There’s no doubt about it — Pinterest is a very popular social networking platform that has millions of rabid fans.Pinterest now has 70 million users and is driving an avalanche of referral traffic to websites and blogs. Right now, Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Google+.
And contrary to popular belief, that website traffic is converting into sales. According to recent marketing studies, 21 percent of Pinterest users have purchased something they found on a pin, and each pin is worth an average of 78 cents in sales — which is more than a tweet is worth.

How do you use it to sell books?
Pinterest allows users to create online image collages, then share those collages (called “pinboards”) with other Pinterest users. What makes it a powerful marketing tool is that each of the images (“pins”) on those collages is a link to a website or blog.

So there’s a key principle to keep in mind when you’re using Pinterest to market your work as an author. In order to get the most out of your marketing efforts on Pinterest, it’s important that you stay focused by regularly driving Pinterest users back to a web page where they can easily buy your book. It doesn’t matter if you drive them to your website, your book’s page on Amazon, or another bookstore website or blog — as long as it includes a seamless and easy way to buy your work.

Of course you can’t make sales with every single pin. But if you keep your end goal in mind, it will save you wasted time and effort on Pinterest and ensure that you see a real difference in your sales numbers!

Using that philosophy as your guiding principle, here are six creative ways for you to market yourself as an author:

1 Create an author pinboard

2 Ask your readers to share feedback or testimonials of the book along with a photo of themselves.

3 Create a dedicated board for each of your books.

4 Pin images (and videos) from your in-person book signings and talks.

5 Create a board for (other) book recommendations.

6 Be a trusted content curator.

You already know what doesn’t work to sell books. You can’t just list your books on a website. You can’t count on book stores. Even if you have a publisher, you need to market and promote yourself and your books. And where? Online of course! And Facebook is one great place to promote yourself.

Facebook Marketing Can Help Sell Books and YOU!

Why? Word-of-mouth referrals still work well. Knowing that Facebook marketing helps you create encouraging discussions that show you as the authority in your field or your book’s genre, it’s worth it to stay current on the skills. We all know that Facebook makes so many changes so often, it boggles the brain.

Here are 10 Ways to Use Facebook to Help Promote Your Book and Yourself

1.Yes, 1.23 billion active users are now on Facebook, but many of them are not your audience.

2 The best way to reach your target audience is to create a FB page.

3 Use your FB pages to help educate your audience on what they want or need.

4 You won’t find much success in using the limited “Event Notification” – although many recommend it.

5 You can use your book cover as your FB page cover image.

6 If you really want to get more discussions going on your page, ask questions.

7 Give benefit statements each time you post something.

8 Post case studies in a blog post that includes testimonials from your clients.

9 Get discussions going with opinion questions.

10 Continue your posts and interactions with your audience almost daily.

Goodreads is a social network specifically for authors and readers. It has over 20 million members and is one of the most visited websites in the world. Why is Goodreads so popular? Because it helps people find the next book they want to read. Think of it like Pandora Radio or Spotify, but for books instead of music.

When you get on Goodreads as a reader, you list the books you have read along with a star rating and an optional review. Then as you connect to your friends, you can see the books they read and their ratings for those books.

Here are some ways you can Goodreads for marketing.

1 Setup an Author Page

2 Lead a Q&A Discussion Group About Your Book.

3 Connect Your Blog to Goodreads

4 Ask Fans for Reviews on Goodreads

5 Connect Goodreads to MyBookTable

Google+ currently boasts more than 500 million registered users, putting it officially second to Facebook. And unlike Facebook, the culture of Google+ encourages users to seek each other out based on mutual interests, rather than past or present real life connections.

This is great news for authors and book marketers like myself (and a lot of the clients I work with) because people on Google+ expect to be followed by people they don’t necessarily know. I’ll admit that things have changed on Facebook and more and more people are becoming business minded, but it’s still a different culture than Google+.

I’ve read on many author forums that authors are unsure of the merits of Google+ and concerned it would add to their already over booked schedule.

There are so many incredible marketing strategies authors can leverage on Google+ that I felt compelled to write a post sharing my enthusiasm about one of the best kept marketing secrets right now in the book publishing world and I hope I’ll be able to convince you to start taking Google+ more seriously for your marketing.

Here Are 4 Activities To Get The Most Out Of Your Google+ Efforts:

1 Fill out your profile completely

2 Find your interests

3 Explore the Circles

4 Use Hashtags

has 600,000 members. Registered Library Thing authors can promote events, participate in Author Chat, and add information to their author page.

Guaranteed Free Book Reviews Readers’ Favorite provides free book reviews for authors and a host of free features to help you promote your book and your new review.

Find thousands of new titles and emerging author sample chapters only on BookDaily.com. Promote your book to thousands of new readers daily

Twitter is an extremely popular instant messaging system. Users send very short messages (called tweets) that are up to 140 characters in length to a list of followers. Authors can use Twitter to post about their books, their writing, and their interests.

Twitter has hundreds of millions of daily users worldwide. It is both a way to engage one to one with people and a way to broadcast information. Writers use it every day for both. Search for #amwriting on Twitter and you will see some of the activity writers are engaging in on Twitter. Some of it is broadcasting. Some of it is looking for engagement.
If you use it consistently you will get noticed. It’s not a magic wand, but it does reach readers.

Twitter sells books too. On this page you will see actual Tweets from real people who have bought books because of Tweets, and a table showing thousands of people going to book pages on Amazon as a result of book promotion Tweets, all tracked by an independent hit tracking service. You can also see other comments at the bottom of this post from people whose books sold more because they were Tweeted about.

Here’s a 6 step formula that if followed will lead to more book sales in the future for any author:

1 Create a Clear Twitter Bio

2 Share your writing process and behind the scenes info

3 Follow Followers of Writers in your Genre

4 Explore Twitter Lists

5 Tweet Relevant Content

6 Engage

Today, Wattpad boosts over 20 million Wattpad users who spend a total of about 4.5 billion minutes a month reading content!!!!!!!!!!! Wattpad is one of the world’s largest communities for discovering and sharing stories. It’s a new form of entertainment connecting readers and writers through storytelling, and best of all.