I Called My Pinterest Person (And She Spilled Everything)
Can I tell you something that surprised me?
When I ran The Social Media Marketing Intensive for Authors recently, we dug deep into audience research. Like, really deep. And the data kept pointing to the same place for so many of our author friends, especially those writing for midlife and menopausal women.
Pinterest. Not Instagram. Not TikTok. Pinterest. 📌
And I looked at this research and thought… okay, I need to call Heather.
I will talk your ear off about Instagram. I will get into the weeds of your content strategy until we’re both caffeinated and fired up. But Pinterest? That’s the one platform where I phone a friend. And my friend is Heather Farris.
Heather and I go way back. Like, we-were-both-virtual-assistants-and-I-was-still-mom-blogging way back. She’s spent nearly a decade doing Pinterest marketing. She manages accounts for clients, teaches hundreds of students inside her membership, shows up on YouTube with strategy breakdowns, and she lives in the data. While most Pinterest people are focused on making things look pretty, Heather is deep in the analytics figuring out what actually works.
So I asked her to jump on a live with me and answer every Pinterest question our community had been sending in. She said yes (from the Netherlands, in her evening, because she’s that kind of friend), and this conversation was pure gold.
Here’s everything she shared, broken down so you can put it to work for your books.
Boards are still everything (but you’re probably naming yours wrong)
I asked Heather the question I know so many of you are wondering: are boards even still a thing?
Her answer was immediate. Yes. The fundamentals of Pinterest have not changed. Keyword strategy, boards, and pins are still the whole foundation. Boards are how your pins get indexed and discovered.
But here’s where most authors trip up. You create a board, and you name it after yourself. Or your book title. And Heather is lovingly but firmly saying: don’t do that. At least not first.
Start with niche-specific boards. Think about your genre. Your setting. The world your readers actually live in and search for.
- Writing romantasy? Build boards around romantasy keywords that your readers are typing into that search bar.
- Writing for midlife women navigating perimenopause? “Midlife women in perimenopause” IS your board title.
Then you backfill those boards with pins that point to your book, your Substack articles, your website, your blog posts. You’re building a library of entry points, not a billboard.
And group boards? They still exist, but Heather says be choosy. Only join the ones that are genuinely relevant to your niche. If you write midlife women’s fiction, you are not joining a biking board. (Her words. I loved it.) 🚴
Do you have to pin other people’s stuff? (Nope.)
I asked this because I know it’s in the back of your mind. The answer gave me so much relief.
You do NOT have to pin other people’s content. Start by pinning your own stuff and staying on topic. If you want to curate a board on something adjacent, like creating a home library or bookish lifestyle, that’s great. But if you write romance, you don’t need to be pinning perimenopause health articles just because your characters happen to be in that season of life.
Focus on your own work first. Expand later. No guilt required.
The content that works? You’re probably already creating it.
This is the part that made my heart sing, because it’s exactly what I teach about every other platform.
Social media is about being social. It’s about inviting readers into your world, not standing on a rooftop yelling BUY MY BOOK. And that same philosophy? It works beautifully on Pinterest.
The kind of content Heather sees performing for authors:
- Behind-the-scenes of your writing process (yes, the messy desk counts)
- Character development content and character introductions
- Choosing your book cover… show that computer screen!
- B-roll of your books in the wild: lighting a candle, signing copies, setting up at an event
She pointed out that a lot of BookTok-style content is actually a perfect fit for Pinterest. And for my introverted author friends? The ones who don’t want to be on camera? Or you’re writing spicy books under a pen name and your kids absolutely cannot find this? 😅 B-roll is your best friend.
Heather has also seen authors drive real traffic with freebies, like a free chapter that leads into a book funnel, and even creative stuff like handwritten letter campaigns (which is apparently a whole thing in the book world right now and I need to know more).
The starting question is always: how are my readers searching for books like mine?
Traffic pins vs. save pins (this blew my mind a little)
Okay, this was one of my favorite parts of the whole conversation. Heather thinks about pins in two categories:
- Traffic pins are built for the click. Your book on the shelf, “read this book” energy, linking straight to your purchase page. These drive action NOW.
- Save pins are built for the bookmark. Character arcs, a new book in a series that isn’t out yet, TBR collages, shop-the-collection pins, gift guide pins like “gifts for the romance reader in your life.”
Think about it: readers LOVE a TBR list. Whether it’s in a notebook, an app, or a Pinterest board, they’re collecting books to read later. Save pins meet them right there. And every save tells Pinterest to keep showing your content to more people.
Two types of pins. Two types of magic. Both working for you. ✨
How to optimize your pins (Heather got specific and I took notes)
This is where the strategy nerd in me was fully activated:
- Pin titles: You have 100 characters. Use at least one keyword phrase that’s three to five words long and write a natural title around it. A two-part title with a colon in the middle? Works great.
- Pin descriptions: You get up to 800 characters now. Heather’s beautiful rule of thumb: one keyword per sentence. Eight sentences, eight keywords. And writers, if you get a little long-winded and only fit four keywords? That’s okay too. (She knows us.)
- Your link has to match: The topic of your pin and the topic of your landing page need to align. Don’t send people from a romantasy pin to a dark thriller page. Pinterest notices.
- Send people to YOUR website: At minimum, have a page with your books that links out to Amazon or wherever you sell. You can also link to your Amazon author page or storefront directly.
- Claim your website on Pinterest: Even a one-page Canva site counts. Heather has a free walkthrough article on her website showing you exactly how to do this through your domain host.
And I need to add this, because the timing matters: owning your website and driving traffic to it is more important than ever right now. Generative engine optimization (GEO) is changing how people find content through search, and diversifying where your readers can discover you isn’t just smart anymore. It’s the new job description.
How often do you actually need to show up on Pinterest?
You do not need to be on Pinterest every day.
Pinterest is a search engine, not a social feed. Heather only works on her client accounts a couple of times a month, and she’s mostly working inside a scheduling tool, not even on the front end of Pinterest itself.
Sit down once a month. Batch your pins. Schedule them. Go back to writing your book.
When people ask “how many pins per day,” Heather flips the question: how many QUALITY pins can you put out? Because one quality pin a day is better than none. And if you can do more? Amazing. But consistency over intensity, every single time.
How do your pins actually get found?
Keywords and patience. That’s the real answer.
Heather’s keyword research order (save this):
- Pinterest Trends tool (first stop, always)
- The Pinterest ads manager (second)
- The Pinterest search bar (third, just start typing and see what autofills)
- Tailwind’s free keyword planner, which connects directly to Pinterest’s API and gives you actual search volume data
And she was very clear: do NOT pay for third-party Pinterest keyword tools. The free ones above are everything you need.
From there, it’s about expanding over time. Look at each book and map out what your readers are searching for. Build boards and pins around those search terms. Over time, you’re creating hundreds of entry points into a single book.
One author Heather worked with had twelve book series, each available as a collection AND as individual books. When you start counting the URL opportunities for pins? Practically endless. That’s the kind of slow-build alchemy I love. 🔮
Should you re-pin the same pin to multiple boards?
Heather says this approach is pretty outdated now. Instead? Create fresh.
Make a set of pin templates. Say fifty designs. That’s fifty unique pin opportunities for every single URL in your ecosystem. Pair each one with a unique title and description, schedule them out, and then repeat with your next URL.
Fresh pins over re-pins. Always.
The mindset that makes all of this work
Writing a book takes time. A long time. Heather wants you to bring that same patience to Pinterest, and I couldn’t agree more.
This is a slow burn platform. It’s not going to pop off overnight. Give any new strategy a real ninety-day trial, then look at the data and let IT tell you what to keep doing. You might not even see real traction until the second ninety days. That’s normal. That’s okay.
The payoff, though? Heather still manages accounts she set up five years ago, and they are the best performers she has ever worked on. Five years of compounding discovery. That’s the kind of evergreen strategy that makes the long game worth playing.
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. As Heather said: if you’re not married to anything, you can change it. ✨
Your homework
Head over to Heather’s website and explore her free Pinterest resources (she has an absolute treasure trove, lovingly kept up to date by her content manager). See how Pinterest fits into your book marketing plan, and give yourself permission to start messy.
Find Heather’s free resources and Pinterest support here: http://heatherfarris.com/
Your readers are searching right now. Let’s make sure your books are what they find.
