnt-out writer who needs book sales and a mental health break from both social media and writing.

It’s for the financially-pressed self-publishing authors who are trying to do all the things.

It’s for writers/authors who love to have beautiful images of their books floating around the internet.

It’s for the writers and authors who want to build an email list, but don’t know how.

It’s for the successful writer/author who wants to decenter third-party marketplaces and venture out on their own.

It’s for every author and writer.

Learn. Share. Enjoy. And happy creating.

- Kerrie

Prologue

W hy do you keep tapping your phone?

Oh, just scrolling through Pinterest, she replied. Saving a bunch of pins for the home office.

He pauses, and looks up from his own phone. It’s nine o’clock on a Sunday evening, and both are snuggling on the couch with their Dutch Shepherd, who is snoring loudly. He laughs softly, and gives the dog a gentle pet.

Finding anything good? he asks.

Yeah… there’s some lamps that I like. And some wall art I think might pull the room together. Maybe we should paint. I don’t know… she says, and keeps scrolling. This desk setup’s nice. I like the vibe.

She turns her phone around, and flashes the screen towards her husband.

That’s cool, he replied. She goes back to the screen, and taps the image to pull it up to full-screen view. She zooms in to the stack of books on the desk in the photo.

I haven’t heard of that book before…, she mused. Babe, this is someone’s actual desk. I don’t think it’s staged.

Hmmm… he replied, his attention still on his phone.

She clicks through the pinned image on her phone, and the destination is to the book she wasn’t familiar with. An author’s website now consumes her screen. A bold image asks an intriguing question. She scrolls through the webpage, impressed with everything she sees. And it’s a book she’d probably enjoy reading.

Buy Direct from Author appears. Immediate Download. She’s sold. Click. She enters her payment information, hits Buy Now, and a new book is downloaded to her phone.

Hey babe, I just picked up a new book, she said. It’s one about a stay-at-home mom who builds an entire online business from a home office, but something goes terribly wrong. Something about a neighbor or whatever. Can’t wait to read it.

Who’s it by? he asked.

Someone I haven’t read before… but kind of excited. They have a cool website.

This is how it happens… all from a searchable image. We get to be wildly creative in how writers and authors are discovered.

Part One

Foundations of Pinterest

Part 1 provides the foundation to help you learn how Pinterest works, what makes it different from social media, and how to use it as an author/writer.

Chapter 1

Your Focus, Your Writing, Your Website

Let’s Get You Focused

Take a deep breath, and just for the duration of this book, I’d love for you to keep an open mind and be willing to learn. To try something new. Let’s start with a frank but badly needed discussion. You and I need to have a big talk about focus, specifically about where your focus needs to be: your writing and your website. If your first reaction was, Ew, my author website?! then know we’ve hit a sore spot. Don’t worry, friend, it’s going to be okay. I’m here to help.

Time after time, I hear and read from other authors that they just want to write. They don’t want to do marketing. Hooray. Me, too. I can get on board with that. Social media, especially marketing books, can be exhausting, time-consuming, and sometimes even a wallet-drainer. Think about how many arguments we get into just about the craft of writing amongst ourselves. Consider how much time you spend replying to bookstagrammers, your fans on Instagram, or responding to feeds on Facebook, trying desperately to keep your page active and alive.

Is this how you want to spend your time when you’re trying to write your next best book? I’m not saying that responding to comments isn’t important. It is. But too often, this is being done out of trying to just get sales going, and it’s a rollercoaster. Constantly commenting and trying to maintain an appearance out there to get book sales rallied. Pinterest just doesn’t work that way. It’s better, in my opinion.

I’d love nothing more than to help you learn how to accomplish a scenario where you CAN write more while building your author platform (email list, community, readers, sales). Without an audience comprised of excited individuals who are elated to hear about your book, your work, and what you’re doing behind the scenes, there are no sales. We have to remember, as authors and writers, that behind those sales are people. We’re thankful for each and every one of them. No matter how our book metrics turn out.

Kerrie Legend Pinterest Profile

Kerrie Legend Pinterest profile

If there was one observation I would make about authors and writers in general; it’s that far too many of them put too much trust and energy into platforms they cannot control. This would include links to books on domains you do not own, promoting and listing books on marketplaces you have little power over, and marketing them on ever-changing social media using posts that seem to bypass most eyes due to an algorithm.

What’s your plan if Twitter/X completely takes a dive if you’ve been relying on that? What if LinkedIn starts to lay off thousands of people, and there’s a boycott of the platform? Or if Meta does something drastically illegal and faces sell-offs or worse, having to choose to shut down a segment of the business, such as Instagram due to a monopoly? What if TikTok gets banned in certain countries? These are all things that could happen, and if you put too much trust or fail to diversity your marketing, then a big chunk of what you’d normally rely on for sales could be gone. Also… how many times have these platforms gone down in the middle of someone’s book launch!?

The only things you can trust absolutely are your own website and email list. Those are things you OWN. No one gets to make the rules about either of those two digital assets. Those are the two assets we’re going to use to leverage Pinterest and bring more readers to you, specifically, to your website, and to add to your email list.

Why would I encourage you to spend your time working on your Pinterest presence? I mean, after all, it’s another third party platform, right?

Correct. Pinterest is a platform that you don’t own. However, the difference is that Pinterest makes it easier to direct traffic to your website (and thereby, your books) because it was *built* to operate that way. It wasn’t designed to try to keep you on the app. It’s search-based, much like Google, Bing, and YouTube operate. Also, Pinterest makes it easier to direct traffic back to your website than other social media platforms, where the intent is to keep the user on their app.

Moving forward, our goal is to help you stay more focused on your writing by decreasing the social media pressure of constantly posting and trying to come up with content by leveraging Pinterest to bring you readers who are already there, searching for books just like yours. That way, you have a steady stream of new readers coming in, you’ll grow your website, build your email list, and be in a better financial position.

Why Authors Don’t Use or Give Up on Pinterest

Did you post your book a few times on Pinterest, but you didn’t see any results, so you gave up? Yeah. I can see where that would be frustrating if you did that. Your Pinterest account is probably still set to personal and not business too, right?

Are you using Pinterest for your work-in-progress inspiration board and wondering why people aren’t flocking to see your board of mix-matched odd collections? Sure, I can see why you’d be perplexed. Doesn’t anyone understand my awesome collection of characters and scenes that have yet to be written?! But it’s not them. It’s you. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. It’s a matter of search and relevance, and your WIP doesn’t have any search-oriented context that aligns directly with your book. But we’re going to fix that lack of context, and I’ll help you understand the platform itself so you know how to post and pin to get the results you want.

Kerrie Legend Pinterest profile array of boards.

Kerrie Legend Pinterest profile array of boards.

The main reason why many authors don’t focus on Pinterest as a main solution is that they have conditioned themselves for instant results because that’s what they get on other platforms. The quick buys, the pre-orders, the likes, the GIFs, and the follows. It’s all about the clicks, right? Pinterest doesn’t work that way in that it’s not designed for instantaneous results. It’s built for success over time, with steady progress. Is it worth the investment of your time? Friend, it’s a game changer. Once you get going, you’re going to be unstoppable.

See, I understand why you’d be frustrated with the lack of instant results; I’m an author, too. We write books, are ready to launch, and have no time to wait for Pinterest to kick in. Pinterest isn’t for launch moments, sales, or promotions. It’s geared for evergreen content, which means that it never ages. It’s not for the $.99 sale you’re having from March 1-7 on your book. But it IS for a permanent freebie you’re offering, or your backlist, and even your newest book that has some fun videos in portrait format. It’s going to be constantly selling for you in the background while you write. You don’t even have to be actively posting new content every day for it to work for you. Think of it like an employee who’s silently working in the background, and you don’t even have to pay them. You just have to feed it a little bit every so often because it loves fresh, new content.

Before I started using Pinterest as an author, I had been using it as a blogger/entrepreneur, selling designs and services via my website. I knew the potential it had for selling my books outside of the Amazon and iTunes marketplaces. And I wanted my readers to have options on who they support.

Pinterest has been and will always be the number one driver of website traffic for me. I only started using it for my books after I knew *exactly* what I was doing from a strategy standpoint. The majority of my books are now sold on my website. Not on Amazon, not on iTunes. I’ve cut out the middle man completely as a result, and keep more profits from book sales this way.

You might be wondering if I’m okay with my book sales rank being lower on Amazon or iTunes as a result of selling my books on my website. I was not able to take part in the KDP program for page reads because I went wide. Absolutely. I’d rather have readers connected to me via email marketing and have them know their dollars are being spent with an independent author. Those are selling points for both parties. They’re up-to-date with what I’m working on; I keep them informed of new projects and release dates, too. And they don’t seem to mind spending their money with me directly in lieu of the Zon man.

It’s even become part of my book landing pages. Buy Direct from Author or Buy from the Zon Man. Readers are given the option of who they want to support. And because I offer a slightly lower price on my website than what is charged on Amazon.

The money is in the email list, friend. And the money is on your backlist. More of it, too, since Amazon didn’t take a huge chunk in your royalties. If you’re selling a book for $4.99 on Amazon, you get $2.99 with the Zon man on the 70% royalty chart. If you sell it off your website, that’s a full $4.99 minus your approximate 3% transaction credit card fee or $4.84. Over time, it adds up with every single purchase. That’s a whole $1.85 more per copy than what you’d be making elsewhere.

Email signup form

Email signup form on KerrieLegend.com

Pinterest is not going to give you *immediate* results. If you came to this book thinking this is the get-sales-fast approach, you’re going to be disappointed. Pinterest works differently. This is why authors far and wide abandon it and use it merely as an inspiration or picture-gathering source. I'm not saying that’s a bad use for it, but it has much more potential to transform your focus and your ability to get the writing done and bring more financial benefit to your website, email list, and wallet.

Let’s take a look at what you’ve probably been doing. You write a ton of words, put them in chapter format, kick out a book, do a bunch of pre-order marketing posts on social media, get a lot of hype going and boom, launch day happens. Days or weeks later, sales start to fade, and then eventually, the book matures on the market or dies out to a slow trickle. That’s a rollercoaster ride if there ever was one.

Pinterest affords you a different experience. Suppose you take everything in this book, use it, and do the work I instruct. While you’re working on your next book, Pinterest is still hard at work without you having to post daily or hype your book (thus exhausting your audience on your other channels). Instead of pushing constant content out to your existing followers to get them to buy, Pinterest is feeding your pins, posts, and books out to new readers who haven’t seen your other social media. Your book has now been pinned to several boards and is being shared with friends and family who have *just discovered* your pin and, thus, your book. Sales on your website (or wherever your pin leads the user) continue to be steady, increasing sales and your book’s rank, which is higher than what it would have been without it. Pinterest provides *consistency* and a steady stream of visitors to your website or pin URL destinations.

It’s not a quick fix. It’s not instantaneous. It’s not fast hype marketing. That being said, you could still have pins go massively viral on there and get a flood of sales at weird times during the year. Hey, we’ll take that, too, right?!

But what it is, is a means of building an email list, driving traffic to your website thereby increasing your Google rank, establishes community, and gets your book visible to millions of people who are actively searching. It’s consistency that evens out the lulls of your rollercoaster ride, helps keep your backlist alive and well, and pads your wallet.

How Pinterest is Different

Pinterest is not a form of interruptive marketing like Facebook and Instagram. On Pinterest, users have shown their hand by selecting interests already, so they can be shown things they’re into. The algorithm shows the user pins they think align with what they’re searching for, as well. Pinterest only wants to show you things related to what it knows you already like. That’s a big part of maintaining a positive user experience. On the other hand, with other social media platforms, advertisers can create huge stretches of ads for other demographics. For example, you could see an ad for pet insurance even though you only have car insurance, which is considered interruptive because you 1) didn’t ask for anything pet insurance related, ever, and 2) it popped into your feed amongst other news updates from your friends.

Pinterest is huge and draws the eyes of those who are planning, collecting, and curating. Oftentimes, their next purchases or life plans. There are millions of people on it, looking for specific topics, ideas, or planning their next purchase.

Many of those people are BIG into reading. They have these big boards of books to read or covers I like that have pins' website URLs pointing to whatever destination they go to. Those people might very well be your next reader. They might find a pin of a quote that resonates with their heart or a photo of your book that captures their eye. And soon, they’ll click into it, destination unknown. They don’t know where they’re headed next. But they DO know that they’re about to find the source of whatever that pin represents.

There are thousands of people searching for something just like you’ve created right now.

Pinterest profile search prompt

Pinterest profile search prompt

Why send them to an entity or third party only to give them more distractions away from your book? Why not direct them to your website… a world that you’ve built just for your readers? Don’t they deserve a proper welcome and introduction to your work? Absolutely. When you send them to your website, there’s an opportunity for them to discover more of your work, sign up for your email newsletter, possibly download an example chapter of your work, or connect with you based on your About page. All this happens before they’ve even made a purchase decision.

Here’s a two-part question for you to ponder. What is the value of a reader, and what is the value of their email address? Surely it holds more value than a sale from a random person on Amazon?

If you guessed yes to the last question but don’t know the answer to the first two, it’s okay; you’re on the right path.

As an author, you need an audience. Don’t leave it up to Amazon or other book marketing platforms to communicate your new releases on your behalf to the readers they have on file who have purchased from you before. It may not happen. And if you’re a new author, you’re not going to get this benefit anyway because you’re still building an audience and adding browsing data to Amazon’s servers.

There is value in an email list. There is value in your website and the power it holds to drive sales and cut out the middle man. Therefore, there is value in focusing your attention on Pinterest, where the origins of those benefits can begin the most easily.

The Pinterest Focus Equation

Pinterest has a number of positive benefits. Showcasing, featuring your books as products, positioning yourself as a world-class author, helping people learn more about you, advertising perks, etc. I could spend hours on all the fantastic reasons and benefits as to why, and we’ll cover a vast majority of these benefits in this piece of work. But here’s the most important one: you need a *qualified* audience. Not just ANY audience. And because you want to zero in on a specific qualified audience, you’ll want to make sure that your book has a good home to anchor it.

At first, people were using Pinterest to develop hodge-podge boards for all sorts of things. Maybe they would sort them out with things to try or goals for 2026. For the non-business user, it’s perfectly fine to do it that way. But for a business, blogger, or author, that’s not the best way to approach Pinterest. Your Pinterest presence needs to be curated to the kind of readers you’re looking for.

Many people, including major brands, have not developed a solid understanding of how Pinterest can really work. It’s a search engine tool—not a social media platform. Therefore, you’re pinning things that people might search for and want to try. And, as a bonus, you’re not going to be bombarded with comments that you have to engage with, so you can focus on writing.

When you narrow your focus, as in a particular trope or type of book, you create content that your ideal audience can consume, rather than have to sift through tons of articles that are irrelevant to them. Remember—your goal as an author is to provide for an audience—you can still use Pinterest for yourself with private boards, but to the outward user, they’re going to see things related to what you write about.

Passtion+talent = focus. Your passion and talent, so whatever you are good at, what you love doing, plus how you can use that passion and talent to serve other people, is your focus. And the focus is what you’re writing about, including your finished books and WIP.

Pinterest home feed

Pinterest home feed, showing ideas to gather for your boards and current interest suggestions based on keyword searches

You only want to focus on bringing in readers from Pinterest who are interested in your kind of book. That’s what a qualified audience is all about—not just anyone or anybody. As a result, you’ll have traffic picking up signals on the kind of audience that we’ll want to use for a look-a-like audience for later. And you’re going to be leveraging the algorithm to send readers to your website. Pinterest already helps us with that by showing pins to people of similar books that use the same kinds of keywords, phrases, or trope types. All you have to do is create interesting images, use solid keywords, phrases, and a title, and lead them back to your website.

Your website’s focus is your all-important foundation. Without a foundation, you have nothing to stand on. So, let's nail down your foundation first to have a firm understanding of how we're going to build your business from there. 

Why do we need to hone in on focus? Why do we care so much about focus with Pinterest? How we treat and introduce readers coming to your website from Pinterest matters. Their user experience matters. So, your focus needs to be on two things once you capture a reader’s attention from Pinterest: 1) provide them with a positive experience on your website, and 2) secure their email address in your email list ethically.

You’d think the focus would be on book sales. But if you think about it, people—readers—are behind those sales. Each person represents a sale, for sure. However, to understand Pinterest and how sales are generated, you have to stop looking at people exclusively as dollar signs. You have to think about your ideal reader and what they’re into, what they’re interested in. What kinds of words are they typing into the search bar to discover books to read?

Pinterest users are people who collect ideas, products, and things they like with the same fondness and value as precious coins or trading cards. They’ll create vision boards and fan boards, share those boards and pins with friends and family, send each other pins for ideas, use pins to request things for birthdays, comment on pins about what they thought and whether they read it or tried it out, etc.

They are visually stimulated by book covers, interest topics, their next best read, bookstagram images, and mock-ups of your book in spaces they can visualize themselves being or enjoying your book. These images make your book relatable and worth picking up. So they either click through to your website (or pin URL destination of choice) and follow through to buy. Or, they’ll save your pin for later when they’re in the buying mood. Either way, your book is now saved or engaged with, and that is a trigger to Pinterest that says, Hey, this person is interested in these types of books; let’s show them more of those pins that are just like that or similar. And then Pinterest, having no interest in trying to keep them on the app, is going to show them all kinds of pins, including ones from subscribers who are paying good money to get their pins seen by them, are going to show them pins that use similar keywords, hashtags, or pin titles. They may even start to see the same book they just pinned but with a different book cover. Or more mock-ups of the same book.

Search on Pinterest for nonfiction book titles

Search on Pinterest for nonfiction book titles

People who have virtually raised their hands from all kinds of digital places and said, Hey, I’m into that kind of story and would like to learn more about your book. It’s the best feeling in the world as a writer to know people are willing to take the time to click through a link and come to visit your website. It’s trackable via Google Analytics in addition to Pinterest Analytics. You can figure out what pins are working directly from there or within your Pinterest dashboard, too. This is valuable insight that, unfortunately, Facebook, Threads, Instagram, et al. do not offer.

Firming up Your Focus Foundation

To get yourself and your author brand focused for your qualified audience, we need to firm up your foundation. From now on, once you get through this book and start putting things into action, you’re going to be directing your traffic to your website first. Then, you can send them off to book buying links to Amazon or Apple so they can buy from their favorite retailer. Or, they can purchase directly from you via your website.

Without a focused foundation, you have nothing to stand on. The one key thing you can do from here on out is provide a better future for your author career by flexing those strong writing muscles with some content for your readers to go beyond just the books. All your musings, things that came up while writing, the journey of writing the book itself, a photo journal documenting the days of writing it, or even hot topics like whether or not a second chance romance is even possible with the types of baggage individuals seem to carry these days.

Your website is your first focus for now. Building a platform that you own, that you’re proud of showing off, and inviting people to. You have to feel confident in it, and it needs to be able to convert visitors into subscribers. Your author blog can also serve to help you draw traffic from Pinterest. In addition, topics you discuss openly about your book with your audience can serve as talking points, quotes, and other content prompts for Pinterest, drawing the curiosity of viewers there to your blog posts.

What to Blog About?

Pinterest loves fresh pins and content. What that means is that it loves to have fresh images, fresh links, and new information to direct users to.

What it does *not* like are pins that all share the same URL over and over again. So what does this mean for you? Well, you get to blog a little and be creative. I’m going to help you curate content and build your website so that your readers will absolutely LOVE going to visit your website. After all, I’m a website designer, so who better to give you ideas on how to build yours out than someone who builds them for a living?!

Oh, I have to blog? you might be wondering. One post a week isn’t bad, right? Surely, you can commit to that as a professional writer! I know some authors who blog daily or sometimes 3-5 times per week. Remember, your website needs to look like someone is active on there. If it’s giving a haven’t been here in months vibe with cobwebs, it’s a sign to Pinterest users that it’s not going to be a timely or relevant place to visit.

Beok recommendation search

Book recommendation search on Pinterest

Plus, there are going to be things you blog or create that include things besides just articles you write, as well. For example, you can embed your TikTok posts into your blog and release those, as well, and pin to them. I have seen some creators dedicate a full portfolio page just for all their TikTok videos. Otherwise, there are also photos of the day, YouTube videos, and shorts that you’ve created; the list is endless. But if you need some inspiration, fear not. I have some ideas for you to use.

I’ve gathered some ideas for you to work on in general. For each piece of content you create, you can make 10=20 pin designs off of each one, enough to fill your feed for a while, mixing into your regularly planned pinning schedule.

Book reviews: Share your thoughts on books you've read recently, highlighting what you loved and why. Because of the negativity tax (discussed later), avoid discussing books you didn’t like or books that you starred 1-3. The reason is that Pinterest supports pins and positive content, and any content that bashes or could be perceived as hurting a fellow author could be grounds for removal under their content policies. Besides, it’s a good idea to be positive and supportive of other authors.

Author interviews: Interview authors about their books, characters, and writing process, focusing on insights that would interest readers. You could interview another author within the same genre and market your books together, or even collaborate with other authors in a circle, asking everyone to answer one key question. This is fun!

Book recommendations: Create lists of books in specific genres or with certain themes that readers might enjoy if they happen to enjoy YOUR book. Perhaps there are other books that share similar themes or tropes.

Literary analysis: Discuss themes, character development, and symbolism in popular books, offering fresh perspectives for readers. This is where you go wild with talking about your characters, quote them, and create pins simply based on themes and the questions that are left unanswered by your book.

Reading challenges: Create reading challenges with fun themes or goals to encourage readers to explore new genres or authors. Readers on Pinterest love to participate in challenges or book reading goals. There’s a big focus on achieving book goals on Pinterest as well as TikTok.

Book-to-movie comparisons: Compare books to their movie adaptations, discussing the differences and which version you prefer. What does this have to do with your book? Well, if the discussion is related to a specific theme in your book or has crossover comparisons you can draw, you can tap into that audience on Pinterest who likes that particular book or movie. The goal, remember, is to get a qualified audience who will already be interested in a book like yours.

Bookish discussions: Start conversations about favorite books, characters, or genres, inviting readers to share their thoughts and recommendations. Book chat is a super fun element to add to any site, and you can open this up during times you’re active and create many links to your website for participating in an online chat with your readers right on your own website. There are a few chat embeds you can use on your website to provide an experience like this! Pin to it, and put in bold letters Join the chat! and then indicate the chat schedule and the next topic on the website. You can provide previous chat downloads for people who missed out on other chat sessions and pin directly to those.

Author spotlights: Highlight