Pinterest for Inspiration and Profit
by Neil Plakcy
Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social networking sites these days. But it’s all about pictures – how can an author whose stock in trade is words make use of a site like this?
I write books set in three types of places. Those where I’ve never been –Tunisia and Corsica. Those where I’ve been, but so long ago that I need a refresher, such as Paris, the French Riviera, and Hawaii. I also write books set in places I can visit more easily, including my home town in Pennsylvania, and various sites in South Florida, where I now live.
I use photographs to help in writing about all three places. Sometimes they’re pictures I’ve taken myself, but more often they’re ones I’ve 
found on line. They can be photos tourists have taken and posted, promotional shots, or who knows what. I often will capture those images and stick them in a folder, and use them when I need inspiration, or when I want to know what certain kind of building or cityscape looks like.
I’ve discovered a second use for these, as well, by posting them on Pinterest. I’ve begun adding them to Pinterest boards, and tagging them with brief quotes from the book that relate to them. This process also sometimes gets me to find additional pictures, especially when I have a great quote I want to post.
I believe that by posting these quotes, and links back to my website, I can sell books to people interested in those places. Daydreaming about Hawaii? If you enjoy the board I’ve set up, then perhaps you’ll like my books too. Do you love golden retrievers? I do, and I enjoy posting pictures of goldens to my board. And I’ve noticed that whenever I upload a picture of one of my goldens , linked to my website, www.goldenretrievermysteries.com, the sales of books in this series get a boost.
I also have a board set up for ‘Neil Plakcy’s Books and Stories,’ and I post my covers there. It’s another place where a fan can stumble on me and say, “I didn’t realize he’d written other books!”
One caveat: You have to enjoy fiddling around with pictures to get the most out of Pinterest. If you consider it work, you’ll be too caught up in the possible rewards.
To see my boards and pins: http://pinterest.com/neilplakcy/
Happy pinning!
bookbrowsing 
Very interesting. I’ve loved many of this author’s books.
Interesting. I enjoy Pinterest, but I stick to my own pictures, or pictures where I’ve gotten permission from the original owner. How do you deal with potential copyright issues? I think I might try doing a few quotes. Of course, people can delete your quote and use your picture anyway, right?
I thoroughly enjoy Pinterest and treat it like my own filing cabinet. Recipes, crafts, etc. I jokingly refer to it as “my porn stash” because it’s places I’ll never go, recipes I won’t make and crafts I’ll never do. I do use it to track my reading and my movie watching as well.
But I also use it to put out covers of my books, to save pictures and ideas that inspires me, to post pictures of my mental casting or places that sparked a story.
Cool beans buddy! Love your board and concepts here. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the comments! The copyright issue is a tricky one. I won’t post pictures that are clearly not intended to be shared– original artwork and so on. But I figure photos from government tour sites are fair game, for example. If you include the link back to the original poster then you could say all you’re doing is spreading the reach of the photo– which one presumes is why the amateur photographer, for example, put the picture up in the first place.
I have vision boards for my stories with pix of places and characters. Some of these I’ll purchase from royalty free sites and also use them in my trailers.