Using Pinterest to Market your Novel

Beginning this Saturday, I'll be guest blogging at Melody Steiner's site, where I'll be talking about marketing. But I want to begin the discussion today. I'm currently in the span of suck known as The Waiting Game. I've written a bunch of truly awesome novels, and I've queried every agent in existence, but no one's jumped at the chance to represent me to the publishing world. I'm getting close, but I'm not there yet. I won't give up--it will happen eventually. And when it does, I'll need to have a marketing plan. If not a plan, then at the least I should have some coherent thoughts regarding the topic. So I've begun to research marketing strategies for first-time authors. By research, I mean that I've dug through all the blog posts I've saved to scrounge some information. I'll share that acquired knowledge here and at Melody's site throughout the month of July (or until I run out of stuff to say).

 (This graphic courtesy of Pinterest)

Today I want to discuss using Pinterest. I'm new to it--I just signed up last week. I created a few boards, got started on pinning stuff to my boards, and realized how quickly Pinterest can become a time suck. I spent nearly an hour on it my first day! It was fun. It was addictive. And it's full of juice potential as a marketing tool. Erin MacPherson was a guest blogger at Rachelle Gardner's sight back in April of 2013 and she shared her ideas about using Pinterest to market a book. I won't share all of them, but I want to hit the one that looked promising to me.

Recruit a Guest Pinner: Erin says, "I've used this strategy to great success for about six months now and it's not only helped me to build my Pinterest boards up, but it's also allowed me to have new, fresh content to share on my Facebook page each week. I love it. And it's so easy! Invite another author/blogger/writer to pin on one of your existing boards (or a secret board if you want to do a big one-time roll out) by clicking "edit board" and then "invite other pinners." From there, allow your guest pinner to add pins to your board. It's a win for you because you'll get fresh content on your Pinterest boards that you don't have to work for, new pins for social media and some Pinterest collaboration with another author. And it's a win for your guest pinners because they get a whole new audience with whom to share their content." As I'm new to the Pinterest game, I'm not sure what kind of guest pins would generate new book sales, but I'm up for trying it out. Anybody out there want to be a guest pinner on my site?

Another idea that occurred to me (I probably read about it somewhere else and can't remember where, so I apologize profusely if it's your idea I stole) was to create a Pinterest board for my novel and pin stuff related to the story. I have famous actress photos who served as physical inspiration for my characters (also knows as the "who would play the hero if the novel were made into a movie" game). I could pin those photos and label them with the character names. The places in my novel actually exist in real life. I could pin photos of those places. I'm creating a logo for the bakery in my novel, and I could pin that graphic once I've created it. My novel features tons of Greek baking. I could post those recipes. I could pin quotes from the book. If I sat around long enough, I could think up a bunch of other great photos to post on my novel's board. 

Do any of you have a Pinterest board dedicated to your book? What did you pin to it? Did it help with extra blog traffic or book sales? Please share your results with us.

-Sonja