Pinterest is the latest social media phenomenon. It is the online equivalent of an old-school cork pin board. You can use it to organize and store your online interests, as well as sharing your interests with others who are following you. Unlike Twitter or Facebook, you can choose which aspects of a person’s interests you would like to follow. If you are not interested in cooking, you do not have to follow a person’s cooking or recipe board if you don’t want to. As the site is largely a visual medium, it can seem like an odd place to turn to as an author, but if you learn how 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 promotion for your book.

1. Create a pin board with shots of all your favorite novels or novels that are similar to your work. Try using the theme “If you like my book, you’ll love these”, or something similar, and make sure you include a picture of your book, because you will manage to draw in fans of other books as well, who will then become 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 your pictures of your characters, but if you don’t, you can always include photos of some of the locations from your work.

3. Share teasers about your latest work. Make sure that the board is properly labelled so that fans know there will be teasers, in case they don’t want to find out any information. Never include anything that will potentially spoil the ending of the book. Teaser pictures which are harder to interpret are great, because they will get your fans talking about the meanings and will whet their appetites.

4. If your new book needs cover art, encourage fans to design and pin pictures of their ideas for your cover. This is a good idea if your book is part of a series, as readers will already have good ideas about how they imagine the characters and setting. If your publisher already has ideas for cover art, you could post a few alternative versions to find out which is most popular.

5. Run contests over Pinterest which require users to “repin” your book covers or something else associated with your work. You could consider a contest where readers create a board based on their interpretations of their favorite book by you. Not only will this be great, free publicity, but it can also be a good way to see exactly how your readers interpret your books.

6. Make sure that there is a “pin it” 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 it as easy as possible to do so.

Using Pinterest as an author can be a great way to promote yourself and is another great outlet for you to express your creativity.

Marketing your book via social media like Pinterest is an ongoing process. In order to properly market your book and yourself as an Author you should consider using a third-party service like http://authr.com or if you’re a new author you should read the book, “Publish It Now! From Blank Page to Bestseller”, available at Amazon or http://www.publishitnow.com.

Erik N Bowman is the best-selling author of “Ultimate Marketing Secrets: Social Media Marketing”, founder of Authr.com and the best-selling author of “Publish It Now! From Blank Page to Bestseller”.

About Erik N Bowman

Best Selling Author, Entrepreneur, Start-up Advisor, Consultant. Director at Guanzi Institute. Certified Entrepreneur® & Entrepreneur Boot Camp®

Erik works with aspiring authors and is the founder of Authr.com. A service that helps authors fund, write, market and sell their book. in 2011 he wrote the best-selling book “Ultimate Marketing Secrets: Social Media Marketing”.

“Erik Bowman has been to exactly where you want to go and has written brilliantly about how you can get there yourself. His books on start-ups give you a head start and a major competitive advantage” – Jay Conrad Levinson, The Father of Guerrilla Marketing

“This excellent book, written by an expert, shows you how to succeed as a consultant faster and more profitably than perhaps you ever thought possible.” – Brian Tracy – Author, Earn What You’re Really Worth