Pinterest offers a unique opportunity for authors to connect with readers and sell more books. In some ways, it acts like a social media platform: You can interact with other users, build a following, and join groups to increase your content’s reach. But unlike social media, Pinterest is first and foremost a search engine, allowing users to find content specific to their interests. It’s also shopping-centric — 70% of users say Pinterest is their favorite place to research products. And like a blog, Pinterest is forever! While other social platforms encourage short bursts of engagement, Pinterest pins can continue gaining views and momentum for years.
Not every author will find a relevant audience on this platform. Most of Pinterest’s users are female, and the demographics skew younger, so some genre authors might have a harder time building a fan base on Pinterest than a romance or new adult author, for example.
If you think Pinterest could work for you and you’re wondering how other authors have found success with it, you’re in the right place! Here are some great examples of authors who’ve been able to build an audience on Pinterest, use it to inspire their writing and creativity, and drive organic traffic to their websites and book pages. We’ve included a variety of authors who write in different genres to help you find inspiration when creating your own Pinterest boards. You can also jump to a specific strategy:
- Character Inspiration
- Story Visualization
- Free Content
- Fan Appreciation
- Writing Inspiration
- Blog Post Promotion
- Book Covers
- New Release Promotion
- Recommended Books
- Just for Fun
Character Inspiration
Sidney Bristol – Erotic Romance
Sidney has a dedicated board for “pictures of hot guys I use as inspiration for the heroes I write about.”
Kiru Taye – Romance
Kiru’s character inspiration boards let readers see what her characters look like and what kinds of clothes they wear.
Marissa Meyer – Young Adult
Marissa has compiled many boards for different sources of inspiration for her books and teaching, including one for characters.
Corinne Michaels – Romance
Corinne’s character inspiration board features mood-setting romantic images and quotes.
MJ Masucci – Romance
MJ shares sensual themes and quotes from her books in videos cross-posted from her TikTok.
Sylvia Day – Romance
Sylvia shares character visualizations with each new series or standalone release. This board for her Blacklist series features lots of quotes about the characters: a smart way to repeatedly promote a new release with each pin inviting readers more into your world.
Story Visualization
Jessica S. Taylor – Fantasy Romance
Jessica creates boards specific to her books, filled with scenery and theme aesthetics. This board dedicated to the release of Hollowed features quotes pointing to the page where readers can buy the new book direct from her store.
Lucinda Brant – Historical Romance
Lucinda’s Pinterest is a wealth of information about the time period she writes in, from jewelry and items characters used to paintings and maps depicting the settings.
Alexandra Bracken – Young Adult
Alexandra’s boards are a mix of general bookish inspiration and story visualization specific to certain books, like this one for Lore.
Beth Revis & Sara Raasch – Young Adult
For their joint project Night of the Witch, Beth and Sara collected images and poetry to set the mood for the teen historical fantasy.
Mimi Matthews – Historical Romance
For her Victorian romance novel The Lily of Ludgate Hill, Mimi collected historical photographs, costumes, and cityscapes that inspired her writing.
Jacquelyn Benson – Historical Fantasy
Jacquelyn collects historical fodder on different boards for each of her books, in image and video form, and also shares short videos to promote her new releases.
Stephanie Denne – Paranormal Romance
Stephanie pins montage videos made from images that represent her genre, overlaying text that hints at her stories’ tropes. In her pin titles, she uses keywords her target audience will be searching for.
Free Content
Heather Ashley – Romance
Heather has a board dedicated to screenshots of pages of her books, which she links to the book’s page on her website.
Kellie Coates Gilbert – Women’s Fiction
Kellie created a board that she shared with over 70 other authors, where they can pin updates on book promotions they’re running so their 1.5k+ followers can keep up with all of them in one place.
Johanna Basford – Coloring Books
Johanna fills her Pinterest with arts and crafts ideas and free coloring pages to download from her website.
Fan Appreciation
Leigh Bardugo – Young Adult
Leigh has a board dedicated to the fan art her readers have created, which is a great social media strategy for engaging readers while promoting books.
J. Daniels – Romance
J. saves her fans’ TikToks to her Pinterest, sorted into different boards for each of her series. She uses lots of genre-specific hashtags in her board and pin descriptions to make her content more discoverable to relevant readers.
Jody Hedlund – Christian Fiction & Historical Romance
Jody collects graphics her readers have made to promote their book review blogs.
Writing Inspiration
Celeste Ng – Literary Fiction
Many authors have boards like Celeste’s with quotes that inspire them, which gives readers great insight into their writing process.
Thirzah – Fantasy
Thirzah reposts her Instagram content to Pinterest, where she’s built a larger audience for the writing prompts, memes, and quotes she shares. She’s created a cohesive brand identity for her graphics that make them recognizable when searching for fantasy writing inspiration.
Blog Post Promotion
K.M. Weiland – Nonfiction
On her board Writing Resources, K.M. shares images to promote her blog posts on character development, scene creation, and many more writing craft topics.
Dena McMurdie – Children’s
On her blog Batch of Books, Dena creates Pinterest-friendly content like book recommendations, quizzes, and giveaways, then uses her own board and shared boards to promote her pins.
Gail Carriger – Fantasy Romance
Gail pins lots of images from her blog, linking each pin to the source blog post or a relevant book.
Book Covers
Valerie Twombly – Paranormal Romance
Many authors keep boards showing off their cover designs, and Valerie Twombly’s Pinterest is a great example of this. Descriptive board titles like “Steamy Paranormal Romance,” “Vampire Romance,” and “Dragon Shifter Romance” optimize her content for readers searching for books in her genre.
Christa Bakker – Cozy Mysteries
Christa displays her book covers in different formats available on her website, organizing them into different boards for each book in her series.
Becky Wade – Christian Romance
Becky displays her book covers beautifully on a board containing all of her books. She makes great use of the board description by letting her audience know ebook, print, and autographed copies are available.
New Release Promotion
Christine Pattle – Thrillers
Christine uses Pinterest to announce her books’ availability for preorder or purchase, pinning book covers and extracts with enticing descriptions to draw readers in. She uses universal book links to send readers directly to the preorder page — a common strategy for promoting preorders through social media.
Danielle Keil – Young Adult
Danielle shares her TikTok videos to her Pinterest and uses the pin titles and descriptions to highlight her books’ tropes and availability in Kindle Unlimited.
Gabrielle Sands – Romance
Gabrielle creates mood boards around each new release, like this one for When She Loves, including quotes, scenes, and character inspirations.
Recommended Books
Pamela Kelley – Women’s Fiction
On her Pinterest, Pamela often features the covers of favorite books from other authors in her genre. This pin links to her recommendations on BookBub!
Lucinda Race – Cozy Mysteries
Lucinda uses Pinterest primarily to encourage fans to sign up to her email list and follow her on BookBub and other platforms, but she also has a board dedicated to other authors she loves.
Just for Fun
Chrissy Q Martin – Young Adult
On her board Book Love, Chrissy includes the bookish memes she collects on her website to drive traffic back to her site.
Debbie Macomber – Women’s Fiction
Any Debbie Macomber fan knows about her passion for cooking! Her Pinterest is where they can find all the recipes on her blog.
Kami Garcia – Young Adult
Kami has created boards for each of her many interests, showing fans her wide range of sources of inspiration!
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This post was originally published on February 25, 2016, and has been updated with new examples and ideas.
