Now I Have to Use Pinterest, Too?

It seems I'm very susceptible to the power of suggestion, because just like with my signing up for a Goodreads account years ago (as a reader), someone also talked me into becoming a Pinterest member. I might have utilized Pinterest more than Goodreads, but that's a really low bar. I think I visited Goodreads twice before realizing it had absolutely nothing to offer me. With Pinterest I had a brief period of fun finding nice pictures to add to my boards. Although the point of the whole thing escaped me. Was someone supposed to look at my boards and exclaim, "Nice photo you copied from another board!" Some people claim they view their boards as "inspiration", which, again, is just nuts. I think it all boils down to a human's need to collect. Like with the people who readily grab my book when I offer it for free, it's not that they intend to read it; they simply feel good possessing a lot of something.

Lately, though, there's been a push for self-published authors to utilize Pinterest for marketing. A few years ago, I did create an author account, because one person online claimed she sold more books via Pinterest than than through any other social media site. 

I found the app to be really frustrating. That's exactly what a company should not want. I hate having to guess ~ click on various prompts that lead me into a tangled jungle that I can't hack my way out of; then try a mysterious symbol to see if that does anything. In my first go-round with the site, I painstakingly created a "My Book" board, with each pin featuring one of my books ~ its cover, Amazon link, blurb. When I went back to admire my handiwork, I found that all that remained were the cover images. No link; nothing. I halfheartedly tried to fix it, then just gave up, and never went back.

I understand the arguments in favor of Pinterest: boards/pins are permanent (as long the you want them to be); they don't disappear/slide beneath a million new posts. Users search for the content they want. Here is an article extolling the virtues of the site. This all sounds nice in theory, I'm willing to try (free) things to find out if they work. 

So, I went back to Pinterest the other day, deleted everything and started over. Somehow, something popped up that said, "create a pin for an ad", and though I had no interest in creating an ad, I clicked on it, and, hey! It worked! But this time, instead of making a board with all my books inside it, I created an "ad" for each one. (You don't have to turn it into an ad.) I haven't checked back, and it may well have all gone to hell, but if it's this easy, then maybe...

If it turns out to be a low-stress pastime, then fine. I have no misconceptions that it'll work any better than my other endeavors (i.e., not at all), but I've got nothing but time (literally nothing but time). I'm perplexed, though, regarding what I can possibly add besides my books. Not to mention I'll have to figure out how to create a board, when I only accidentally discovered pins. Boards are the same dilemma for me as were the suggestions made by an author website expert on YouTube. His content is great, but I can't see implementing his suggestions, such as including maps, avatars of my characters, et cetera. A map of what? And sorry, but I don't think of my cast as cartoon characters. Those things are fine for fantasy writers; not feasible for my genre. 

Here is my rudimentary content. I have no idea why my site name has my name spelled wrong, but there's no way I'm going to attempt to fix that.

Who knows? Maybe Pinterest will be my substitute for the debacle that TikTok turned out to be. (Horrible site ~ really.)

The good news is, with Pinterest if anyone is judging me, I'll never know. Plus I won't get messages from elderly stalkers, like I've been getting on Instagram.

Win win!