If you’re a fan of books – whether you’re a writer or just an avid reader – then you probably already have your favorite go-to sites to find new books, participate in discussion or critique forums, or just find writerly advice. Hopefully you leave book reviews on Amazon and GoodReads, and follow hashtags on Twitter like #amreading and #amwriting. But are you using Pinterest?

For those who don’t know, Pinterest is a digital pinboard site where you can collect and share images. People use it for everything from collecting recipes to home decorating ideas to sharing useless snarky memes. None of these are bad, and for sure it all makes Pinterest an entertaining site. But Pinterest can also be used for so much more.

Writers, editors, book reviewers, publishers, and fans can all benefit by using Pinterest in a focused, intentional way. Here are some examples:

A Pinterest Board for your Favorite Books

Why not collect all of your favorite books on Pinterest, just like you collect them on virtual shelves on GoodReads? If you pin a book cover image directly from a legitimate site like Amazon or the author’s own website, then that pin can help you and other people find a copy of that book for reading. You could even go all out and create multiple boards organized by genre or author.

A Pinterest Board for your Current Writing Project or Future Story Ideas

If you’re a writer, then you probably already like perusing the internet for pictures to inspire you. Pinterest is a gold mine for finding inspiration for any sort of project.

A Pinterest Board of Writing Tips and Instructional Blogs

There are blogs, articles, and quotes galore about the art of writing. You probably already have some of your favorites that you read regularly. Any post or site with an image is pin-able (unless the site owner specifically requests that their content NOT be shared on Pinterest). Pinterest boards are a great way to collect and organize all of your favorite posts.

Of course there are other ways to use Pinterest to organize your ideas or promote your work. I covered just a few basic ideas here. So now, please share – how do you use Pinterest?