Authors Leveraging Pinterest

Want to add a pin of your own? Simply hit the + button on the top right of your screen. A drop down menu will appear. You can either upload a pin from your computer or add one from a website by copying the address and pasting it. A picture will appear. Click on the one you want to use.

Boards are how you keep all your pictures (Pins) organized. As an author, I suggest you have a board with inspiration for each of your series. Add pins of the setting, actors to play your characters, a playlist, cover ideas, research sites, etc. You’ll find as you do this that this is a great way to keep all your inspiration for your book in one place (no more drawers full of printouts or “bookmarked pages” that you can’t remember what’s on them). Not only that, but your fans will love seeing all the images that inspired you.

So here’s a list of my author Pinterest boards:

Witch Song Series (Insert Series Title) I have one of these for each of my series

Cover Inspiration

Amber Argyle Books (all of your books)

Setting (for future reference)

Character Ideas

Marketing (for pinning marketing ideas)

Writing Research (For all those awesome articles that you can never find when you need them)

No really. I found my cover artist for my last two books on Pinterest. I used to use sites like DeviantArt to search for artists, but that involves HOURS of scrolling through thousands of images (many of which aren’t relevant or that good). On Pinterest, people have already sifted through the chaff and found the brilliant pieces.  

If you can find a relevant board (I found lots of Fantasy art boards), you can spend a few minutes going through some of the best art around. It isn’t usually that hard to find a name from there.

I found color combinations, fonts, character poses, clothing, background, etc. All from Pinterest.

I’ve could spend hours going through pictures of beautiful, exotic places. These images inspire the settings for my fantasy novels. If you don’t write fantasy, it’s a great way to “see” the place (say, Chicago) you want to describe without the price of a plane ticket.

I also Pin helpful posts for future reference. Some examples would be “Natural Treatments for Wounds”, “Character Guides”, “ KDP Select Free Promo Resources”, etc.

You’d be surprised how many ideas you can get for your characters simply by looking at pictures. For instance, I saw a picture of a girl with white tattoos (something I didn’t even know existed) that I’m totally using in one of my future books.

Things that have nothing to do with being an author, but everything to do with being you! I have boards for food (I make recipes from Pinterest at least every two weeks), my dream home, my style, the holidays, kids, hair, storage, cleaners, etc.  

Amber Argyle
Author