When I signed up for Pinterest about a year ago, I immediately loved it. I found too many recipes, too many crafts and too many funny jokes. There literally is so much out there, it can be TOO much. However, it isn't just for those who are planning weddings, baby showers, or dinner for the night.
As I became a serious writer, I soon realized that I can use Pinterest to my advantage. Today's Writers Words of Wisdom is about how to use Pinterest to an Author's Advantage.
Here's what to do:
1) Create an author page. I created a separate page since I have a pen name to use for my writing purposes. My primary purpose to add this social network was to organize my writing ideas/pictures and to get my name out there. Check me out at www.pinterest.com/melindadozier and follow me!
2) Create boards. Click the ADD+ link at the top of the page. CREATE a BOARD link is next. Of course, you are open to create anything! Here are the boards that I think are useful for other writers:
- A board for each book you write. For example, I have a Time Changes Everything board with pictures of my MCs, the setting, important events, my book cover, etc.
- Story Inspirations: include quotes or pictures that may inspire future stories, novels, MCs
- Hero/Heroine Inspirations: Similar to above but only pictures of possible MCs
- Blogging: Here I pin blogs that I write (another great way to advertise yourself) and blogs I read that are useful.
- Author Tools: Anything I find useful for writing, such as tips from the #Wwow weekly posts!
- Music to Write To: Yep! You can even pin videos.
- On Reading/Writing: Quotes about Reading and Writing to help motivate writers
Take a look at some of my boards:
3) Find friends/authors. Now it's time to network. You can click on your name at the top right corner and there is a link that says FIND FRIENDS. You can search by email or Facebook. Aditionally, you can find names in the SEARCH box. I have followed favorite authors, writing friends and publishers.
All in all, Pinterest should not be overlooked as a way to promote yourself or to organize your ideas. If you haven't signed up, now is the time!
WoW is a Smart & Savvy Group of Authors who write this weekly feature for their blog each Wednesday. While we don't claim to be experts, the goal is to impart what we've learned about writing, editing, getting published, book promotion, and more along the way.
Follow along and read all this week's contributors' posts.
You can follow us on twitter at #WWoW.
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We also welcome more authors' participation. Sign up is through our facebook page.
Thanks for stopping by,
Melinda
As an author, I use Pinterest for marketing. But I also use it to create storyboards with photo inspiration and prompts. It's fun and so useful. Great post.
ReplyDeleteThanks Paloma! There's so much out there that can be helpful. We just need to figure out how to use them all.
DeleteI have a Pinterest account, but when I first signed up, I didn't know what to do with it. lol
ReplyDeleteThanks for the sharing of this info. I'll try to get back into it.
I have never tried Pinterest, a little nervous to try another tool, I guess. I'll have to check it out and see if I can use it. Thanks for the great ideas!
ReplyDeleteOh - I'm so happy to see your WIP bar moving up for Frequent Flyer! You are so close! Congratulations!
I resisted Pinterest for a long time. Now I am enjoying it and pin all sorts of things from my writing to that of other authors, my craft ideas and projects and my other passions of cooking and baking. So many different things to try and pin!
ReplyDeleteI am new to pintrest and trying to figure it all out. Great tips. I will have to use these.
ReplyDeleteI haven't signed up for pintrest yet. For some reason I'm like a little old woman with technology. Once I get started using something like FB, I find it really hard to switch over to something different, lol. Great post, though!
ReplyDeleteI have a question for you. When I started my blog and web page I had a Monday feature called "Fantasy Man Monday". I would post pictures of men I'd found on the web and people enjoyed it very much. It brought me a lot of hits. Then a friend author ended up in a horrible lawsuit because of using pictures on her web that didn't "belong" to her. Copyright infringement. That all being said Where does all that stand on Pinterest? Because I would so do what you are talking about with story boards etc. However, am I limited to choosing free stock pictures? I guess obviously copyright laws still apply and I am not at liberty to browse the internet selecting any picture I like. Please discuss this issue. I would love to hear your thoughts about it.
ReplyDeleteHi Eden,
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by. I also had a very popular weekly Hump Day Hunk posts, but canceled it due to copyright issues. Nothing happened to me, but I had read an article about other authors I still get daily hits on those posts, too.
As for Pinterest, I haven't thought too much about the issue. I know the creator of Pinterest has dealt with problems and has put the burden on the user (us). However, if you check the website under COPYRIGHT it states that a pin will be removed if someone complains.
If you still feel worried about using pinterest, it's still useful by putting sources you know...i.e. your own blog posts, your book covers, friends book covers and blog posts. There are websites that have free pictures. I may do a post on this later. Thanks for bringing up the discussion.
Pinterest is what actually helped me break through the fear and unearth the dream of being a writer that I had buried deep down inside of me. I just posted an article about it on my blog (it was my first blog post ever!). If you want you can check it out at www.darlagdenton.com . I use my "Writers" Pinterest account to collect numerous articles on each aspect of writing that I know about today and also for inspiration in regards to characters, scenes and plots. I love Pinterest. Thanks for sharing your post. :)
ReplyDelete